7 years after unique puzzle brawler Battle Chef Brigade, its creators are back with another offbeat genre mash-up: 'People like card games, hopefully they like card games that have really good characters'

In 2017, Battle Chef Brigade was the kind of indie hit that's increasingly rare on the packed Steam store of 2024. The fascinating and novel combination of brawler and match-three puzzler didn't sell millions upon millions of copies or make its way onto many Game of the Year lists like this year's Balatro, but it did well enough to warrant a meaty update a year later. It was a Kickstarter game that actually came out and was good, a small miracle on its own. If you followed indie games at the time—when a mere 7,000 games were released on Steam, instead of nearly 19,000—you'd almost certainly at least heard of Battle Chef Brigade.

Seven years later, creators Trinket Studios has finally announced a new game, Battle Suit Aces: a sci-fi mecha deckbuilder drawing on beloved tales of crews jetting from planet to planet and battling in stylish, powerful mech suits. But this time you almost certainly haven't heard about it. It was announced during the summer rush, and will launch into a genre that's seen more than 400 new games on Steam in 2024 alone.

Despite the odds, if there's any card game primed to stand out next year, it's this one.

Moonshot

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Trinket Studios' trio of primary developers were still recovering from the exhaustion of shipping Battle Chef Brigade, with no immediate idea for a follow-up ready to go. They resorted to doing contract work for other game studios to make ends meet. President and programmer Tom Eastman remembers only having time to spend one day a week—with some mornings squeezed in here and there—prototyping Battle Chef's successor.

"The game we Kickstarted, and what came out, was way better than we had expected from the Kickstarter," Eastman says. "But also was a huge amount of work that we rose to the challenge of … and we were really tired after that."

Having years to hone in on the idea for a new game was, in Eastman's words, a double-edged sword. "You might experiment a little too much," he says, "but it also gave us the time to sort of really think through our strengths."

Trinket's core team of Eastman, Eric Huang, and Ben Perez met back in 2009, working under Disney Interactive on games like Disney's Guilty Party and Avengers Initiative: Hulk, before setting out on their own in 2012. After Battle Chef Brigade's success, making another game became unexpectedly complicated: publisher Adult Swim Games did not have IP rights to Battle Chef, but according to Eastman, did have a first right of refusal for future projects. Internal troubles at Warner Bros. saw Adult Swim's indie publishing business dry up before ultimately collapsing.

Battle Chef 2 seems like it would've been the safer bet, but after years in the kitchen Trinket is eager to do something new.

Battle Suit Aces reflects a lot of the strengths of the team's first game: Compelling characters, interesting genre-smashing, and the gorgeous art all remind me of the first game, even though the two play quite differently. "I think for better, for worse, it wasn't a drastic change," said Tom. "Our process for Battle Chef and Battle Suit Aces... we don't start out with a genre. I think, in retrospect, they both started off as sort of RPG-lites."

Card trek

In essence, Battle Suit Aces is a deckbuilder. As Captain Heathcliff of the USS Zephyr, you zip across the stars to investigate the mysteries of the universe. There are strange "Relic Suits" (mech suits), hints of an ancient civilization, and a frenzied swarm of monsters to beat back at every turn.

Combat is deceptively simple. You can deploy mech suits or drones as cards, each of which generate and consume specific hues of energy. The 5-on-5 board layout indicates where your suits are blocking or attacking, and the idea is to break through and hit the enemy base on the other side. It's very easy to grok as soon as you make your first couple plays.

Characters are front-and-center, whether piloting the mechs in combat or hanging around your ship for conversation afterwards. There's a familiar, enjoyable flow to Battle Suit Aces: enter a new area, get some story, engage in combat, talk with your crew and upgrade your suits, then jet off to the next zone. Choices determine where you go and who you can recruit.

"We wanted to feel like, I'm making a deck not just because I like this card, but because I like this character, and I'm going to upgrade that character," said Tom. "Not just because their ability can be better, but because I like them and I want to talk with them more. I want to spend more time with them. I want to do their crew mission."

Despite the literal hundreds of card games now releasing on Steam every year, surprisingly few take this character-first approach. One of the best, Marvel's Midnight Suns, sold poorly despite the popularity of Marvel and the pedigree of XCOM studio Firaxis; Square Enix's Voice of Cards series barely made waves despite the attachment of Nier creator Yoko Taro. But given Battle Chef Brigade's memorable art style, the art and cast of new characters could be the thing that helps Battle Suit Aces stand out.

The cast of Battle Suit Aces is diverse and interesting, and Trinket said that they see Eric Huang's art as one of their key strengths. I found myself drawn to them on appearance alone: In one mission, after felling a giant hydra whose heads kept splitting and reappearing, I could choose to bring one of the hunters who'd helped me out onto my ship. Both options—the eager younger pilot and the hardened older one—were so intriguing I had to sit and think about the choice for a while.

There are gameplay considerations to take into account, whether that's the type of energy each mech suit generates or how their damage is doled out. But having someone cool, whose backstory I want to learn? That's a pretty easy way to encourage me to engage with characters beyond their stat line.

While the studio members cite inspirations in theme (Star Trek, Stargate, Gundam, mecha anime) and other card games (Inscryption and Wildfrost, to name a few), focusing on your crew and the approachability of Battle Suit Aces' strategy seem to be their key differentiators.

"We're like, well, people like card games, hopefully they like card games that have really good characters in them, you know?" said Tom. "And have faith that a rich, character-driven game will work out, as long as we do a really good job and make sure that the gameplay is good too."

Tom says Trinket hasn't worried too much about the increase in competition since 2017, and it might help that the team's already got some solid backing from a new publisher that knows indies. Outersloth, the publishing arm of Among Us creator Innersloth, signed on to help release Battle Suit Aces next year. Outersloth's funding has allowed Trinket to work with previous collaborators, like Battle Chef writer Megan Fausti.

While Trinket went dark for several years after Battle Chef Brigade, the team seems ready to deliver a different kind of meal in Battle Suit Aces. It's sci-fi rather than fantasy, and a turn-based, card-driven affair rather than an action-puzzler. But the art, approachability, and design all make Battle Suit Aces look like a worthy successor.