Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Preview

The universe hates you.

What do you and your significant other do in your downtime? Do you watch movies, cook romantic meals, or take your awkward spaceship out into neon-colored space to restore love to the universe? Well, if the answer was not the last option, I don’t know what you are doing with your lives. In Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Asteroid Base aims to fix that hole in your relationship with some nerve-wracking co-op action sure to test your communication skills.

Before setting out into this color overloaded setting, Jamie Tucker, my handlebar-mustachioed partner and developer co-founder, explained the premise. A scientist created a love machine that somehow got switched to hate mode and infected all the celestial bodies with its odious waves. You and your Player 2 are indeed a couple, setting out to clean up the mess. This adventure will take you across multiple unique campaigns comprised of a few levels and a boss fight.

​

To accomplish your goal, you must pilot a curious little spaceship, one with more controls than lovers, unfortunately. Each panel controls a different part of the ship, including navigation, shields, and the four guns posted in each direction. The world outside your vessel is hostile, and both you and your lover will be running frantically between controls to make sure you keep your heads above water, sometimes literally. Despite how nutty the action would get, it was easy to hop around and use each control using only a few buttons. Together, Tucker and I took down a corrupt Ursa Major; like every enemy, he was irresistibly cute but had to go.

While traveling through space, you’ll need to rescue fuzzy animals in order to unlock portals to the next levels. Generally, either it’s a fight to get to their cages, or finding them initiates a few waves of enemies before you can help them. Saving animals nets you gems which are very easily affixed to each control panel, upgrading it in different ways, such as increasing power, bullets, or overall use. Trust me, even with a substantial amount of upgrades, even a mind-melded team will find themselves struggling to survive in the harsh universe Asteroid Base has created.

Each level will be randomly generated from a pre-defined set of tiles, meaning replaying a level or the entire game will be a unique experience each time. Level variety includes survival-style, underground levels where navigation is key, and water levels, where liquid acts as a barrier from and a cage for enemy attacks.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime should be out sometime this summer on Steam and Xbox One for no more than $20. I suggest thoroughly preparing your patience and understanding with your partner while you wait.