Shiny Shoe launched its cooperative RPG roguelite Inkbound via Steam Early Access in May 2023. The game, which has enjoyed very positive reviews on Steam to date, adapts the winning formula of Shiny Shoe's runaway indie hit, Monster Train, to a turn-based multiplayer experience. Shiny Shoe is now launching a major update for Inkbound dubbed the Starship of Terror, introducing an all-new class, environment, enemies, and entirely new game modes.
The Best War Games recently spoke with Shiny Shoe's creative director Andrew Krausnick about everything coming to Inkbound in the new update. The crown jewel of the Starship of Terror is the support-focused Star Captain class, arriving alongside a mutator-rich daily challenge mode, overhauled progression system, and a host of other quality-of-life improvements.
Inkbound's Star Captain: The Best Supporting Role
Krausnick explained the Star Captain's support capabilities filled a hole in Inkbound's multiplayer roster. While the dual-shield wielding Obelisk class provides some tanking capabilities, a traditional healing role has been MIA. But rather than a typical cleric or other magic-oriented healers, the Star Captain has a powerful drone mechanic to assist allies while making short work of foes:
"...whenever you support, heal an ally, or use an ability—including those outside the class—you will get a drone. The next attack you do, the drone will attack, so if you want to be a support captain, you can do that."
The Star Captain's drone mechanic is a clever way to alleviate the frustration of healer's fatigue by allowing players to help allies while maintaining meaningful offensive pressure on foes. This also ensures the Star Captain is viable in solo runs, as Inkbound is designed to offer both single and multiplayer thrills. Krausnick also mentioned that each Inkbound class is built from both a top-down and bottom-up approach, simultaneously focusing on the class's identifying characteristics and mechanics while factoring in their role as team players.
Inkbound's Star Captains Can Focus on Frostbitten Ranged DPS
Star Captains who prefer to solve their problems with overwhelming firepower will be well-served by the game's frostbite mechanic. As with healing and support, the Star Captain's drones play a prominent role in leveraging this status effect:
"If you want to be a pew-pew laser captain, there are bouncing laser bolts and there are frostbite stacks. Frostbite is a mechanic in our game where affected enemies will take more damage the next time they are hit. Drones will proc that, and take stacks off for extra damage."
While frostbite existed in earlier iterations of Inkbound, Shiny Shoe is "bringing up" the mechanic with the Star Captain's core systems and introducing a number of new items that allow the game's other classes to take better advantage of it. Krausnick mentioned that players on Shiny Shoe's Discord server are particularly taken with a strange yet effective frostbite build with the game's Mosscloak class, which fills a role that is similar to the classic rogue archetype.
As with most roguelikes, build variety and theory crafting are key aspects of the experience, and players' choice in ability ascensions will determine whether the Star Captain skews towards ranged damage or heals. Each Inkbound class boasts three base abilities that can be ascended across a variety of different upgrade tracks, in addition to being able to acquire a variety of class-agnostic abilities.
New Foes in Inkbound
The Star Captain and new abilities coming to Inkbound are naturally arriving alongside new threats and foes. Each level in Inkbound is contained within magical books from the Athenaeum—a library containing countless books that house entire worlds. The titular "terrors" in Starship of Terrors refer to escaped zoological experiments that have seized control of a derelict spacecraft featured in a sci-fi book.
The preview footage revealed a new guardian boss called the mimic, which will impersonate a specific player class and turn some of its abilities against players. Other new enemies include the giant, stomping mantaloop, and slimps—small, stabby creatures who attempt to overwhelm players with swarms. These latter monsters will not only be appearing in the game's starship level, but also make an appearance in other books from Inkbound's Athenaeum as part of the game's seasonal mechanics.
Inkbound is available via Early Access on Steam.