About the Game
The alien invasion has shattered Earth’s defenses. Pilot, the fate of humanity now rests in your hands. Take the helm of a powerful mech and fight off the invasion—one card at a time.
StarVaders combines tactical grid-based combat with deckbuilding strategy, placing you in command of a formidable mech during humanity’s last stand against the invaders. Build up a deck of powerful cards, unleash devastating combos, and defend the Earth at all costs!
Pilot Your Mech Into Battle!
Every mech in StarVaders has its own squad of pilots. Each mech introduces unique cards and mechanics, while your pilot further enhances your strategy with their distinct, powerful abilities.
Take command of the Gunner Mech to unleash an endless flurry of bullets and explosions, get up close and personal with the ninja-like Stinger Mech, or unleash the powerful spells and summons of the Keeper Mech!
Discover Game-Breaking Combos!
Unleash game-breaking combos, outsmart the invaders, and push your build to the limit against ever-escalating threats. With hundreds of cards, artifacts, and upgrades, no two runs are ever the same.
Missed a perfect combo or found yourself cornered by the invaders? Use a Chrono Token to rewind time and rewrite your fate.
Endless Replayability
After each run, unlock powerful new cards, pilots, and deadlier enemies and bosses that raise the stakes in future battles. There’s an endless supply of builds and combos to discover every time you play.
Ready to push your limits? Take on the various Challenge Modes or dive into the Daily Run to really prove what you’re made of!
Screenshots
9 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
On the site: Build 22588692
Up to date
You may find the invaders have a sense of humor on April Fools day tomorrow!
2.0.5 Changelog
Added a small April Fools cosmetic gag
Added V-SYNC toggle
Fixed a couple task-engine crashes related to trigger order
Fixed controller menu input issues in the deck scene and bud's factory
Attempted performance improvements / memory usage improvement
Fixed a few localization / text mistakes
Changelog:
Added a new system to load custom localizations files into the game! You'll need to add a .json file to the save folder, feel free to contact us for more information about this.
Fixing an issue where the entire cutscene for Min & Max is not playing
Fixing the timing for Sol Siphon (it didn't work for cards drawn start of turn)
Fixed a few missing tags for new content in 2.0
Fixed issue where you could double-upgrade a card.
Fixed random items spawning into pickups (like the max autobomb going into the pickups in the ultimate ending fight)
UPDATE - Update is live again!
More bug fixes! And we've reworked some of the Hemophage as well.
Hemophage 2.0
Based on feedback we're smoothening out some of the awkward parts of the Hemophage, and allowing more options to deal with it so it's not a pain to fight.
- No longer becomes Immune while splitting (you can keep hitting it with repeated cards to deal more damage, but it will split into more Hemocytes)
- In the "Final phase", no longer recombines with Hemocytes and only keeps 1 HP.
- Added more text for describe the Hemocytes.
- Reduced total HP again.
- Delayed attacks (like Titan Rocket or Auto-Bombs) now correctly trigger before the Hemophage absorbs its Hemocytes.
Other:
- Fixed issue with our save backup system, wasn't working for certain OS versions.
- Fixed bug where you reload into an empty hand
- Fixed bug where some boss timers don't show up
- Repeated self-drop cards now keep their rarity (like Claw Trap)
- Pilot Album now unlocks correctly with Daily or Challenge wins
- Fixed Sygyzy counting twice for Xenn's Relic
- Fixed a couple softlock involving skipping cutscenes
- Fixed a softlock involving pressing mutliple buttons at once during unlocks
- Fixed Old Comet, now doesn't trigger when played.
- Fixed bug where Nessie stops moving.
- Nessie now heals the tile directly in front of it each turn on Phase 2.
- Fixed bugs where Nessie's attack isn't correctly displayed when rerolling during an attack
- Fixed generation error where you reroll into the same encounters at the start of an act.
- Fixed True Ending working with dailies or challenge on Mac
- Fixed Boss room not appearing if you have too many relics
- Fixed Eclipse not ending when there are no more waves or enemies. (Eclipse now also ends early if there are only Echos left on its turn)
- Fixed Task Engine crash involving repeated Raise Army on Bombs with Blast Legion
- Fixed timer not showing up on pause/resu,e
- Bombs with Blast Legion can no longer be stealth charged (to trigger Charge Fire).
- Fixed visual bug where the Overseer fight is warped
- Fixed Witch Fire counting cooldown of destroyed spells.
- Made Death by a Thousand Cuts achievement count one less repeat (because it was confusing that you needed to see 11x in game)
- Fixed softlock by getting stuck in Pause Menu on a screen outside of a run
- Many localization changes
Keep the bug reports coming! Thanks!
- Axolotl of the Pengonauts
More bug fixes and a new backup system for save files - in preparation for enabling Cloud Save for Mac.
We're almost done with all the major reported bugs! There's a few things we're struggling with (looking at you performance issues), but we're making progress.
We implemented a backup system that will backup your progress (unlocks, achievements, etc), so that if you lose your main save file, the game will automatically grab from the backup file and restore your progress.
This is in anticipation of enabling Steam Cloud saves for Mac, because Steam WILL delete your save files without warning.
In 1 or 2 weeks we will enable Steam Cloud saves on Mac, so if you are on a Mac, you should definitely play at least once on this patch to make sure your unlock progress will be saved. You will likely lose your run history and any on-going run, so please do backup those if they matter to you!
I will also start a BETA branch soon for our first "big" update (1.1) that will come out this summer - stay tuned!
- Axolotl of the Pengonauts
View on Steam
We're almost done with all the major reported bugs! There's a few things we're struggling with (looking at you performance issues), but we're making progress.
Save File Backup System:
We implemented a backup system that will backup your progress (unlocks, achievements, etc), so that if you lose your main save file, the game will automatically grab from the backup file and restore your progress.
This is in anticipation of enabling Steam Cloud saves for Mac, because Steam WILL delete your save files without warning.
In 1 or 2 weeks we will enable Steam Cloud saves on Mac, so if you are on a Mac, you should definitely play at least once on this patch to make sure your unlock progress will be saved. You will likely lose your run history and any on-going run, so please do backup those if they matter to you!
Other:
- Added optional True Ending to the Daily Run and ALL Challenges
- Fixed softlock when you press Random in the character select and go back from Stinger
- Fixed Supporter Pack not working on Mac
- Stayin' Alive achievement now works with 5 Doom
- Fixed Jinx missing a Push tag
- Fixed task engine crash involving Mudslide
- Fixed True Ending Phase 2 resetting Mana if you have more than the max
- Fixed task engine crash with a Void Spawn + Blast Legion interaction
- Fixed running out of spells during Spell Reward (actually fixed this time)
- Fixed skip same cutscene twice leading to bad transition
- Fixed Nessie being messed up by savescum / SL mode
- Fixed Hemophage HP bar dissapearing on exit and resume
- Fixed crash when clicking deck on exit Min's
- Fixed crash when clicking pack on exit Bud's
- Fixed certain preview "ghosts" appearing floating in the air next to the display panel (like Turret)
- Upscaled barks, tutorial tips and trophies for better readability on Steam Deck.
- Upscaled several controller glyphs for better readability
- Attempted fix on some of the resolution errors on widescreen
- Many localization changes
I will also start a BETA branch soon for our first "big" update (1.1) that will come out this summer - stay tuned!
- Axolotl of the Pengonauts
Today is a smaller patch - we've been very busy! We've tackled many of the easier "game-breaking" bugs and crashes so now we're onto the harder ones.
We're aware of some screen resolution issues, lag and stuttering / freezes, those will take some time to solve - sorry about that, but we are investigating. Thank you for all the reports, they are really useful for helping us crack some of these.
At the moment we're focused on bugs and optimization to get the game into a as stable of a state as possible, but we do have our eyes on future content updates as well!
Thank you for all your support, suggestions, and bug reports!
- Axolotl of the Pengonauts
View on Steam
We're aware of some screen resolution issues, lag and stuttering / freezes, those will take some time to solve - sorry about that, but we are investigating. Thank you for all the reports, they are really useful for helping us crack some of these.
Notable changes in this update include:
- Losing during Act 4 now counts as a Victory
- Added a toggle for "Pause in Background" (default is to not pause now)
- Shelled's Immunity now only triggers during your turn.
- Added an Cancel prompt on the top right screen for when you are stuck in a selection and must cancel.
Other:
- Added CN localization mention in the credits
- Fixed Hook Jab not pulling entities into holes
- Fixed Void Rifts spawning Void Rifts onto Charge Traps when you have Scavenger and Booby Traps (they are supposed to avoid traps)
- Fixed a bug involving running out of Spells to reroll
- Fixed Old Comet not working on end-of-turn discard
- Fixed a case where Queen Bees never spawned because of interaction with Swap
- Guard Bees now trigger between each repeat of a repeated card
- Bombs now pickup pickups on spawn if you have Blast Legion
- Fixed an issue where the back button doesn't show up in the credits
- Fixed a Dragon task engine crash
- Fixed a Phase 1 True Ending on end turn transition crash if there were Blobs
- Fixed a Toy Bomb task engine crash when you try to use it while it's dying
- Fixed a Shambler task engine crash if you overkill it with left foot jab
At the moment we're focused on bugs and optimization to get the game into a as stable of a state as possible, but we do have our eyes on future content updates as well!
Thank you for all your support, suggestions, and bug reports!
- Axolotl of the Pengonauts
First up, a warning: IF YOU ARE PLAYING ON MAC, BACKUP YOUR SAVE FILES. We will be adding Steam Cloud support to Mac soon, but are unsure how it will affect the game if you played on multiple devices. Our apologies if something happens to them!
For anyone looking for save files for the MAC version. It's at "/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/com.Pengonauts.StarVaders".
---
Hope you all had a great weekend! Got some great feedback from a very wide range of types of players, they've all been super useful! We're only 3 people on the team (2 programmers and 1 artist), so it will take some time to fix everything, but we're hard at work!
Here are some of the notable changes in this patch:
Roxy is the weakest pilot on higher difficulties, but her deck is great to introduce the game with - so what I did was keep the tutorial deck the same, but changed her deck after the tutorial run. Gunner struggles a lot because of their weaker movement, so I brought Triple Fire! into her starting deck as an extra AOE option that can target further invaders.
Vengoid+ now moves erratically, instead of giving Shields.
Vengoid Plus is one of the hardest invaders to deal with in Post-Apocalypse +, there's not a lot of time nor leeway to deal with them and the Shield makes it much more tedious to fight against. Shield was a boring ability anyway! Erratic movement now challenges the player in a slightly different way while still keeping the identity.
Hemophage fight has been quite confusing and difficult for a lot of players, and a very long fight as well. We've cut down their health pool, updated their description, and added more visual indicators to be more clear that the "purple" hemocytes should be destroyed since those are the ones that will channel doom. To balance this change, we've also shortened the turn limit.
The Overseer fight for the True Ending can occasionally be a big pain point for players, particularly if it's the first time they encounter it - it doesn't help that the transitions are kinda badly implemented timing-wise. I've made changes to address some of the issues:
Again, thanks so much for playing the game and sending over the bug reports! We will keep working on improving the game, hope you enjoy!
Thanks,
- Pengonauts
HOTFIX - Fixed Chaos Bloom's panel being broken
View on Steam
For anyone looking for save files for the MAC version. It's at "/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/com.Pengonauts.StarVaders".
---
Hope you all had a great weekend! Got some great feedback from a very wide range of types of players, they've all been super useful! We're only 3 people on the team (2 programmers and 1 artist), so it will take some time to fix everything, but we're hard at work!
Here are some of the notable changes in this patch:
Roxy's New Starting Deck
- 5x Shift
- 2x Fire!
- 2x Triple Fire!
- 1x Nova Bomb
Roxy is the weakest pilot on higher difficulties, but her deck is great to introduce the game with - so what I did was keep the tutorial deck the same, but changed her deck after the tutorial run. Gunner struggles a lot because of their weaker movement, so I brought Triple Fire! into her starting deck as an extra AOE option that can target further invaders.
Vengoid+
Vengoid+ now moves erratically, instead of giving Shields.
Vengoid Plus is one of the hardest invaders to deal with in Post-Apocalypse +, there's not a lot of time nor leeway to deal with them and the Shield makes it much more tedious to fight against. Shield was a boring ability anyway! Erratic movement now challenges the player in a slightly different way while still keeping the identity.
Hemophage
Hemophage fight has been quite confusing and difficult for a lot of players, and a very long fight as well. We've cut down their health pool, updated their description, and added more visual indicators to be more clear that the "purple" hemocytes should be destroyed since those are the ones that will channel doom. To balance this change, we've also shortened the turn limit.
True Ending Fixes and Improvements
The Overseer fight for the True Ending can occasionally be a big pain point for players, particularly if it's the first time they encounter it - it doesn't help that the transitions are kinda badly implemented timing-wise. I've made changes to address some of the issues:
- (from patch 1.0.3) You now draw 3 cards and reset energy on phase 1 -> 2 transition.
- On each phase transition, you now keep all your puppets. (If they were in the "head" zone, they move to the bottom side of the grid)
- The "Assist" cards that drop as pickups to help on the final turn have a glowing visual indicator now.
- I've added more descriptions for the final phase for the Hearts and the Blooms.
- Phase transition's timing has been improved so that you don't get screwed if you overheat / use an end-of-turn attack to trigger the phase transition.
Other changes:
- Noel's Novalanche now costs 1.
- Added backup loggerdata in case of steam cloud issues.
- Changed order of Act 3 invader unlocks for smoother complexity ramp (Void Rifts before Pulsars)
- Fixed Magical Gun not appearing in the pool.
- Fixed Parry, now works with Deflector / Reef Assault (the Charge will be dropped as pickup on the grid)
- Fixed Echo+ counting Dummy or Ticks for self-destructing
- Fixed Helping Hand no longer showing up as Used
- Fixed doubled 3D Printers now properly shoes up as Used
- Fixed Refresh drawing 5 cards instead of 3
- Fixed Pickup Rarity not being shown in the info panel
- Fixed Zombie component sometimes causing Haunting to go infinite (the hat kept moving between two summons)
- Fixed 0 cost triggers being inconsistent with 0 cost cards with reduced cost (it was because their cost was negative lol)
- Fixed Piercing Bullets + Lazer Bullets interaction in Japanese
- Fixed Oru's ability not working sometimes.
- Fixed an infinite loop caused sometimes by Hook Jab.
- Fixed a Task Engine crash involving Nessie.
- Ticks getting the Erratic modifier and teleporting.
- Recharging a random summon no longer targets unchargeable Bombs with Blast Legion
- Polymorph no longer spawns Care Package (a removed item)
- Fixed Transmogrify interaction with Warp
- Fixed Chronosphere not removing Odeus' bullet attacks.
- Many small localization changes
Again, thanks so much for playing the game and sending over the bug reports! We will keep working on improving the game, hope you enjoy!
Thanks,
- Pengonauts
HOTFIX - Fixed Chaos Bloom's panel being broken
Heya, another day, another patch.
We really appreciate all the bug reports and the feedback that's been coming in! Some notable changes in this update include:
View on Steam
We really appreciate all the bug reports and the feedback that's been coming in! Some notable changes in this update include:
- A new Save Scum extras option that makes it so when you exit and resume an encounter, it starts from start of the fight instead of where you left off.
- Overseer Phase 2 transition now resets your energy and draws 3 cards for you
- Tweaked some of the encounter algorithm to create less "really bad" encouters.
Other:- Fixed gamepad input resetting when rewinding
- Fixed a Nessie task engine crash when it eats a bomb in phase 2
- Fixed Chain Lightning and Translocate, now playable without summons
- Fixed Salve causing everything to become free when combined with Cold Star
- Fixed not having any rewards anymore when using Infinite Rerolls to reroll rewards for a long time
- Fixed some visual bugs in the glossary involved artifact & their completion stars
- Fixed a few localization issues
- Fixed Red Brand showing up in double artifact reward
- Attempted fix on inconsistency in achievement for not picking up artifacts
- Hypermode Shun now correctly starts with 2 Battery.
Unless there are some serious issues we will likely not have a patch during the weekend, so see you next week! Keep slaying those invaders!
If you are enjoying your time it helps us out so much to leave a review!
We also have a fun discord community you can join here. We've got both long time players and newcomers all discussing strategies and showing off their decks. We will also be starting some cool activities soon inside the discord server!
Thanks,
- Axolotl - Fixed gamepad input resetting when rewinding
Wow, it's been great to see all the feedback so far.
We've added a few more options in the settings menu for you to customize how you wanna play the game. Although the "axolotl's prefered way" to play remains the same, more options never hurt anybody!
Sorry if you encountered that major looping softlock when losing in the Overseer fight, this has been fixed! If you are still in a run and it is still not working you might need to delete that run from the main menu (or abandon the run).
New Gameplay Options
This is just a first batch of bug fixes, we've still got a few to tackle. Thank you for the meal! (axolotls eat bugs)
Keep sending them over!
- Axolotl
View on Steam
We've added a few more options in the settings menu for you to customize how you wanna play the game. Although the "axolotl's prefered way" to play remains the same, more options never hurt anybody!
Sorry if you encountered that major looping softlock when losing in the Overseer fight, this has been fixed! If you are still in a run and it is still not working you might need to delete that run from the main menu (or abandon the run).
New Gameplay Options
- Added a button in the settings to unlock only pilots and the daily run
- Added an Extras option to made Chrono Rewinds during the encounter NOT reshuffle your deck.
- Added an Extras option to give infinite Chrono Tokens.
Other
- Added an option to remove the "F2 Bug Report" prompt
- Buffed Noel, she now starts with an Artillery Fire!
- Added the Bomb keyword to entities that are considered Bombs.
- Rerolling fragments of LINK always gives a different modifier
- Fixed a major bug that happens when you lose against the Overseer
- Attempting a fix on missing resolutions based on base monitor resolution
- Attempting a fix on a bug that prevented the settings menu from applying changes
- Fixed a Task Engine Crash with the Grandmaster
- Fixed a Task Engine Crash involving Transmogrify and special upgrade cards (like Shadow Kunai)
- Fixed Ricochet Fire! + Lazer Bullets being 1 tile too short
- Fixed Enhance (Keeper spell) not targetting random cards
- Fixed Thundersquall - now correctly only targets invaders, and range is accurate
- Fixed a few localization strings and incorrect tags
- Fixed bug preventing typing 1, 2, 3 in the seed
- Attempting to fix a bug caused by patches messing with save files (caused you to start a run with the deck from the previous run)
This is just a first batch of bug fixes, we've still got a few to tackle. Thank you for the meal! (axolotls eat bugs)
Keep sending them over!
- Axolotl
Thanks for all the bug reports! We're onto them - just a small casual Day 0 patch to fix some of the reported ones! This is going live for PC right now, will be coming to Mac a bit later.
We're looking into some of the resolution issues as well.
Thank you for playing the game, keep the reports coming! If you are enjoying the game please leave a review! It helps us out a lot.
- Axolotl
View on Steam
- Added our publisher's logo to the bootup, woops
- Fixed a black screen softlock when you lose against the OVERSEER
- Made the Tip Jar more obvious when you gotta click on it for an unlock
- Fixed a bunch of localization reports/ suggestions, keep them coming!
- Fixed multiple More Info images showing up on screen
We're looking into some of the resolution issues as well.
Thank you for playing the game, keep the reports coming! If you are enjoying the game please leave a review! It helps us out a lot.
- Axolotl
Current Release
Build 22588692
Uploaded Oct 10, 2026
System Requirements
OS
N/A
CPU
2.0 Ghz
RAM
4 GB RAM
GPU
4GB Video Memory
How to Install
1
Download all files
2
Extract the .ZIP file to a folder (use WinRAR or 7-Zip)
3
Run StarVaders.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Archive password
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
CRC32
964F7C7C
SHA-256
7af7d40edd1193e34ee6afedec46b38af97c28487f1b7b10d6e305d0df86c261
How: Right-click the downloaded file → 7-Zip / WinRAR → CRC SHA → compare with the values above.
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Download StarVaders for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of StarVaders for free. StarVaders is a Adventure released by Pengonauts.