I had that review of Looper done for
like a week before I finally managed to put it up. So what stopped
me, huh? Well, there was some house painting, and Thanksgiving, but
those are pretty temporary affairs when you get right down to it.
No, if you really want to derail someone, and I mean just strip hours
and hours and hours out of their day, you have to do more than just
throw a holiday and some home renovations at them.
You have to show them FTL.
Ironically, none of your ships look anything like that. Cover art, amirite?
FTL is a ten dollar game (actually
$9.99) from Steam, a simple little resource management sim wrapped
around a pretty basic space adventure. A Federation ship, carrying
vital intelligence, has to traverse seven sectors of space to bring
that information home, staying ahead of the advancing Rebel fleet.
Each sector is made up of a random number of star systems, laid in
out a random pattern, with your entry point on one side and the exit
jump on the other. All you have to do is travel, from star to star,
from entry to exit, and then jump away to do it all over again six
more times.
But of course, it can't possibly be
that easy.
Despite its apparently simplicity FTL
is actually fiendishly difficult, primarily because there are just so
many resources to manage. First you have your crew; you start with
three, and can have up to eight. Do you want them to be excellent
specialists, or decent generalists? Because your crew can be killed,
by boarders, oxygen deprivation, fire of even just being in a room
one too many missiles have hit. Then you have those systems your
crew are working on; there are five (engines, shields, oxygen,
weapons, piloting), all of which draw from your reactor, and three
more (doors, sensors, autopilot) that work on their own. You can
upgrade all of these systems, to varying degrees, and for every boost
to the first five you also need to upgrade your reactor to produce
more power. Then there are two more optional systems (drones,
teleporter) you can pick up along the way. And you can have two
different drones installed at a time (three on some ships). And
there are three slots for ship augmentations, like faster-charging
weapons or shields or jump engines. And you have three finite
resources you have to keep an eye on, as well; fuel, which you
consume one point of every time you jump, missiles, which can go
clean through the shields that energy weapons have to batter down
every time, and drones, which can provide a wealth of options. And
then there's your scrap. Oh, the scrap.
If you want to upgrade a system, or
your reactor, or purchase a new weapon, or hire more crew, or get
more missiles or drones or fuel, you have to spend scrap. Everything
you do, basically, costs you scrap. You will never have enough,
unless you're doing especially well, at which point half the time the
randomly generated stores won't give you anything worthwhile to spend
it all on. FTL can be cruel, that way.
Ship on fire, key systems shot up, no missiles, section exposed to vacuum... Yup, that's FTL alright!
So, sounds a little overwhelming,
right? Well, that doesn't even get into the events you'll roll up on
your travels! Each time you jump to a new star, you'll encounter
something new. A rebel ship? Pirates? Slavers? A drifting wreck?
An asteroid storm? Solar flares? Distress calls? The game has an
impressive library of random elements it can combine into an event,
and many of them offer the player a choice. Interestingly, there's a
sort of personal morality system at play. Do you accept surrender
from your enemies, letting them live in exchange for sometimes-token
offers, or do you slaughter them for their scrap and supplies? Are
you a fearless pirate hunter, challenging them anytime you cross
paths, or do you resort to piracy yourself when the opportunity
arises? The game doesn't make any particular note of your choices,
in terms of the reputation of your ship or the like, but it can be
easy indeed to fall into the habit of constructing a persona for your
ship's crew, and sticking to it as you advance. Will you uphold the
ideals of the Federation, come what may? Or does survival trump all
other concerns? It's completely up to you.
FTL is cheap, and simple to get
started. It's a casual game, but definitely a solid one, if you like
resource sim-style games. Be warned, though! Individual events are
pretty short, a few seconds a moral choice, perhaps a couple of
minutes for a particularly gruelling battle. As such, it's very easy
to tell yourself you're going to play just one more, time and again,
until you realize you meant to play 'just one more' ninety minutes
ago. If you're the sort who's susceptible to its wiles, this game
will most certainly eat your free time, one brief random encounter at
a time.
And you'll love every minute of it!
Well. Maybe not every minute.
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