FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light is a game from new start up Subset Studios. It is a graphical roguelike game focusing heavily on space combat and micromanagement of your star ship's crew and systems. 

Unlike most space games FTL puts you in direct control of your crew, which you will use to man systems aboard your ship such as Helm, Weapons, Shields and Engines. Each crew member is capable of gaining experience depending on how they're used and more experience translates to more proficiency at any given task. Man the weapons system for long enough and your weapons will charge faster etc.

FTL focuses on controlling your ships systems through power allocation. Your ship has a reactor, which provides a number of 'power bars' which can be allocated to power up a system. Systems without power cease to function and at half power will only function at half capacity. The reactor and systems can be upgraded, providing and requiring more power respectively. The exception to this rule are the subsystems Helm (piloting), Sensors and Doors. These subsystems do not draw power from the reactor.

Divert all power to FUN.

The objective of the game is to reach the final sector. Your ship is carrying information vital to the success of your political faction (The Federation) in your war against your opponents (The Rebellion) and you must explore and fight through 7 randomly generated sectors to get to the 8th and final goal.

As with most Roguelike games FTL features random map and loot generation. This can make for some very frustrating play throughs if the RNG doesn't throw up a good weapon or forces you to face off against too many tough enemies early. All in all though in my many runs through this game I have found the randomness to be very consistent and well implemented. 

Each dot represents an FTL beacon. All of them have events of some type.

FTL has two difficulty modes. Easy will be accessible to most players, even those who are not familiar with the roguelike genre. Increased resource gathering and decreased enemy strength really make Easy feel quite breezy (sorry but The Robot Overlords demanded I work one rhyme into this post) while Normal ups the difficulty quite sharply. You will die and die often in FTL.

She's breakin' up Cap'n! I cannae hold 'er together!

FTL will set you back a measly $10 which is an awesome price for a game with this much 
replay value. There is a lot more that I could write on this game and I will probably do up a tips/game-play guide sometime in the near future, so keep your eyes open for that.