Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗The Stars Are Not Ready
Turtlevania Games · Published by Turtlevania Games · Official site ↗
Last updated 29 Sept 2026
A neon arcade roguelite with no gun. Momentum is the only weapon: surf the dark at full speed and ram everything to wreckage. Ten shifting zones, anomalies you can seal or exploit, mutations that evolve, guardians that shatter. The stars are not ready. Go anyway.
Action, Indie · More free games
About this game
Surf the dark. Smash the stars.
You are loose in a vast neon void, and the only way through it is speed. Build momentum, ram everything to dust, charge your core to OVERLOAD, and tear a path toward the guardians waiting at the edge of the dark.
Momentum is the weapon
There is no trigger to hold. You surf. You dash. You smash asteroids, towers, and hunters apart by hitting them hard enough, then ride the wreckage straight into the next kill. Chain a dash-nova through a crowd and watch it come apart.
Every run is a different void
Each zone reshuffles into a new shape: open void, asteroid belts, pylon corridors, fence mazes, dense cluster fields. Then the anomalies bend the rules.
SWARM - the void teems with far more hunters.
GOLD RUSH - salvage doubled, and well defended.
VOLATILE GEOMETRY - the debris detonates, so smash at speed or bleed.
MAGNETIC STORM - rogue currents drag your ship off course.
OVERCHARGE - your energy charges faster, and so do your enemies.
HUNTED - apex predators stalk you from the first second.
[/list]Every anomaly radiates from a rift somewhere out in the dark. Seal it to end the effect, or leave it humming and take the risk.
Mutate your run
Trade hull at the void shrines for mutations that bend your ship's rules, and bank permanent perks and cores. Every run goes a little further.
Break the guardians
Something waits at the end of every zone, and a guardian falls to the same rule as everything else: hit its corners, at speed, until it shatters.
Built to be felt
A neon look drawn in pure light, an adaptive score that mixes to the fight, hit slow-mo, screen shake you can dial to taste, and full controller support.
The stars are not ready. Go anyway.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz (Intel Core i3 or AMD equivalent)
- Memory: 2048 MB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 11 capable GPU; integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 or better
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 300 MB available space
- Sound Card: Any DirectX compatible
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz (Intel Core i5 or better)
- Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Graphics: Dedicated GPU or modern integrated (Intel Iris Xe / equivalent)
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 300 MB available space
- Sound Card: Any
Supported Languages
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Demo 0.3.1: Steam Deck cleanup
Cleaned up the camera and card layouts for Steam Deck, and fixed controller menu input. Fixed A-button activation in menus, upgrade choices and route choices. D-pad selection and A confirmation work for upgrades and routes. The stick-controlled cursor can also activate Skip, Reroll and Banish. The camera shows more of the arena at handheld resolutions. Upgrade and route cards have larger text and brighter unselected cards on small screens.Read full article on Community Announcements (Turtlevania Games)Patch NotesOfficial
Demo 0.3.0: more responsive movement
Regular movement turns more promptly in 0.3.0. You don't need to hold drift to get a quick response. Drift gives you a sharper turn. Hold it to charge a boost, then release it. The first upgrade offer focuses on Chain Lightning, Plasma Trail and Overdrive. Nearby targets let you try your first choice after picking it, where the route has room for the setup. Fixed a startup issue that could leave the game stuck on the studio splash screen. Daily runs keep their existing handling and first upgrade offer.Read full article on Community Announcements (Turtlevania Games)Patch NotesOfficial
0.2.8 - You Can See What You Own
Two fixes in the demo, both about being able to read the game. The upgrade tree shows what you own. Every module has levels, and until now a node you had bought once and a node you had maxed out looked exactly the same. Each node now carries a row of pips, one per level, filled in as far as you have taken it. An empty row means you have never touched it. A full row with a ring around the node means it is finished and there is nothing left to buy there. Text that was getting cut off is not any more. The boss name at the top right was clipped on every boss, in every language, English included. The next-unlock line on the main menu ran off the end of its column in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Russian. On ultrawide monitors the pause menu ran off the bottom of the screen, and labels in the hangar and on the draft cards were being trimmed. All of it fits now, at every window size the game supports and in all eight languages.Read full article on Community Announcements (Turtlevania Games)Patch NotesOfficial
0.2.6 - The Game Explains Itself Now
Your feedback said one thing five different ways: it is hard to read anything when the whole point is to move fast, and the game never told you what things are. One of you asked for a glossary on the pause screen. One of you just wrote "no tutorial". This update is the answer, and most of it came from watching where new players actually got confused. The game has one calm teaching voice now. Exactly one hint on screen at a time, and every lesson goes away forever the moment you do the thing it taught. No more text piling up mid-fight. Your first flight opens with the whole game in one line: avoid red, smash everything else. New pilots choose: jump straight in, or a 45 second warmup where your hull is safe while you learn to smash, graze and overload. Skipped it? It waits in Settings as WARMUP RUN. The first time you meet a pylon, a laser fence or a mine, time slows for a beat and the game names it and tells you the one thing that matters. Once per thing, ever. Your hits and their hits no longer look alike. Damage you deal is always cyan, with numbers on boss parts and a visible bite out of the boss health bar. Damage you take is a red flash at the edge of the screen, never a white-out. Bolts and mines left the gold color family. Warm gold is always yours. Red always hurts. Overload wears its remaining time as a gold ring on your ship, and the game tells you the moment your first bar fills, on whatever button you have it bound to. Pause now shows chips for everything around you, each with a one-word answer, and tapping one opens its Field Guide entry. Your first power-up and your first path choice each get a one-time explainer. Nothing sneaks up at top speed anymore: enemies never appear closer than a second away along your line, the screen gets quieter the faster you go, and explosions can no longer hide live shots or mines. The pause glossary you asked for was actually already in the game. Nobody found it, which told me the real problem: knowledge sitting in a menu...Read full article on Community Announcements (Turtlevania Games)Patch NotesOfficial
0.2.4 - Easier on the Eyes
That is fixed. The flash is still there and still tells you that you got hit, it just does not take the whole screen with it, and big chain reactions no longer strobe. Colorblind modes hold brightness differences between colors properly now, so bars and warnings read the way they do in the default palette.Read full article on Community Announcements (Turtlevania Games)
