Tombstar is a rootin' tootin' roguelite from the maker of Crossy Road

Why did the game developer cross the road? To make a living, probably, but after traversing dozens of mobile highways it's about time to look to the stars. Announced earlier today, Tombstar sees Crossy Road developer Andy Sum team up with designer Marcus Grambau in ditching the sidewalk to pick up a sci-fi six-shooter sometime this year. Let's just hope his aim's as good as his traffic-dodging gymnastics, eh?

Actually, haud on - looking at the site it seems Sum was also behind that dubstep-ridden frag video disaster parody wot was going around our Uni for a solid two months. Incredible.

Anyway, his next game involves neither voxel jaywalkers nor Mountain Dew meme explosions. Instead, Tombstar is a top-down twin-stick roguelite that has your space cowboy saying "see ya" to all manner of aliens, outlaws, and death robots across a series of interstellar labyrinths. You know the drill - pick a character, blast some baddies, pick up weapons, find upgrades, die suddenly, repeat. A proven formula, but a good'un.

Thing is, there are a fair few twin-stick roguelites kicking about these days. I love a good one of these, but I do really need to see more before getting excited for Tombstar. It's been picked up by publishers No More Robots, mind, who've pushed games like Descenders, Nowhere Prophet and Hypnospace Outlaw - games that, at the very least, are often gunning towards interesting new ideas.

If there's a spark in Tombstar, we'll hopefully find out once the closed beta kicks off in the coming months. Tombstar proper is set to launch on Steam next year.