12 years ago the best indie game was released
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-man 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
Synopsis
The player controls a spacecraft capable of traveling faster-than-light (FTL). It belongs to the Galactic Federation, which is on the verge of defeat in a war with an exclusively human rebel faction, simply called the Rebellion. The player's crew intercepts a data packet from the rebel fleet containing 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
Development
FTL is the product of the two-man team of Subset Games, Matthew Davis and Justin Ma. Both were employees of 2K Games's Shanghai studio, and became friends during their tenure there, playing various board games in their free time.
Davis had left 2K Games early in 2011, and after biking through China, returned and joined Ma, who had also recently quit, and began working on the core FTL game. They agreed they would spend a year towards development and if their efforts did not pan out, they would go on to other things. Following the success of the game, the pair began work on their second game, Into the Breach.
The idea for FTL was inspired by tabletop board games, such as Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, a 2005 space roguelite computer game released by Digital Eel, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, and non-strategic video games, such as Star Wars: X-Wing, where the player would have to route power to available systems to best manage the situation.
Unlike most space combat simulation games, the beginning idea was the player being captain rather than a pilot according to Davis, and to make "the player feel like they were Captain Picard yelling at engineers to get the shields back online", as stated by Ma. The intent of the game was to make it feel like a "suicide mission", and had adjusted the various elements of the game to anticipate a 10% success rate of winning the game.
The permanence of a gameplay mistake was a critical element they wanted to include, and gameplay features such as permadeath emphasized this approach.
Only as they neared the August 2011 Game Developers Conference in China after about six months of work, where they planned to submit FTL as part of the Independent Games Festival there, did they start focusing on the game's art. The game was named as a finalist at the IGF China competition, leading to initial media exposure for the game.
The additional attention to the game forced them to extend development – what would be a two-year process – and thus they turned to Kickstarter in order to fund the final polish of the game as well as costs associated to its release, seeking a total funding goal of $10,000. Subset games was able to raise over $200,000 through the effort. FTL represents one of the first games to come out from this surge in crowd-funded games, and demonstrates that such funding mechanisms can support video game development.
With the larger funding, Subset considered the benefit of adding more features at the cost of extending the game's release schedule. They opted to make some small improvements on the game, with only a one-month release delay from their planned schedule, and stated they would use the remaining Kickstarter funds for future project development.
The additional funds allowed them to pay for licensing fees of middleware libraries and applications to improve the game's performance. Additionally, they were able to outsource other game assets; in particular additional writing and world design was provided by Tom Jubert (Penumbra, Driver: San Francisco), while music was composed by Ben Prunty.
Prunty wanted to create an interactive soundtrack that would change when the player entered and exited battle; for this, he composed the calmer "Explore" (non-battle) version of each song, then build atop that to create the more-engaging "Battle" version. Within the game, both versions of the song play at the same time, with the game cross-fading between the versions based on action in the game.
One of the highest tiers of the Kickstarter campaign allowed a contributor to help design a species for inclusion in the game. One supporter contributed at this level and helped design the Crystal.
FTL: Advanced Edition
FTL: Advanced Edition adds several new events, ships, equipment and other features to the existing game. This version was released on April 3, 2014 as a free update for FTL owners, and as a separate release for iPad devices, with the potential for other mobile systems in the future. A new playable species, the Lanius — metallic lifeforms that reduce oxygen levels in any room they are in — were introduced.
Subset Games has stated that they would not likely create a direct sequel to FTL, though future games they are planning may include similar concepts that were introduced in FTL. Their subsequent game, Into the Breach was not funded through Kickstarter and it is unlikely that they will use the platform in future, as they have raised enough money through sales of FTL to fund future projects.
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There's definitely a learning curve. Like, raw materials, processing facility, manufacturing in to finished goods, then (for me, every time) finding out no one wants them. I think I ended up manufacturing starship hulls bc that was a critical thing for one faction.
I was running a couple of mods and somehow the Xenon ended up hyper-aggressive and started tearing through the galaxy so making sure everyone had enough major components to build battle cruisers was really important. All my buddies games have been doo doo do do economics sim but whenever i loaded my game the Terminator 2 theme song would play.
I've read a few people say they rush hulls in the beginning and it's a good money maker. I might go that route next. I just started my mega solar factory and it put me in the hole so I'm hoping I can charge right below average and sell them like hot cakes. I made an L storage surrounded by enough solar panels to fill it in an hour so hoping that will work. So maybe once I'm back out of the hole, set up my mining hub in the belt, then make hulls there since I have my resources in that sector? Honesty mining is really carrying me lol.
And yeah, I've read a few stories of Xenon going super aggro on everyone. They've been pretty chill so far aside from mercing my scout lol.
One of the bonuses of hull panels is that it can help friendly factions produce big warships. And big warships really help if the Xenon decide to go full kill all sophonts before you've got a serious war fleet. I didn't have a serious war fleet and ended up trying to contain the Xenon by building large stations that were nothing but hull and as many guns as I could fit them with, massive gunfortresses that at least had a chance of stopping a few Ks before they could get in to the system and start ravaging industry. God that was miserable I could lock down one side of a gate, then spend hours and god knows how many credits trying to push through to the other side and secure a beachead, then try to push from there to secure other sector gates adjacent to Xenon travel routes. All while the Xenon had a bunch of terrifying modded ships I couldn't really fight so if an I showed up all I could do was pull out the one sniper-destroyer I had and try to destroy all it's big gun turrets before it wiped the sector.
Quit update since I'm enjoying this convo lol. I just nuked my second attempt at a solar factory and plopped down a new one that I'm calling done. I set it up for potential expansion and living quarters once I have the blueprint purchased. I know it's not needed but why not? I also managed to fit a 3 ship dock in which was a pain since my solar panels are 4 wide in each side of the central area. I'm calling it done lol. The license was 1.6 mil and the factory is gonna cost a total of 23 mil but if I calculated correctly it will still make me about 10 mil an hour. Sorry for the ramble lol. It's rare for games to scratch the itch like this for me.
I love talking about X. It's a great series that lets people live out great stories. Have you tried investigating the weird radio signals coming from damaged station sections in your eva suit? They may have certain... illegal benefits.
I did find one and skipped the mission because I don't know how to hack yet. I also accidentally shot another one because I was still learning that you can actually use target guidance to hit things. The game has a learning curve and I'm just making it steaper lol.
I'm considering doing a weed and pirate run sometimes later but gonna stick to absorbing the game for now. I still haven't fully figured out how turrets work and I have a Katana as my current "flagship". I want to be able to do the spray and pray turret stuff like from The Expanse. I saw a capital one destroyer doing that the other day and it was the coolest fucking thing. Like I just parked my light fighter and watched it in awe.
I've played X3 for a bit but I think X4 might be with me for a while. I'm really digging it. I do wish the more rooms mod gave more rooms to M class ships within reason tho. The Katana bridge is dope as hell but it would be nicer to be able to walk around.
I think at some point those little nodes on the space stations will allow you to steal the plans for modules without paying for them. It's been a few years but I recall that being a thing.