Let's talk indie games today. For those of you who know my history, I don't play a ton of indie games. However, upon recommendation from an old friend picked up a game called FTL on Steam for $10. Did I waste my money? Read on to find out!
FTL was produced as a part of a Kickstarter. It is in fact one of the first successful Kickstarter projects to actually hit the market. It is a strategic space simulator, with elements of Rogue-like style games. What does Rogue-like mean? I'll get into that later. The premise of the game is that you are a crew of three who has discovered vital information for the Federation so that they can turn around their otherwise losing battle with the Rebellion. Who is the Rebellion and why do they fight against the Federation? Who knows, but trust me, they are the bad guys. This game is not heavy on story, though it does have a relatively interesting lore.
When you start, you get to pick your ship, customize your crew if desired, and set off on your epic journey through 8 sectors, trying to stay ahead of the Rebel Fleet and deliver your information to the Federation leaders. The graphics are...minimalist, as befits its Rogue-like origins. You can figure out what everything is, but this game would be right at home on an NES (except for the backgrounds, which are much nicer). Everything is shown from a top down perspective of the inside of your ship, which has the rooms laid out. You have stations for weapons, life support, medical, shields, engines, and piloting. If you have a drone system, you have a room with that in it. There are also subsystems: Sensors, Auto-Pilot, and oddly enough, Doors. Some of these systems can be manned for bonuses, though Piloting MUST be manned if you want your jump engine to work.
Sectors are made up of a number of randomly generated "jump points" that you move through by waiting for the "jump meter" to fill, and then pressing the Jump button. The meter only fills if your engines are not disabled and you have someone manning the Pilot station. When you jump, you get to pick which jump point you go to. Each jump point only connects to a number of nearby jump points. Some will be marked with things such as "Store" or "Distress Beacon", indicating the type of encounter you are likely to have there. If your sensors are high enough, you can sometimes see if a ship might be there too.
When you jump, you receive a text description of your random encounter. If it is a non- combat encounter, you may make a choice to do something, or elect to just jump to the next section. Sometimes your choices lead to positive things, like gaining a crew member or some supplies or Scrap (money). Other times you get negative things like a ship invasion or hull damage. You can also get a "mixed bag" result which gets you a good and a bad thing together.
If a ship is there, they may be friendly, neutral, or hostile. Friendly ships are like any other non-combat encounter. Neutral ships are usually mercenaries that you can ignore, hire, or attack. Hostile ships initiate combat. Combat is a real-time affair, though you can pause at any time to issue orders and evaluate the situation. Weapons start off uncharged, and once they are charged you aim them at the enemy ship. You can target individual systems on the other ship too, though the crew may attempt repairs. If your sensors are good enough, you can see the contents of the individual rooms of the other ship and not just what systems are where. Different weapons have different effects: missiles ignore shields, beams can hit multiple targets but are blocked by shields more easily, and lasers just hit hard. Some weapons cause fires when they hit. Fires are bad because they consume your oxygen and damage systems. If you run out of oxygen, your crew will die of asphyxiation. How do you put out fires? Well, either your crew can (not super effective, but easier to manage for small fires), or you can vent the room with the fire of oxygen. This can be harder to manage than you might think, but through a combination of good door controls and the pause button can be managed.
You can issue orders to your crew to man various stations, fend off boarding parties, put out fires, and repair damaged systems and hull. It sounds complicated, but it is more like "tell your guy where to go, and they will do what is needed", though they may take damage. You can heal your crew by sending them to medical, so long as the medical bay has some power. Power is a constant source of micromanagement, especially before your ship is upgraded. Your crew can be one of several races such as Human, Engi (friendly borg), Mantis (exactly what it says on the tin), Slugs (ditto), Rock Men (ditto), and so forth. Crew that are assigned to tasks get better at those tasks and learn skill ranks if they do things enough, so they will eventually specialize if you keep using the same people for the same things.
Your ship can be equipped with weapons such as ion cannons, missiles, and lasers, along with semi-autonomous drones that mostly attack, but can also do things like repair the hull or systems, or defend against enemy missiles. The rest of the ship can be upgraded too, and is mostly a two step process. The reactor determines how many bars of power you have to distribute, and your level in all your systems (but not subsystems, which require no power) determines how many bars of power you can assign to a particular system. So you might have 10 bars of power to distribute, but you could only put 3 into weapons if you haven't upgraded that system. Lastly, you can install equipment which does things like "pre-charge the weapons for a fight", "heal crew throughout the ship a little bit if medical is online" and my personal favorite "recover drones if you jump after winning a fight", which saves a lot in parts.
Upgrading the ship is accomplished by spending the money of the game, Scrap. You gain scrap via random events or after fights. You can spend it to upgrade your ship, or to buy weapons, drone schematics, hire crew, or supplies like missiles, drone parts, and fuel. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention you have a limited fuel supply for your engines and a jump consumes one fuel? I probably did. Anyway, you have full control over what systems get upgraded, but you are at the mercy of the Random Number Generator (RNG) as to what weapons you will get or have available for purchase.
You can name your ship and your crew, as well as select the gender of any human crew. I recommend not bothering. Why? This game is a Rogue-like and that means a few things. First, no save/reload. You get one save game, period, so while you can resume a game if you stop playing, you cannot reload a previous save ever. Second, perma-death. That's right, if you die, you die. And trust me, you WILL die. A Lot. "But Will, this sounds pretty harsh!" Yes, yes it does. It is okay though because whole games can be played in about an hour or so, and you can unlock new things even if you don't win the game. My first game ended terribly in Sector 4 when I forgot to close the outer vents to the ship and my crew choked to death on my incompetence. The next game, I got a little farther. In fact, I haven't ever beaten the game, though I've seen most everything it has to offer. It has two difficulty modes labeled Easy and Normal. These labels are lies. The actual difficulties are You're Gonna Die and Fuck You. A lot of the difficulty comes from the random nature of the game. I cruised through one game all the way to Sector 8 without any real issues...only to find I hadn't upgraded my ship NEARLY enough to take on the final set of encounters. Other times you'll get jumped in Sector 3 by a pirate ship during a solar flare and both of you will roast to death.
I really, really enjoy this game. The random nature of it means you never know exactly what you are going to get on a playthrough, and the fact that a full game is fairly quick means it is easy to pick up and put down. There is a mildly steep learning curve, but the in game tutorial gives you the basic controls while the deeper strategies will emerge as you try different things. There are a ton of things to unlock (new ships and layouts, several tiers of achievements) that keep things interesting even if you haven't beaten the game. The gameplay is unique and entertaining, reminding me a LOT of some of the other "ship simulators" I played years ago (like Star Trek: Starfleet Captain or Command or something like that), in a compact package. The story is...well, nigh non-existent, but that is okay because this is not a very deep game. What will hook you is the gameplay and the thrill of discovering new encounters you've not seen or choosing alternate paths on different play throughs.
Overall, this is a fun game that was well worth the $10 I spent on it. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, I give it a solid 2 smiley faces. It is a great casual game, but it has a lot of gameplay depth to keep you coming back for more. The story is a bit thin and the graphics are modest at best, but I had a great time with it.
