FTL Diary: The Giant Threat of Space

The biggest problem with space is that it’s pretty much infinite and that there’s no way of knowing what’s out there.

FTL, the roguelike title from Subset Games, understands that any man who has the size and the unknowingness of space pressed upon his mind will feel fear and the game then manages to use that feeling to great effect.

When you first run the game it seems simple enough: g et a ship, a crew and a number of meager resources and then explore a randomly generated universe while trying to escape an unbeatable fleet that’s always snapping at your heel.

Soon after the sense of discovery is replaced by constant dread, a fear that’s deep inside my gaming mind every time I get ready to push the bright yellow Jump button and then move to a new area.

Each star system inside a larger sector can contain a straight up battle, a multiple choice situation, a merchant or nothing at all.

As the game progresses, the encounters with enemy ships become much more difficult, the choices are starker and the feeling of dread increases.

I had moments when the only thing I wanted was to get to a store in order to repair my hull and get some more missiles only to get into a sector where I was boarded and my whole crew was killed.

I had one game where I had more scap (FTL’s main resource) than I knew what to do with and very weak weapons, yet I was unable to get to a store that sold weaponry for three sectors and I was destroyed by a much more powerful enemy.

The randomness and the roguelike permanent death combine to create a game where every choice and every move is scary but that keeps me coming back after each death, hoping for better star layout and better overall results.