Approaching Infinity

Truly a hidden gem.

A young cadet scrounges up his savings after his graduation from the academy to set sail for futures unknown... [h1]Approaching Infinity[/h1] [b]Epilepsy Warning: One of the Tentaculon questlines in this game involve you going to a special sector. The effects of going there involves rapidly strobing black and white colors in a very rapid manner. I had to close my eyes each time I went there. You have been warned.[/b] [hr][/hr] [b]Approaching Infinity[/b] is a roguelike, in the vein of Prospector and some bits of ToME4 stuck into its DNA. Compared to its primary inspiration, the work is a bit more gameified, but what you get is a really solid package that is actively being updated by its dev as his sole magnum opus. You are a captain in a very-inspired-by Star Trek universe. Following the fall of humanity's peak, you follow in their footsteps to figure out if there are still remnants of your species out there. What will make itself immediately apparent is that it is arcadey for a classic roguelike and it has a lot of supporting features that help you in keeping up with the difficulty curve of the game. Unfortunately, it is quite easy to drain the core contents of the game, to the point it becomes repetitive. [hr][/hr] [b]Game Cycle:[/b] As with any classic roguelike, Approaching Infinity has a "hunger" system in the form of supplies. Every action taken and part installed contribute to this and your ship has a capacity for it. It thus forces your gameplay loop into: 1. Explore Planets/Shipwreck 2. Consolidate wares and sell them to stations 3. Restock dead crew and lost supplies. What makes this a bit painful is: 1. Planets are large, and only become larger later on. 2. Auto-Explore tends to ignore mobs it already sees, even on its safest (Terrified) setting. 3. Shipwrecks also become larger in turn. Since oxygen is a thing too, a lot of the gameplay loop is exploring as far out as you can, going back to restock oxygen, and then continuing. And double digit sectors sometimes pack areas with up to 4-5 planets and shipwrecks each. Trying to do each sector sequentially will probably become quickly repetitive as such, enough that I just rushed for one of the victory conditions of one of the factions so I could call it quits. The gameplay loop doesn't seem to become more complicated than this, and so the experience stales quite a bit. [hr][/hr] [b]Victory Conditions:[/b] They exist to provide an exit to your game if ever you get too bored of it. Space is infinite, and winning the game is optional, but it being there and metaprogression existing now feels like you might want to clear all of them before starting on an infinite run. [hr][/hr] [b]Game Support, Modularity and QoL:[/b] IBOL, the developer is noted to be very active especially on the Discord. Any issues or recommendations have a big chance of being implemented if sane. He's also big on giving players quality of life and modular difficulty options. Shipyards allows you to customize your starting loadouts for both space and away teams (people who land in planets). You have a Daily Code feature which allows you to use item codes to help with your gameplay, either by allowing you a quick exit out of a planet or a cash infusion or an item. There's metaprogression which unlocks bonuses as you go clear victories, and cheats which alleviate some of the issues I had in the game (e.g. Oxygen), provided you can stomach the idea that modifiers were used in your playthrough. Not all modifiers are cheats though; some of them grant you access to a certain type of space station you unlock during one of the plotlines, or exist to make things harder, e.g. Finite Resources. Medium is a bit too easy and is on the story experience side, and the harder difficulties remove your ability to passively heal on the field, but give you more exciting opportunities and enemies to kill. Space is your oyster; do as you will with it. [hr][/hr] [b]Pros:[/b] - Easy to pick up and play for a classic roguelike - Developer is considerate and gives a lot of bonuses for the player if that's your thing. [b]Cons:[/b] - Can quickly get repetitive especially if you're in the habit of clearing every planet and point of interest on the map. - Victory Conditions sometimes feel like they run opposite to game design. - See epilepsy warning on post header.

My current run has me trading my way up in the galactic market. What better way to do that then to plunder wreckages of lost ships. One of them had a huge slimy creature called a "sponge", who gave one of my officers a disease which made them hum annoyingly and suffer intense claustrophobia, which is bad considering we're a packed trader vessel... Oh and there's gambling machines on the ship and we won the jackpot and got multiple cool bits of scrap, all of whom will be sold back to the people. T'was a good day!

Deep but accessible roguelike. Probably something here for every type of player.

This game rocks! Design, gameplay, art style, humor, you name it! I often find myself playing and saying to myself "Let me just finish surveying this planet. Oh, let me sell my loot. Neat! A shipwreck" and then before I know it, 3 hours have passed. Hats off to the dev(s?)! You managed to mash all of the sci-fi tropes/franchises into one and make it your own while being a very addictive and fun game!

Wow. I love this game. It's pretty phenomenal as it is, there's so much to do, although I have tons left to see. Easily my new favourite roguelike obsession. I really hope to see more for the game in the future in terms of content, I know the developer has stated that it might be his only game (aside from the survivors clone he is releasing) but I would dearly love to see a sensual or expansions in the future. Ideally I think, it would be great to see a new game mode that is more sandbox and less typical. That said I'm looking forward to trying the new modes in the DLC. Please though IBOL, consider making a sexual 😍