“Star of Providence,” the exciting follow-up to one of last year’s biggest indie video games, is turning out to be one of this year’s most popular shoot-em-ups.
The game’s much-anticipated Feb. 20 release on Nintendo Switch comes on the heels of last year’s universally acclaimed puzzle-platformer “Animal Well” published by Bigmode Games.
As they say on their website, the developers of “Star of Providence,” Team D-13, are “an international quartet of shoot-em-up and roguelike enthusiasts,” four friends who met online and worked on the game from four different countries. The group was formally created in late 2015, finally releasing “Star of Providence” two years later.
“Star of Providence” is a roguelike shoot-em-up game; think of piloting a spaceship and shooting enemies in the arcade games “Asteroids” or “Galaga,” but in a sprawling dungeon reminiscent of those from the original “Legend of Zelda.”
Thematically, your primary objective in the game is descending progressively deeper into a mysterious facility to find and achieve Power Eternal, a force which has corrupted the minds of its inhabitants. Above all, though, “Star of Providence” wants you to have fun playing it.
The game was praised by fans for its fast-paced and fun gameplay, culminating in an overwhelmingly positive average audience score on Steam.
The game didn’t make big waves when it originally released, but it saw enough success to warrant continuous major named updates. The first update, named “After the End,” released in 2017 adding a hard mode, enemy bestiary and new playable characters. “Relics of the Past” followed in 2019 adding new weapons and upgrades. Finally, “Advanced Geomancy” in 2024 gave players the ability to edit in-game rooms.
Yet many critics see fun as something that many modern gaming critics believe is a value disappearing from the industry.
One such critic is YouTuber Jason Gastrow, better known online as videogamedunkey. Gastrow has amassed 7.5 million Youtube subscribers for his comedic video game reviews and skits, which often criticize the video game industry and the consumer-unfriendly actions of some of the most popular game developers and publishers.
Gastrow, along with his wife, founded Bigmode Games in 2022. In an era of the industry where triple-A developers are seemingly more interested in producing “soulless cash-grabs,” as Gastrow describes them, they wanted to support and platform video game developers passionate about their craft.
In early 2023, Gastrow announced that Bigmode had been brought on to publish a new updated version of the game for Nintendo Switch, with the update coming to PC on the same day. The update added a plethora of new content and features, including new playable characters, enemies and map layouts.
Bigmode also helped market “Star of Providence” to new eyes. Gastrow described it as “THE hidden gem” in his launch-day review of the game in February, comparing it to “the crown jewel of Atlantis.” Thanks to the hard work of Team D-13, “Star of Providence” is a treasure worth discovering.
