March 28, 2024

Welcome to Indie Spotlight! Today we take a look at a galactic journey that you’ll want to take with someone close to you — Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime!

As every sappy movie has told us over the past fifty years, the universe runs on Love. You are part of a space organization tasked with protecting that Love and maintaining peace amongst the stars. But the evil forces of Anti-Love have broken free and wreak havoc — and it’s up to you to stop them!

Science has gone wrong! What will we do!?
Science has gone wrong! What will we do!?

 

Lovers is a couch co-op adventure game released in late 2015. You and up to three friends and/or loved ones take control of adorable astronauts to navigate a spacecraft throughout the galaxy. The game is 2D — so imagine cutting the ship in half and then peering into the open side. Your goal is to explore different parts of the galaxy and rescue friends that are being held captive by the Anti-Love.

To do so, your crew takes charge of a ship. There are several little stations you can interact with around the ship. Four of them are manned turrets to fend off invaders. You can also manage an energy shield that absorbs projectiles, a piloting seat, a scanner that provides a view of the map you’re exploring, and a big red button to fire off a super weapon!

To spice things up on your journey, you’ll come across gems that can be used to upgrade your stations. A Power Gem in a turret will increase its fire rate, while a Metal Gem turns it into a ball and chain. As you level up your ship, you can get up to two gems per station, which means mixing and matching Gems gets you crazy combos!

Once you've found your friends, it's time to warp out!
Once you’ve found your friends, it’s time to warp out!

The rest of the insanity comes with the world around you. You’ll be flying around asteroid fields and underwater caverns looking for your friends, and there are plenty of baddies trying to stop you! Piloting is probably the most important job, since you need to avoid walls, enemies and everything being fired at you.

Each chapter is conclude with some constellation coming to life — to destroy you! These epic fights will put your teamwork to the test!

Watch out, Ursa Major is NOT happy!
Watch out, Ursa Major is NOT happy!

Overall I couldn’t believe I didn’t get into this sooner. I jumped in with my girlfriend, and we fell in Love with it within minutes. The vibrant colors and cartoonish animation makes for a great visual experience, and it only enhances the gameplay complexity and challenge of survival. I’m proud to see couch co-op games are NOT a thing of the past, and this one should be in your library!

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is available on Steam, Xbox One and Playstation 4.

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