So, I’m hanging out on Twitter, basking in the Tweet-flow (you know what I mean, right?), when I start to notice this thing happening. FTL. I see it in a tweet by a game developer I follow. Then I see it in a tweet by another smart person I follow. Then it’s almost everywhere. FTL. FTL. Starship captaining (is that a real word?). FTL.
I think, “For the Loss?” Well, maybe. Or perhaps, “Faster Than Light,” says my inner sci-fi geek. Looking it up on the interwebs, I see that it does, indeed, refer to the speed at which we cannot go, and it is for sure a sci-fi geek’s dream. I also notice that it came out today, which is why everything’s all a-twitter.
The Steam description of the game sounds interesting enough.
In FTL you experience the atmosphere of running a spaceship trying to save the galaxy. It’s a dangerous mission, with every encounter presenting a unique challenge with multiple solutions. What will you do if a heavy missile barrage shuts down your shields? Reroute all power to the engines in an attempt to escape, power up additional weapons to blow your enemy out of the sky, or take the fight to them with a boarding party? This “spaceship simulation roguelike-like” allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.
However, what might have caught your eye is the phrase, “roguelike-like.” Roguelike games are known for their brutal difficulty and deep, complex rulesets.
For further proof, check out these key features.
Key Features:
- Complex Strategic Gameplay – Give orders to your crew, manage ship power distribution and choose weapon targets in the heat of battle.
- Play at Your Own Speed – Pause the game mid-combat to evaluate your strategy and give orders.
- Unique Lifeforms and Technology – Upgrade your ship and unlock new ones with the help of six diverse alien races.
- Be the Captain You Want – Hundreds of text based encounters will force you to make tough decisions.
- Randomized Galaxy – Each play-through will feature different enemies, events, and results to your decisions. No two play-throughs will be quite the same.
- No Second Chances! – Permadeath means when you die, there’s no coming back. The constant threat of defeat adds importance and tension to every action.
If that doesn’t sound nerdtastic, I don’t know what does. As a final coup de grâce, as it were, to the notion of this game as anywhere approaching simple, here are some screenshots. Does that look simple to you? No. No it does not.
If you like your gaming difficult, complex, and geek-a-riffic, head over to Steam now and download FTL for 10% off the regular price of $9.99. That means $8.99 for you non-math thinkers. Of course, if you’ve read this far, you’re definitely able to do math, you geek.
Source: Steam
