FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light is a roguelike game created by indie developer Subset Games, which was released for Windows, MacOS, and Linux in September 2012. In the game, the player controls the crew of a single spacecraft, holding critical information to be delivered to an allied fleet, while being pursued by a large rebel fleet. The player must guide the spacecraft through eight sectors, each with planetary systems and events procedurally generated in a roguelike fashion, while facing rebel and other hostile forces, recruiting new crew, and outfitting and upgrading their ship. Combat takes place in pausable real time, and if the ship is destroyed or all of its crew lost, the game ends, forcing the player to restart with a new ship.

The concept for FTL was based on tabletop board games and other non-strategic space combat video games that required the player to manage an array of a ship's functions. The initial development by the two-person Subset Games was self-funded, and guided towards developing entries for various indie game competitions. With positive responses from the players and judges at these events, Subset opted to engage in a crowd-sourced Kickstarter campaign to finish the title, and succeeded in obtaining twenty times more than they had sought; the extra funds were used towards more professional art, music and in-game writing.

The game, considered one of the major successes of the Kickstarter fundraisers for video games, was released in September 2012 to positive reviews. An updated version, FTL: Advanced Edition, added additional ships, events, and other gameplay elements, and was released in April 2014 as a free update for existing owners and was put up for purchase on iPad devices. The game received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the game's creativity. FTL is recognized alongside games like Spelunky, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space and The Binding of Isaac as helping to popularize the "roguelite" genre that uses some, but not all, of the principles of a classical roguelike.

The player controls a spacecraft capable of traveling faster-than-light (FTL), crewed by humans, aliens, or a mix of both. It belongs to the Galactic Federation, which is on the verge of defeat in a war with a human-supremacist faction called the Rebellion. The player's crew has intercepted a data packet from the rebel fleet containing unspecified information that could throw the rebels into disarray and ensure a Federation victory. The goal is to reach Federation headquarters, waiting several space sectors away, while avoiding destruction from hostile ships or by the pursuing rebel fleet. The final sector ends with a battle against the Rebel Flagship, a multi-stage fight which results in either victory or defeat for the Federation.

At game start, the player chooses a spacecraft to start with, each one with a different top-down layout and containing a different mix of weapons, systems (piloting, engines, weapons, oxygen, etc.), and crew. The game randomly generates eight space sectors similar to roguelike games, with roughly twenty waypoints (called "beacons") in each sector. The player must "jump" the ship between waypoints, normally unaware what awaits at each point, and make headway to an "exit" point leading to the next sector. The player’s ship can accumulate scrap (in-game currency), equipment (ranging from weapons to combat and support drones and various ship augmentations) and extra crew members by maximizing the number of beacons (and hence events/other ships) they visit, but each encounter has the potential to deal damage to their ship and/or crew. The player can revisit waypoints, but each warp jump consumes fuel and causes the rebel fleet to advance in each sector, and slowly take over more of the beacons. Once a beacon is taken over, jumping to the beacon will result in an encounter with a dangerous elite rebel fighter, while only ever granting the player 1 unit of fuel upon defeat. In later sectors, enemies are tougher and have better weaponry but also yield increased rewards when beaten.

There are eight different species of crew in the game: Humans, Engi, Zoltan, Mantis, Rock, Slug, Lanius, and Crystal. Members of these species can all be acquired by the player or found manning enemy ships. Each species has different strengths and weaknesses based on their physiology. For example, Rockmen are immune to fire and have high health, but move significantly slower than other species, hindering their ability to respond to crises in time.

Waypoints may include stores (which may offer various systems, crew members, weapons, resources and other items in exchange for scrap), distress calls, hostile ship encounters or other various events. Hostile ships will frequently attack the player and force them to engage in combat. During battles, the game becomes a real-time space combat simulator in which the player can pause the game for situation evaluation and command input.

During a fight, the player can manage the ship's systems by distributing power, order crew to specific stations or rooms, and fire weapons at the enemy ship. Successful weapon strikes by either side can damage systems, partially or completely disabling their functions until repaired; cause hull breaches that steadily vent air into space until patched by crew; ignite fires that can spread throughout the ship and damage systems and hull until they are extinguished by crew or starved of oxygen; and deal hull damage, which reduces the ship's hull points. A ship is destroyed once its hull points are reduced to zero, or defeated once its crew is eliminated. A player victory earns them resources to use in trading with stores or upgrading their ship; an enemy victory results in game failure, deleting the save file and forcing the player to start over, which creates a high level of difficulty. Alternatively, the player may evade combat by jumping to another waypoint after the ship's engines have fully charged; likewise, hostile ships may also attempt to escape from the player.