Faster Than Light
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What is it? It's a ... well, you control a space ship and have to race through a randomly generated galaxy full of randomly generated events and strategic battles, staying one step ahead of the gigantic rebel fleet which is chasing you. When you die, you die. Game over. The game's short and designed to be replayed. Each game can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 90, with 90 being a game where you reach the end. There are loads of different ship types to unlock. It's perfect for the time-pressed gamer.
Battles place you in control of your ship's systems, and you need to manage energy levels and priorities, targeting orders, crew members, and boarding parties. It's fully pausable so there's no need for super-reflexes. You can target individual enemy sub-systems and they will target yours. If a system is critically damaged then it will shut down until it's repaired.
Away from battles, you need to manage resources, including fuel (1 unit per jump), missiles, and scrap (spend it to upgrade and repair your ship). Crew members gain experience at tasks when they perform them, and levelling them up will provide healthy boosts to your ship's performance. Your ship is also subject to a light RPG system. You cannot upgrade everything so you must pick and choose the areas which suit your play style. Want stronger shields? Or more drones? The ability to power more weapons at once? Stealth cloak? Stronger ancillary systems like a better med bay or fire-proof bulk heads?
It's available now on steam, GOG.com, and directly from the developer.
Early in my first run I ended up with my entire ship on fire thanks to a solar flare. As the ship filled with the scent of delicious flame-roast Mantis-engineer, I packed my 3 surviving crew members into the med bay and watched as they frantically beat out fires which kept springing up under their feet. Doomed! Then I recalled a post about vacuum putting out fires so I opened the whole ship aside from the med bay up. Saved! The door control was the fire's last casualty. Doomed! I sat there for several minutes waiting for them to die from eventual O2 starvation. Via accidental clickage, I realised that crew members could manually open/close doors. I sent one brave crewman out to fix the door control. He managed it, and crawled back into the med bay with his last shred of health. Doors closed! Saved! Still no oxygen supply. O2 in the med bay was now less than 15%. Doomed! I swarmed 2 crew members through the ship to the O2 machine. They fixed it just before they would have died. Saved!
I spent the next 30 minutes hopping around the galaxy with a hull made up of holes tied together with bits of string, frantically searching for somewhere to repair, before some inconsiderate type stuffed a missile up my tail pipe. In-between those two events I ran out of fuel twice, survived most of the encounters by pumping my shield stat to provide 3 shield bubbles so that nothing could damage the 1 HP I had left, ran out of no missiles, had to run away screaming from at least three encounters, got trapped in the rebel fleet once, discovered a derelict space station, freed slaves, got attacked by killer robots, nearly got smushed by asteroids, got lost in an entire system filled with nebula, got set on fire a second time, got boarded by rock-beings, and rescued a lone survivor from a space wreck.
In my second game I managed to set an enemy's weapons room on fire. My upgraded sensors permitted me to watch as all three AI crew members entered the room, knelt in the flames, and burned to a crisp trying to fix it. [evil laughter]
Most fun I've had all week. Especially the fire. Pyromaniacs may be right - everything may indeed be better with flames. Need to test the hypothesis more before I can provide a scientific conclusion.
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Originally Posted by Leon Blum - For All Mankind
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