FTL

Bill who?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a retired tabletop gamer who despite hanging his cloak of invisibility up a long time ago, still has a soft spot for video games that cater to the same niche.

My tabletop gaming diet ran the gambit from household names such as Warhammer to smaller, independent gaming systems such as Kryomek, Dirtside and Ship To Shore. My absolute favorite, however, was a starship combat game called Full Thrust, published by Ground Zero Games. The rules worked so well mainly because of the way they simulated the impact that the loss of individual system might have on a space faring vessel. 

Last year's FTL (Faster Than Light) is as close to a computer version of Full Thrust as you're ever likely to find. The game involves jumping from system to system through a series of randomly generated maps, with each jump usually resulting in either a random encounter with another vessel, a basic multiple choice risk/reward scenario or stumbling across an interstellar store where you can part with hard earned scrap for ship upgrades or additional crew members. Combat involves managing the damage done to your own ship while maximising damage done to your opponent's through the strategic targeting of individual systems, as was the case with Full Thrust, although FTL's simulation here is arguably even more detailed.

One of the game's strengths lies in how many different possible approaches it offers to the same scenario. Should fires break out on your ship for example, you can dispatch crew members to put them out, but they'll take periodic fire damage and may expire before the fire is extinguished. On the other hand, you could open all the doors between the fire and the vacuum of space and put it out by starving it of oxygen, but the areas of the ship you've opened up will then be uninhabitable until the doors are shut and oxygen has been allowed to flood them again, which may take time you don't have.

Making on the fly decisions such as this and watching their consequences play out in front of you is a lot of fun, but the margin for error is often very small and since ship destruction is permanent, unwinnable scenarios sometimes occur and lead to frustration when they do.  Losing to a boarding action that you've had no opportunity to prepare for because the merchants you've encountered so far's randomly generated inventories haven't happened to include anything that can help against them isn't fun.  That said, you'll keep coming back for more, like I have been, analyzing each and every tiny mismanagement of your resources meticulously in hindsight so as not to make the same mistakes again.

FTL is a shining example of an independent developer creating an awesome, addictive game with very little in the way of resources; sure the aliased black edges of the starship models make them look like they were drawn in Microsoft Paint, and the soundtrack is functional at best, but FTL is a strategic gameplay triumph, and comes highly recommended. It's available to purchase at a discounted price from Steam as part of this year's summer sale until the 22nd of July, or from GOG at full price but without DRM.

Also, anybody interested in Full Thrust should follow the link below to the Ground Zero Games website. They appear to be having some technical difficulties at the moment, but once they are resolved the core rules for Full Thrust and its expansion, More Thrust, should be available for free download as PDFs again;

http://shop.groundzerogames.net/