It’s difficult to stand out among hundreds of indie games on the show floor at EGX, but Catastronauts managed to do just that. Groups of players almost screaming at each other for a fire extinguisher or to get in the “safe room”, I had to check it out and what a great time I had…

Catastronauts is Inertia Game Studios’ latest and greatest game boasting the frenetic and downright silly chaos of Overcooked, set to the flashy sci-fi aesthetic of FTL. This fun party game puts you in the shoes of an astronaut whose ship is under attack from a sinister off-screen enemy. Your mission: keep the ship running, keep your crewmates alive and take down the bad guys!

I was able to try a number of levels and mechanics during my show floor demo, increasing in difficulty as you add each component. Players are tasked with running around the (questionably) open-topped ship, collecting equipment like fire extinguishers and repair kits, and dealing with a constant slew of problems as quickly as possible.

Both the players’ ship and the enemy ship have a health bar at the top which ticks down with every incoming blast and forgotten fire. Through the course of each level, players can expect to fix broken panels and put out fires, as well as firing the cannons and replacing its batteries, throwing mines out of the airlock and more to help keep your ship in one piece.

It’s not just the ship players will need to watch though as each player has a health meter which they will need to keep track of and head to a medical room if it gets too low. Fire is truly perilous in the deep reaches of space and an untreated blaze or poor communication can lead to a trapped player meeting an untimely demise. This will leave them waiting on a respawn which can prove fatal for the whole mission if other players are preoccupied with the increased taskload. Certain missions will even have players dodging solar flares, having to down tools immediately and sprint for the safe room before it hits!

The controls are dead simple and the game is due to release on all platforms so it’ll be super-easy to jump into the action regardless of your platform or ability.

Catastronauts will be launching this Friday September 28th for £12.79 on Xbox One & PS4, £12.39 on Steam and a later release on Switch date TBC. For more information be sure to check out the trailer above or head to the official website. I personally am very excited to try this one out at home with a few friends and some pizza, be sure to let me know if you do the same and how you get on!