Six years ago, when FTL: Faster Than Light released it seemed like everyone was playing it. The game was very well received and it spread from PC to iOS devices, where it was equally loved. While there’s a good chance you played FTL at some point between now and it’s 2012 release, six years is a long time and maybe the urge to jump back into the game has been gnawing at the back of your mind.
If that’s the case, you may be interested in Shortest Trip to Earth, a new strategy game from Interactive Fate, published by Iceberg Interactive, and recently released on Steam Early Access.
To be clear, I was never great at FTL, so six years or-so later I am unsurprised to find myself making a mess of things during my first voyage in Shortest Trip to Earth. My crew was starving, I had pissed off a nation of space rats, my guns were either on fire or out of ammo, and my shields were holding about as effectively as a screen door in a hurricane. Things were not looking good.
Everyone eventually died, but I learned a few tricks along the way.
Since Shortest Trip to Earth is a rougelike game, dying quickly was expected. The game rewards you minor successes with Legacy coins that you can carry with you into your next run. These coins can be used to buy minor modifications to your ship to slightly improve armor, increase storage capacity, and so forth. I like these kinds of systems in roguelike games as they keep me from feeling like I totally wasted my time when I get particularly far and die to some random bits of bad luck.
Shortest Trip to Earth has a lot more to manage than FTL did. Players have a larger pool of resources to work with and the ship can be modified with a wide range of weapons and utilities that can affect the outcome of a voyage.
In addition to the resource management systems and perk system, there are random encounters in each solar system. One planet I approached had ctulufants (think elephants mixed with Cthulhu) that promised me a priceless artifact if I helped them decimate a group of pirates who had been giving them trouble. I agreed to help the strange creatures. The assistance cost some of my crew their lives, but in the end I received….well, I don’t remember what I received because it was so useless I scrapped it almost right away.
While Shortest Trip to Earth is very similar to FTL, one clear improvement was the actual space combat. It felt more engaging in this game than it did in FTL. The major difference here is that you can manually aim and target specific sections of the enemy ships, and the engaged ships are together on one screen. In FTL you’d have a mini screen showing the enemy ship, but the presentation was strange. You could shoot a laser straight across your main screen, and then on the enemy ship’s screen the laser would come across at a different angle. A rocket could then fly on that same trajectory yet appear on the enemy’s screen at a completely different angle. I suppose it was to simulate the ships flying around, but with the two static images, it always felt like a stretch to imagine them flying around. Shortest Trip to Earth handles this by having your ship and the enemy’s ship(s) literally facing one another. You can watch your lasers and rockets fly right from your guns, soar through space, and hopefully impact right into the enemy ship.
Assuming you enjoyed FTL, Shortest Trip to Earth will also appeal to you. Even if you’re a relative newcomer to these types of games, Shortest Trip to Earth has a great tool tip system. Hovering the mouse over nearly any item brings up a concise description of the item and its uses. Whether this is your first mission as a roguelike space captain, or you’re reporting for duty with an impressive resume, Shortest Trip to Earth is certainly a game to keep your scanners locked on to.
Check out Shortest Trip to Earth on Steam Early Access.
A retail copy of the game was provided to Epic Brew for the purpose of this preview.
