Over on Cheap Digicam TikTokThere is a lot of talk about recipes these days. Recipes in this context are collections of specific camera settings that can generate very specific film-like effects in digital photos. Do you want a blooming 70s sunset or a cityscape with bokeh beads the size of snowballs? Good news. There are recipes for that.
I spend quite a bit of time on Cheap Digicam TikTok, so it’s probably inevitable that I see these types of recipes hiding in other facets of life as well. I’ve been thinking recently Nova Drift as a source of really great recipes. Nova Drift is an arcade space blaster in which you shoot everything that moves and regularly level up. And as you level up, you can change some aspect of your ship, of your abilities, of who you’ll be in the universe for the next five frantic minutes.
And within this vast mess of upgrades and benefits, I’ve begun to find friendly routes through the choices on offer. I started discovering recipes. For weapons, I often want that powdery scattering of missiles that zoom in on enemies and leave bright contrails behind. For ship hulls I want the one that gives extra drones that will swarm around me and annoy my enemies. As for shields, I want the type that burns all fools who get too close – and burns me too if I overdo it. Beyond that? Furthermore, it becomes very difficult to decide, and that’s all part of the fun.
This recipe thing has kept me so busy that it took me a day and a half to realize it Nova Drift is based on the Vampire survivors template. Of course it is, and it’s actually quite clear. Go out, shoot enemies, collect XP and redeem it regularly for a choice of skills that make destroying enemies and collecting XP much easier. Meanwhile, you can improve it visually and increase the damage you do as you go, until you’re essentially playing Choose Your Own Firework Display.
All fine, but Nova Drift is not alone Vampire survivors. Initially, I was looking at the bright ships sailing through 2D arenas and taking on fiercely differentiated enemies, and I thought I was in for the petri dish experience that the best twin-stick shooters provide. Not quite. I’m tempted to say that Nova Drift looks further back Robotron: 2084 towards people like Asteroids and even Space War! There’s the same thrust-based movement and the same compact arena, and you need to master a directional boost to really excel. But listen: there’s a touch of air hockey in here too, as an enemy explosion sends you flying across the flat surface of the universe, temporarily out of control.
Sweet. And beyond that, it’s all about the unlocks. New game modifiers, which make it harder, but shower you with more rewards. New enemies, like the brilliant alien freight train, ready to rip its segmented body and spill its contents across the nearest mists. New hulls, weapons and shields. New modifiers for all these things. You can get a weapon with projectiles that split into small pieces when they hit something. You can get a thruster that burns enemies if it even damages them, or a drone that accelerates towards a target and explodes when it’s out of health, instead of just silently decaying on its own.
Behind it lie things I haven’t even encountered yet. There are mysterious ‘super mods’ and ‘wild mods’ that I can’t wait to get started with. There are weapons that on the surface seem to me to do more harm than good – what’s their whole deal? Then there’s a little piece of folk poetry that I just read in the upgrade list while playing and that I’ll be repeating in my head all week: “Global damage increases as your speed increases.”
Then we’re back to the recipes. And as anyone who dabbles in recipes of any kind will tell you, success isn’t just about how many ingredients you can throw into it. Rather, it’s about how everything is balanced. In the kitchen, that means going easy on the garlic as soon as it shows its teeth. On Cheap Digicam TikTok, this means not completely blowing out your brights and destroying the shadows. And inside Nova Driftthis means that the carnage should never become really unwieldy. A simple example of this way of thinking will suffice. While your ship can use the wraparound screen, for example disappearing on the left side and reappearing on the right side, gunfire cannot: if it disappears off screen, it’s over. Nova Drift wants action, but does not want this to be at the expense of readability.
Somehow, through all these different elements, Nova Drift gives me space warfare as it is written in something like Lightthe beautifully doomy science fiction novel by M. John Harrison. Like Light, Nova Drift takes you to a universe where quantum physics has pushed ship-to-ship combat into the realm of true eldritch. It’s a realm where ships blink and disappear into K-space, and entire wars unfold with dire consequences, and yet are somehow bundled together in less than a second of human time. Nova Drift is, in other words, beautiful and dangerous and full of surprises. And that in itself is not a bad recipe.
Nova Drift was released on August 12 on Mac and Windows PC. The game was reviewed using a download code purchased by the author. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.