FTL: Faster Than Light

Been playing this for many years, and it's always one of those games you come back to. Simple game, but so addicting and fun

fun :)

Small game but addictive. Not for you if you don't like loosing.

Amazing game. Hard to say anything that hasn't already been said. Quite literally the only downside is the lack of an official endless mode.

A maddeningly well-balanced game, where after an initial learning curve, the balance will be at, "you will lose the game, but you will come close to winning." I assume that eventually, one might actually win. But there are a lot of systems to learn, and most of them are easy to use poorly at first. At first, you'll likely attempt the game at Normal difficulty. This is a mistake. The game has eight sectors, and I often lost by sector 2 or 3. Eventually, I realized I should try Easy difficulty instead. That helped. I made it to Sector 5, and the next time, all the way to the boss in Sector 8. To be honest, it was a small miracle I'd made it that far, and the boss quickly reminded me that I had no business being in Sector 8. The next time, I was more successful, and reached the boss stage with missiles firing. I was quite chuffed with how things were going, until I realized that while I was making progress, I was also almost out of missiles. Once they were gone, my progress nearly ceased, and my ship was a sitting duck. Closer, but no cigar. The third time didn't go as well; I conserved missiles, but with inadequate defenses, was unable to make use of even as many as the prior time before my ship was destroyed. Deciding to switch things up, the next attempt got off to a fantastic pre-boss start, so I bought a Crew Teleporter module and attempted to engage in some boarding action. This proved to be a horrendous mistake. The first teleportation was onto a weak rebel ship, but I forgot that it was an autonomous ship, with no oxygen, and my boarders quickly asphyxiated. I hired more crew at the next station, and tried again, this time being sure there would be oxygen. Unfortunately, my weapons were too successful, and the rebel ship broke apart with my boarders still on it. I did eventually manage to successfully board a ship with my two last crew members, but I have since steered clear of teleportation, not because there are no rewards, but having learned the risks of the maneuver. Back on a stay-on-the-ship strategy, my fourth attempt that reached the boss was my most successful, and I still think I may have defeated the boss had I made better use of my drones. But ultimately, the boss dodged my last volley and then destroyed my ship, at a time when it had only two hitpoints, no shields remaining, and only one functional weapon. The margin of defeat was so slim, yet it was still defeat. Attempt five was my first with top-level cloaking against the boss. This proved useful, but using it most effectively proved difficult. Just because one [i]can[/i] hide one's ship right now doesn't mean one [i]should[/i], as it depends on what the enemy's offensive strength is at that time. But in the heat of battle, it is all too easy to overlook it when the optimal time arrives, because there are fires to put out (literally), breaches to patch, and the oxygen level in the ship has fallen to 1%; it's a miracle that the breach was repaired in time and only one of my crew asphyxiated. And that's the beautiful chaos of the game. Everyone thinks they have a plan, until they realize that the oxygen module has been out of commission for far too long because they were focused on getting the weapons and drones back up and operational. The tradeoffs are numerous. Which module should be upgraded next? Or should one save to buy a weapon, augmentation, crew member, or whole new module? How much to keep in reserve for random events, versus spend immediately to maximize the odds (and minimize the damage) in the next battle? Should one seek out danger and potential reward, or avoid it? Many decisions are situational. If I'm low on fuel or my ship is damaged, my willingness to spend on anything else is reduced, and sometimes all stops must be pulled in order to reduce damage and survive a bit longer - it does the Federation no good if the Kestrel is destroyed trying to be the hero in an inconsequential battle. So, twelve to fifteen attempts in (more than half did not reach the boss sector), I'm still learning the game, and there's a lot more to learn. I've unlocked two non-default ships, and quickly realized that they play very differently than the base one; they will be a process of discovery all their own. And I haven't even touched the Advanced Edition content (which is disabled by default); the last thing I need right now is for a promising campaign to be derailed by a new alien species. It's hard enough dealing with teleporting Slugs. Highly recommended so long as you accept that losing is fun.

The music is awesome. The game is hard and rewarding.