ftl: faster than light

posted by misterhaan in gaming, review on sep 24, 2012

i first heard of ftl via @backlogjourney’s review on the day it was released on steam, and was excited about commanding a starship all picard or adama style. i don’t normally buy indie games on their own, even on sale, because chances are good they’ll eventually be in a bundle i’ll buy. i went for it anyway with ftl, and played it as soon as i had a chance. it was just as much fun as i expected!

unfortunately i ran into some problems right away. the only resolution option is whether 720p should be fullscreen or windowed. that’s not a problem for someone with a 720p or 1080p monitor, but i’m not sure what would happen on an older non-widescreen monitor. the other problem probably affects even less people but does affect me. i use the dvorak keyboard layout, and when renaming my ship or crew in ftl the keyboard is somehow in qwerty mode. of course the keys are labeled that way so i can still get the names i want and once i get the game going it’s no longer an issue, but that specific problem usually doesn’t happen so i was surprised by it. renaming crew is additionally awkward since when you’re done typing the new name you need to press enter to get your mouse cursor back, then click the accept button. then when you’re playing, sending a crew member to a room is left click to select and right click to send but firing a weapon is left click to select and left click to set target, with right click canceling. i sometimes think i’ve moved crew or fired a weapon when i haven’t actually done anything because i clicked the wrong button.

ftl has relatively low hardware requirements. if you have an older laptop like me, you actually have a chance of playing ftl on it, provided you meet the 1280×720 resolution requirement. it also lets you save at pretty much any time you want. of course the save file is removed once you load it through the resume option, so you can’t save before trying something and then load your save if you don’t like how it goes. it’s a save and quit option, which is great if you have a small chunk of time and want to continue later.

there’s an easy mode and a normal mode, and even on easy you’re likely to fail and need to start over on most attempts. but before failing, you may have unlocked a new ship or a new layout for an existing ship, which will make the next attempt different. even if you didn’t unlock anything, what you encounter is randomly generated so that’s going to make things different as well. this goes toward making you want to try again, which is good since it takes me about three hours to make it from the beginning to the end.

much of the game pits your ship against an enemy ship. it’s not always necessary to destroy the other ship to advance, but most of the time they’ll start out shooting at you. the combat is excellent though, so most of the time i hope for a fight. all ships have various systems, such as weapons, shields, and oxygen. each system is housed in a specific room in the ship, so you (and also the enemy) can target specific systems. sometimes i ignored the shields hoping to take out the enemy’s missile launcher before they could fire it at me, while other times i started by knocking out their shields so more of my weapons could get through. you also have limited (though upgradeable) power, so sometimes you have to decide whether it’s worth it to temporarily stop generating oxygen for the time it takes to cloak so the missile just fired at you will miss. you also may need to decide between powering conventional weapons or automated attack drones.

most encounters net you some scrap, which works like currency to buy upgrades, supplies, or new weapons, or to hire crew members. to do that though, you need to find a store selling what you want. the randomness can get you here with stores offering drones, weapons, and systems when what you really need is a guy to keep your engines running. all stores can repair your hull and have some quantities of fuel, missiles, and drone parts.

there’s the beginnings of a story, which does little more than explain why you’re always moving to the right and can’t stick around too long. it reminds me a little of the beginning of star wars (episode iv) where they’re trying to get information back to the fleet and are being chased by the enemy. if you succeed in getting the stolen information back to the fleet, instead of the game being over your side sends just you against the enemy’s ultimate weapon.

it feels like there’s more to this universe than what the game tells us. there are a variety of alien factions you can encounter and even add to your crew, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. for example one race is fast and skilled at combat but bad at repairs while another has extra health and is fireproof but moves slowly. this makes effective crew use more interesting.

i’ve already put in 6 hours and have only tried two of the nine ships and haven’t actually beat the game yet. i still expect to play quite a lot more of it. it’s regularly priced at $10 which i say is worth it.