'FTL: Faster Than Light' Postmortem: Designing Without a Pitch

The creation of FTL: Faster Than Light began with the desire to experience what it would feel like to be the captain of a starship. Many games have focused on space battles, but few games have focused on what happens in the ship itself. By focusing on a high-level goal of experiencing a singular feeling, and developing it with minimal preconceptions about FTL's gameplay, Subset Games was allowed to frequently alter or abandon aspects of its design, which eventually led to the game we know today. In this 2013 talkMatthew Davis and Justin Ma share their creative process as they take you step by step, from concept to crowdfunding to release.
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[@egoalter1276]

"We're out of food, half the ship's on fire, and the cargo holds are overrun with giant scorpions." No that's one hell of a pitch.

[@midasmagnezone4282]

I wonder if that was in some way inspired by their IRL stories

[@PanjaRoseGold]

Midas Magnezone summer of ‘97. Man, you shoulda seen what that toyota endured.

[@charlesballiet7074]

you should watch the animated series here on youtube based on this game it is a work of art

[@crimsononaut_in_space]

Lemme change that "Were out of missiles, half of the ship's is on fire, and were being over runned by mantis boarding teams"

[@SecretlyStarscream]

I'm really glad they gave in to the demand of having a "save" function. It's one of the things that really makes this game as enjoyable as it is, that you don't have to commit to like 2 to 3 hours of gaming at once just to do a run.

[@slovnicurling9808]

I don't understand why they were so much against save and quit. I think they were afraid of save scumming but people who want to save scumm will find a way and people who really just wanted to save and quit get punished.

[@kevinwillems8720]

Yeah. Like I often do anyways, but now it's my fault instead of theirs lol

[@FreshApplePie]

the "negative feedback loop" really is a core part of the game, there's so many near failures I've had where I've had to scrape by, every victory like that feels like it's luck or deserved, barely winning keeps the game exciting

[@mechm1nd]

But somehow they managed to create system so balanced that you can win almost every time if you know game very well and play without mistakes. There are runs on when streamer plays all ships in succession in one session and wins every time.

[@texteel]

no, it doesnt. "Barely winning" invalidates all progress, or at the very least the "feel" of progress. If you upgrade stuff, you want things to become easier. If things arent becoming easier, progress doesnt feel good

[@PanjaRoseGold]

texteel Play a metroidvania, not a roguelike.

[@slovnicurling9808]

@@texteel "you want things to become easier" no YOU want things to become easier

[@texteel]

@@slovnicurling9808 than go basic kestrel without any form of upgrade (new system, reactor, shield, crew or whatever) and fight the flagship

[@HardyRyan]

I love FTL. Ive played over 300 hours and think it's one of the greatest games ever made - seriously, it's that good. It has almost a Tetris level of perfection.

[@HardyRyan]

"Some upgrade paths are far better than others if you care about defeating the end boss on a run." Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me this strategy game employs....strategy!? 0/10!

[@DKarkarov]

"Pick one of two.. Choice 1 = good. Choice 2 = bad." You realize that is not strategy right? When one choice is universally superior to another there is no "tactics" to picking the clearly superior choice.

[@paulbrookfield4133]

You guys were definitely not playing the same game as I did if you thought there was only one way to get anything done. Also, there is definitely strategy because some choices only make sense based on your current game's situation, how much RNG you have between you and death, and how you navigate. If you're not counting any of that, then well... all games are choice 1 = good, choice 2 = bad if you want to boil everything down to purely logical, boring choices that way.

[@araisikewai]

It's not as simple as that. There's always RNG involved in picking choices, granted though that if you don't have the correct crew member to deal with a situation the gambling choice is more likely to be skewed toward a bad result.

[@ahouyearno]

>>Some upgrade paths are far better While that's true, in most runs you don't have the option to go for the "best" path. Yes, boarding is superior to all but requires heavy investment, luck with stores and a decent crew. Flak weapons are superior to most other weapons but, again, that doesn't mean you'll get those flak weapons. The strategy is in making the best of whatever options the game throws your way and often that means making very hard choices.

[@Syberi388]

About halfway through this video, I forgot what I was doing and went to play FTL again after some years. I had a run that was just nuts: Engie Cruiser with two Ion II's, and a fire drone. Every ship I met burned to a crisp and by the time I faced the boss, I was almost fully upgraded and nigh invincible. I just love this game so much. I can't imagine any other rogue-like coming out that could top it.

[@Xune2000]

They were able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!

[@seanwarren9357]

Xune The perfect recipe, really.

[@tube71000]

But sir, I'm not Tony Stark.

[@TheKenttt]

I can't not hear that in Obadiah Stane's voice lol.

[@Oscaragious]

1:00:40

[@TehJumpingJawa]

Fascinating how such a wide and rambling design space, which could have easily gone off course or collapsed entirely, quickly coalesced into the game we see today; a cascading chain-reaction of ideas.

[@giampaolomannucci8281]

Sadly. Lots of things could be learnt from these stories

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

+BoboTheEpic Yea and its like 99% of them. This 2 guys are incredible luckers.

[@AnonyMous-og3ct]

They had the discipline to remove what wasn't working, and early, before it became too costly to go back... like a disciplined artist going back and redoing his drawing to fix perspective and anatomy issues before going into detail. That kind of rambly and wide design space doesn't work if the devs lack this sort of discipline and ability to evaluate their own product.

[@trequor]

@@ScienceDiscoverer Honestly i dont think its luck. They seem to be incredibly disciplined as artists. They don't fall in love with their ideas. They dispassionately scrap (lol) whatever doesn't work

[@phillystevesteak6982]

I really like this observation of how theyre artists who did not allow themselves to fall in love with their own ideas in order to be as objective as possible. I think thats something 99% of artists - including myself at times - could learn from. @@trequor

[@General-Doge]

wow never imagined FTL was inspired by split screen Tetris, but it makes perfect sense!

[@Manabender]

28:00 You know what, I'm actually OK with scrapping ship customization. It sounds great, yeah, but the system of "there's 18 ships you can pick from, now pick one" is actually better in this case. Because, invariably, with such customization, there is going to be one "best" build that you gravitate to. Of course, that's still true of the prebuilt ships; some are provably better than others, but there's still a couple reasons why the array of prebuilts is better. First, it's another layer of difficulty selection; is playing on Hard with a good ship still too easy? Play on Hard with a bad ship. Second, it's a palatable (even if still massively difficult) achievement opportunity; "Beat the game once with each ship" is a viable goal, even if you don't explicitly make it an in-game achievement (because people will make it a personal goal on their own).

[@leandrog2785]

If someone plays this game on Hard with a good ship and finds it easy, they need go out and get a life lol

[@HalNordmann]

But it would be nice if it had more support for modded ships, like placing them in a special category that is always unlocked.

[@N8crafter]

@@HalNordmann fortunately, the FTL mod 'Hyperspace' allows exactly this, the ship mod just needs to have hyperspace support

[@slovnicurling9808]

@@leandrog2785 "someone is better at a game than me so they need to get life" classic

[@CorwinTheOneAndOnly]

I mean it would be a little better if like half the ships weren't just objectively superior/inferior to the other half, and suffer immensely even on their own.

[@Baleur]

44:50 same as Darkest Dungeon or The Long Journey Home. Its a game based on attrition. You are supposed to end up in bad situations where, fixing one thing eliminates your ability to fix another. You're not supposed to always be able to repair and fix everything back to square 1 perfect status after every encounter.

[@charlesajones77]

"Just because you you have some extra money doesn't necessarily mean you can improve the game. You can't just throw money at something and it gets better" - The Mighty No 9 Principle

[@bigchunk1]

I really liked the writing and the music. I liked the concept of the slugs. You two hired well.

[@williams.779]

The negative feedback loops really drive the game design home. One missile, causing a double fire and a breach, can have disastrous consequences. And it’s unbelievably exciting. “Oh god that missile got my doors. I can’t control them. But if I focus on weapons I’ll be fine! Right?” About 25 seconds later, your doors are down, and fires are spreading like crazy. Fires can spread through doors, and you can’t open your vents to drain the oxygen to starve the fires! At that point, you just need your FTL to charge so you can jump to safety. The design is GENIUS! I only got into FTL a couple months ago, but I’m glad these are the guys who got my money. 8 years late, but still. The game was so close, on multiple occasions, to be thrown off it’s current course during development. And honestly, I can’t imagine any significant improvements upon the game. Plus, the modding community is very active, so you can supercharge FTL with TONS of bonus content if you find the base version unappealing. Congrats guys, this game rocks. Very nice work.

[@TubeRudeYou]

Played the game about 1000 hours. Great job guys. A bit of learning curve, but with deep and varied gameplay (be sure and pray to the RNG god, haha). It's heartening to hear that a shared passion and vision can create a great things.

[@MarcusAseth]

first 80 hours playing this game I never managed to beat it, then after that something clicked in my brain, maybe I started seeying this game patterns more easily, anyway 100 more hours after and I had finished it on Normal difficulty with all the ships types and variants and it actually felt really easy as well. (actually also finished once on hard, just to see if I could) Just wish you guys had put Steam achievments though, so I could brag about it :)

[@snarfymcsnarfface2323]

hey there's steam achievements and trading cards

[@frantisekzverina473]

I always started the game as: "I'll just play a quickie for 40min and then go do something productive"....

[@ocksee]

It helps so much when the devs are half decent at presentations. GDC should offer a free course for their presenters to help improving their speaking or performing skills. There can be really great information in some of these videos that people can easily miss if the presenter is boring or hard to listen to. With some simple changes, it could make better content for GDC and provide better learning opportunities for people watching.

[@vlorenzosoleri]

I love that their initial ideas were straight up Halcyon 6, which came out just recently

[@billygowhoop]

i've played around 80 hours all on easy and I think I've beaten the game once lol. still an amazing game

[@oopsimdead2578]

i've also put lots of time in, all on easy, and never once beaten it. love the game though. really fun.

[@Gaiacarra]

The game's not too random, you just got exceptionally lucky that time, is all. That kind of thing will happen one every hundred games. I win fairly consistently and it's not because of random windfalls like that, it always feels like the natural result of dozens of strategic decisions over the whole game.

[@artstsym]

Yep, a lot of it is working to find exactly the weapons that will help you beat the game. I feel like if you don't have some combination of multishot weapons and Glaive (or similarly ultimate weapon) by sector 6 or so, it's usually worth restarting, because you are not going to beat the Flagship. Unless you're using the Fed ships, of course. Those are quite easy to beat normal with (maybe 1 in 8 wins or so).

[@Gaiacarra]

@Meris Exactly the opposite. Being good at FTL means knowing how to use a variety of different item combinations. If you're only able to win if you get exactly your favorite set of weapons, that just means you're not very good at the game. I used to always go laser weapons, boarding, cloaking device, and I'd be fucked if I didn't get those. Then I learned how to supplement insufficient lasers with a nice beam weapon, and my success rate went up. Then I learned how to beat the flagship without boarding, and my success rate went up more. Then I realized that hacking can be used to supplement insufficient firepower and it went up some more. Recently I started using drones, which I've always completely ignored, and now I'm winning even more often - I saved a recent run where I was struggling to find good weapons by grabbing a drone control instead.

[@artstsym]

I've beat the flagship with almost every loadout, and still find superior firepower, cloak and hacking to be the most successful and enjoyable by far. It's not that the other ways are ACTUALLY impossible by any stretch of the imagination (boarding is obviously great if you can make it work, for example), but most of them are quite frustrating, and I don't have fun playing them.

[@Alkis05]

"It is so damn hard having all this success! People just care too much for our game!" I wish I had that problem =P

[@gabrote42]

I am now tearing through the GDC archives and this one is interestingly different. This is one of the first games I watched on YT and I owe it so much

[@jeremyfischer2260]

@23:33 I think there's an incredibly important and much wider lesson hidden in this point, by following only one goal they eventually "stumbled" on something.

[@cantecleer]

This game is a masterpiece. I think it is one of the greatest games created, ever.

[@PanjaRoseGold]

45:56 That applause is spectacular

[@noxabellus]

I wish I could meet someone who would go "live in a cave" and make a game with me...that's awesome

[@midasmagnezone4282]

I'm up for making a game: maybe not the live in a cave part. Unless there's great food.

[@chrishill601]

34:17 I remember one of the 'tips' that showed up when you started a run. "Remember, dying is part of the fun! No, really..." (I might have one or two words wrong, it's been a while since I've actually read any of those tips.) I saw that on about my third run, and it was one of the things that told me I was on the same page as the developers. And it wasn't just a love of bashing my head against a wall, it was that in this game in particular, losing *was* fun! Because the 'progression' between runs, for the first while, is what you learned before you died. All the little things, like shields being a super important early upgrade, or the fact that if you shot the enemy life support, they freaked out, and **always** sent someone to fix it, which often meant the pilot, which meant you could make them a sitting duck easier that way, than trying to take out 2+ levels of engine or piloting systems. So, yeah, I'm glad they kept it as hard as they did.

[@connorjackson5037]

So this talk was before the Advanced Edition? I noticed they kebtioned hacking didnt make it in but it is found in the AE

[@theinstigatorr]

connor jackson look at the date on the slides

[@AsbjornOlling]

Releasing for linux was a fantastic idea.

[@volbla]

This was a great talk and i love FTL... but now i want a Sim City style space commander game, where you manage a giant ship or an armada.

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

Look up Starsector if you haven't heard of in the past few years.

[@thomasdrinkmoore9827]

I agree, the soundtrack is absolutely great. I have the title music as my ringtone :-D

[@TheKenttt]

45:54 It's kind of sad that the game industry is at a point where so many people are putting micro transactions into their games that saying that you WON'T be putting them in gets you a round of applause. 3 years after this video and it's even worse.

[@martinkrauser4029]

That's just the video upload - the presentation itself is from 2013.

[@sleeperservice1178]

Awesome! This was gold to watch, keep up the great work! Looking forward to whatever you might be doing next.

[@R4V3-0N]

I couldn't agree more. Will be taking screenshots, notes, etc and putting it on my imgur gallery of "pre release"

[@tartrazine5]

11:18 I always when a burning enemy ship surrenders, but then ends up blowing up a few seconds later anyway.

[@DubsBrown]

The one thing I think FTL needs is Co-oP (two ships traveling together, no pause) because this game is so good it needs to be shared. Plenty of friends are willing to try a multiplayer game over a single player one.

[@sameoldrocket]

This is really a great break down of the building of the game. I learned a lot from this.

[@mattcat83]

After hearing their comments about bringing in a writer at 32:30, it's amazing to see how differently software engineers think than those working in more creative professions. Isn't it obvious that aliens with the ability to power machines by their mere proximity would have an interesting backstory?

[@AnonyMous-og3ct]

Actually the vast, vast majority of devs I worked with at least (along with me) could geek out for ages on the back stories and lore of such things. The difficulty is that most of us lack the skill to write about it beautifully. So if we make the analogical chess game and we lack the writing ability, we don't write a backstory for the pawn, the rook, the bishop, knight, queen. They're just pieces on a board -- and we vary the way they look and can move and attack and just assign names like "pawn", "queen", "knight" without daring to go into detailed backstories (which we lack the writing competence to do). The game might be more interesting with skilled writing, but most of us programmers lack the ability to make that chess board come alive through writing, and the game is pretty fun as it is as a board game with "pieces" instead of real-live people with backstories, and a "board/grid" instead of a detailed "environment"... it's better to not do something at all than to do it poorly, so to speak. That's not to deny the importance of the writer whatsoever -- I think they're the most important element in creating a believable world that feels lived in and alive, and I especially find it unforgivable when AAA studios seem to ignore the importance of skilled writing, but if we can't afford one and we lack the skill, I think it's better that devs focus on thinking about the game this way without attempting to go so far with the writing themselves (make the gameplay sufficient without the most detailed and skillfully written lore). And I think the devs of FTL knew how much the writing could enhance the content since they hired a pro writer the moment they received the funds to do it. Actually the devs of FTL are practical and objective as I see it. That's one of their strengths. They ditched their overarching designs when they realized they couldn't get them working (unlike some stubborn devs who stubbornly delay shipping indefinitely), they didn't attempt to do the most intricate writing themselves, they hired a writer the moment they could afford one, hired a full-time musician the moment they could afford one, etc. It takes a more egotistical and absurdly ambitious developer, unaware of his own limitations, who lacks the funds to hire a writer to think he can create a game with detailed lore and depends on that lore as an integral part of the gameplay by writing it all himself. Similarly a writer might avoid filling their novel with lots of illustrations if they can't afford an artist and lack drawing ability, but I doubt writers would think of illustrations as unimportant or less creative or even less important than their writing (they just have to choose writing a book absent many illustrations or even fancy cover art because they're playing to their skillsets and limited resources). But I resent "more creative professions" a bit because while we lack that sort of ability of a skilled writer, there's a lot of creativity and imagination involved in coming up with gameplay and rules and graphical capabilities and controls and so forth, and coding itself is a medium through which we express such human ideas and designs and imaginations... it's a very technically challenging medium admittedly with lots of constraints, but so is music with its chords and scales and harmony and dissonance and timbre and so forth, so is architecture when buildings can't just be aesthetically pleasing but structurally sound... so is human language to some extent with grammar and spelling, so is visual arts with perspective and anatomy, so is building an animatronic creature for a special effect in a film, and so forth. Any medium which can be said as containing "mistakes" is going to be at least a bit technical in nature, but not necessarily "less creative".

[@cortster12]

Outstanding game. Very rarely does such a small team create such a well polished game.

[@thedangerroom7747]

I loved that the ship unlocks were more or less random events you just kinda waited for. It makes all the many, many failed runs have more meaning if you get a sweet unlock.

[@joeblack4436]

If there's ever an FTL 2 then I hope it's more laid back space opera, and less inexorable deadline of doom. Planetary and station interaction. Being able to revisit systems, all systems i.e. open world to some extent. It's such an interesting ship simulator not much has to change there apart from maybe new layouts and hull art. It feels like there's different types of games that can be made with it other than roguelike.

[@tremor3258]

45:48 Man, so glad they updated the unlock system for AE.

[@hariman7727]

Yeah. Around 1/3 of my total playtime was unlocking the Crystal ship BEFORE the easier Crystal quest line patch. That was a nightmare of flying the Rock ships and hoping to get the correct events that I don't want to repeat.

[@DigitalEelRich]

Weird Worlds meets Red November. Great game! Groovy playlist-worthy music too.

[@Siaynoq8]

As much as I love FTL, I wish they had done more with the endgame. I guess I'm kind of addicted to unlockables though, and it's nice to just keep finding and unlocking rare things through multiple playthroughs. I also still think a multiplayer FTL would've been very interesting. Co-op or PvP.

[@Trepur349]

yeah, I'd love to challenge my friends to a duel in FTL.

[@BrenLynne]

Great talk! I'm really looking forward to Into The Breach! Best of luck!

[@hadorstapa]

Fun to hear about the ideas cut for bloat risk that came back in the Advanced edition, and that they kept them out of the way of new players by having the Advanced Content option on the ship selection screen.

[@XanderHDD]

Great talk. Thanks. They mentioned developing in Shanghai, Anyone else have any recommendations for places to live and develop?

[@DingoAteMeBaby]

love that they mentioned weird worlds!

[@politicallycorrectredskin796]

Very talented people.I love how since RNG was one of the few things people complained about with FTL, Into the Breach was arguably just as good but with absolutely no RNG.

[@zejugames5045]

Except buildings can resist Vek damage!

[@bertiedev6478]

awh man, the interactive stations sounds awesome out of everything they cut i wish they kept that.

[@itsraventm]

and it ended up being the best game ever made

[@ahouyearno]

This game makes me feel like Admiral Adama from Battlestar Galactica. And if a game can really convey a unique feeling like that, it's a good game.

[@ChesterRico]

Very insightful. Good way to design games, the indie way.

[@futuremutant]

This an amazing insight into gamedev

[@Syberi388]

Simply inspirational.

[@SquirtleSquady]

One of my favorite games all time

[@artstsym]

The main problem I have with FTL isn't that the Flagship is too hard, it's that the rest of the game is too forgiving. It rewards you a bit too much for specializing, when bringing a ship with a single focus (except for specializing weapons, of course) to the last sector is just going to leave you smeared across space like a bug on a windshield. In particular, almost no ships before the final boss use drones, so the player rarely (if ever) has a reason to invest in serious countermeasures there. That said, I love FTL, and it's def in my top 25 list somewhere.

[@Sixfortyfive]

I don't think it's accurate to say that specialization isn't rewarded or viable. I've personally beaten Hard mode with various ships that lacked either weapons, shields, or a medbay/clonebay. If you're prepared and resourceful, then you can tackle the endgame in a large variety of ways and still find success. It's more accurate to say that the boss's unique qualities (artillery weapon systems, drone surge, laser surge, and AI backup system) require unique planning that isn't required for any other encounter in a 3-hour game, and that that could arguably be a negative when pretty much all other enemies in the game play by most of the same rules that the player does (mostly the same weapon selection, mostly the same power/system limitations, can be defeated either through hull destruction or crew kill, etc.) and that there's really no warning about the flagship's unique qualities ahead of time for a new player. It's pretty difficult to come up with a plan on the spot when a lot of the rules you're used to are thrown out the window at the last minute. But even then, you could also make a counterargument that the flagship is easier to prepare for than some other late-game encounters because the flagship is the only enemy in the game whose build can't screw you over with a bad RNG roll. As long as you've seen it before, then you know what you're going up against in advance, what to expect, and how to deal with it. An expert, veteran player should typically have less trouble against the flagship than, say, an enemy drone ship in sector 1 when you're flying one of the shield-less stealth ships. Or a random 5-shield slug ship equipped with 3x Burst Laser IIs in sector 7.

[@Jaydee-wd7wr]

@@Sixfortyfive , I think the trouble with the flagship is that it hard counters boarders, fire-starters ect. You have to use brute force, niche sub strategies are impossible to pull off because of the auto-pilot.

[@Sixfortyfive]

@@Jaydee-wd7wr Boarding is extremely effective against the flagship on Easy/Normal and still viable on Hard; I buy a teleporter for most of my runs and it gets heavy use. Fire can still be effective when paired with a Hacking system, especially on Hard mode, where hacking their shield room and starting a fire in there makes it an extremely efficient hazard as the locked doors on all four sides of the room impede their crew's ability to get in and out of the room before they die. There are definitely a few things in the game that are useful against just about every encounter *except* the flagship (defense drones are an excellent solution for missile defense... until you get put up against the flagship's triple missile launcher with infinite ammo), so there's at least some frustration to be found in specifically addressing those concerns, but there are still lots of options for dealing with them. Again, I've completed one run where I never powered a single weapon or drone of my own from start to finish.

[@texteel]

@@Sixfortyfive I would argue that the flagship breaking the rules makes the rules themselves obsolete. Whats the point of having hitboxes in dark souls if random skeleton #6178964 hits you from 5 meters with a basic sword? Similarly, the best bossfights in the Devil May Cry games arent the walking buildings, but the dantes and vergils, that use the same moveset that a player would Write a better AI, and design a better boss, but still use the EXACT SAME limitations the player is subjected to. If you cannot write a challenging boss fight within the same rules you have for the player, then you, as a designer, have failed.

[@thewisenoodle1116]

game design geniuses

[@333iceburg]

These guys are awesome.

[@Catishcat]

0:43 - Yes, of course you should expect to have Halberd beam and Burst Lase II xD

[@Marinealver]

It is a shame that they won't do a follow up sequel to FTL. FTL 2 would be awesome.

[@DedicatedAngler]

Mantis B type represent. Away mission hype!

[@yourjunes]

I want that first idea. A huge vessel you could manage sim city style. Lets go FTL devs make it happen.

[@p3l1k44n1]

I want FTL 2 to be a thing.. Also how about a FTL game but with pirate ships instead? hmmhh??

[@asdfddfsasd6414]

not quite the same but "Pixel piracy" is somewhat similar game with pirates, but its different, but first, check the steam reviews, it seems to be dead now, and buggy af

[@Aaronlcyrus]

We need an FTL that's an open world RPG

[@HaganeNoGijutsushi]

The one thing I would want for something like FTL is perhaps a more leisurely pace of exploration and the chance to make use of tactical maneuvering in battles.

[@Aaronlcyrus]

Making choices more than a coin toss as to what will happen. Your choices don't actually matter in FTL as it can go to shit either way, so it's all luck based. The illusion of choice. Same thing in fallout 4.

[@paulbrookfield4133]

I never lose a game on Easy and Medium, so no. I completely disagree that it's just luck based with the illusion of choice.

[@lukasostar3008]

HOLD UP, WAIT A MINUTE... THERE ARE MODS FOR FTL? time to get back to the cave, then

[@lowkeybeams5663]

Great game guys it's amazing. Good job!

[@ToshioThunder]

@8:00 Can we talk about how his crew is a bunch of cats? Why did this not make it to the final game :D

[@aFewBitsShort]

That core focus could be anything.. It could be a certain type of visual aesthetic.. It could be one game mechanic that you want to be really focused on.. They claim to have no pitch and yet have a core focus. The pitch is just a way of describing the core focus.

[@neilbedwell7763]

i get what you are saying but their title is catchier than 'developing without a specification'

[@dontcallithzzzln]

A pitch for FTL would have been like this: "A Rogue-like space-game with combat and random text encounters. You micromanage your crew to maximize the results of the different systems of your ship. You (and your enemies) can target specific rooms to take out specific systems of the ship. Combat is pretty abstract, there is no movement, but there might be boarding parties. The random text encounters can have positive or negative outcomes, depending on your choices, your ship's crew and equipment, and might lead to combat. Story is negligable. Replay value is added in the way of achievements and unlockables." Cue 10 pages of potential weapons, ships, and encounters. The core focus that they talked about was "Dude, wouldn't it be fun to be the captain of a spaceship?" and then, like they explained, they just followed the fun. Check out Pulsar: Lost Colony. That game has a comparable premise (what would it be like to crew a spaceship?), and it and FTL share some aspects, but it feels completely different.

[@Wylie288]

I just want this game on Android. Its a perfect mobile game I have other things for PC

[@tartrazine5]

One of the few iOS exclusives that I would miss on Android. That and Dream Quest.

[@sharkofjoy]

This is the only game I really want on mobile.

[@Lightkie]

I would even say, just release the source code. There really is no compelling reason not to, especially considering the achievements are in-game only. Get free platform ports in return.

[@c477um11]

It's out for ipad as well which is just more frustrating because there isn't an android port.

[@icedragon769]

It works on ipad, because it's easy to port from a 15" desktop screen to a 11" tablet screen. It is impossible to port from a 15" desktop screen to a 4" mobile screen. This game would not be fun whatsoever on a phone.

[@roguedrones]

CAPTAIN'S EDITION MOD FOR THE WIN

[@bzqp2]

Postmortem?? It's 2020 and it's still alive and well :o

[@andy4an]

wait, there is an easy mode? i think I might have kept playing after the first 5 loses if I could have reduced the difficulty.

[@joegshanahan]

Was that Jake Birkett asking the first question? Or just some guy with a very similar voice?

[@AssassinFOURnolan]

The game has a new community centered around a massive content mod and overhaul called Multiverse. Try it out if you haven't yet!

[@misterbeach8826]

Though it is a great game, this talk perhaps is a good reminder of one-hit wonders. They had one great game. That's it. Ignore their talk on how to do design without a pitch, or how to handle it. Why? Because their next game(s) did not even get close to their first success, which we call in the industry a one-hit-wonder.

[@lexbotkin3100]

Into the breach was still pretty good

[@zxxNikoxxz]

I really loved that game, I played over and over again but never won the game, without modifying the game file.

[@itsraventm]

what made you stop? I have never stopped playing.

[@chriswahl1337]

I'm pretty sure I've listened to this talk before, but with my current project remaining pretty "nebulous" as they described FTL was at a time, I feel this talk is super relevant for me right now.

[@catch.22]

Doing a Sci-Fi Mud... People underestimate text load honestly. Doing it without interns or extra writers, for a few hundred paragraphs even, is just absolutely staggering. I'd be lost without my girlfriend on back end.

[@plarkmoby]

I'm really looking forward to their next game. If they're making one...

[@Amphidsf]

They recently announced one. Into the Breach

[@plarkmoby]

I heard the other day, cheers for the heads up anyway!

[@thedumbdino9224]

i still LOVE the game

[@TheTrueReiniat]

Is it just me or the early ship art looks better than what we ended up with?

[@cachotognax3600]

YOU_WILL_LOVE_EACH_OTHER they wanted to have a details and dynamic ship, but since they had to cramp all the game info on one screen, including everything about the other ship, they went for a simpler design

[@Marinealver]

Well it was more detailed but I can see how it was not very functional. I like what we have now. I just want MOAR! FTL 2 please? We will Kickstart it!

[@dwarfie24]

They have stated they are tired of FTL, and want to soemthing else. I translate that to no more FTL ever again. Which in my personaly opionion is good. Shouldnt track back to fields they already have plowed. Let other guys do that. Also their newly anounced game look soooo awesome.

[@Marinealver]

dwarfie24​​ We know we know. I also know we can't have everything we want, but that doesn't stop anyone from still wanting it.

[@dwarfie24]

***** Ah yeah thats cool mate, just making sure people arent needlesly wasting their time on it. after dreams are what runs the world. Checked out into the breach btw? (PS also there are lots of really good ftl alikes)

[@looga]

41:50 does anyone know if he actually posted these slides?

[@starlightkristal9856]

I am a FTL fan, and this in open world would be cool, but again there is Tachyon, where you can play with friends and try to beat the servers.

[@AnonyMous-og3ct]

The guy on the right seems much more sensible and interesting about game designs and mechanics than the one on the left. Probably the gameplay was owed more to the right and things like graphics more to the left.

[@thepgo666]

They say so right at the beginning of the talk . The guy on the left did "art and half of the design" and the right one "programming and other half", so naturally the one on the right would be more knowledgeable about mechanics.

[@pop_ulation]

they did a really good thing.

[@Alridx]

13:35 Wait, does he pronounced it weird or is that the english pronunciation? He says Tet-ris, I know it as Te-tris

[@gd7681]

I’m not sure how tet-ris and te-tris are different to pronounce?

[@jemmapellemma8185]

Awesome video. And I love this game. BUT SRSLY WHAT THE HELL?! After seeing this: WHY IS THERE NO CAT ALIEN RACE!?? :'(

[@JollyJoel]

Wow their prototype had a lot of rooms on their ship... I wish it had that. I can't wait for FTL 2. Hopefully make it Single Player first then add coop and/or pvp.

[@Lark993]

they're working on a new roguelike turn based strategy game with mechs, looks like it's going to be for pc/android and looks pretty basic

[@JollyJoel]

malibu Where did you get this information?

[@Tuxfanturnip]

Jolly Joel They released a trailer; it's called Into The Breach, you can probably find it on KZbin

[@snarfymcsnarfface2323]

hey uh Into the Breach is out if you forgot about that

[@DeJayHank]

Why do people pronounce Linux as "Lunex" ?

[@Bradatimrkonja]

I knew this was inspired partly by firefly :)

[@robosergTV]

Where is FTL 2 ?

[@Amphidsf]

It's not coming any time in the Foreseeable future. Subset has recently announced a new game they are working on however.

[@Wulgare]

I think it's much better to do another game than a sequal since it's very hard to make another ftl game that is as good as first one... or even better. you would have to copy all the things and then add a lot more functions in order to feel like a new game.

[@helloofthebeach]

It went into the breach.

[@nlysts]

Try multiverse mod

[@UlyssesCrab]

I’m such a nerd 😂🤦‍♂️ They said they wanted it to feel like you were Picard rather than the pilot. But Picard wasn’t in charge of the crew, Riker was. So strictly speaking they wanted the player to feel like Riker

[@martinlisitsata]

It'd be a great game to get someone else to play for you while you sit in a big chair behind them wearing red and black pyjamas shouting "Target their weapons systems! Divert power to main thrusters!" and have that actually mean something.

[@sketchesofpayne]

After hitting the 100 hour mark playing on easy I had all the ships unlocked and a 25% clear rate. I've played more since then and switched to normal difficulty, but thought that was a milestone worth mentioning.

[@michellesanctuary9089]

They should do an amazing ultra HD 4K Remake of this classic FTL. I would buy it right away! ☑️ ✔️

[@heartbox1541]

do you realize how difficult that would be for a small game company? Besides, it's all abstracted anyway.

[@darkshadowsx5949]

is it even possible to beat the game on easy without cheating?

[@ajz2k]

yes

[@DJZ3XY]

Easy is easy, normal feels impossible to me

[@lindholmaren]

DarkShadowsX5 easy is super duper easy at least with the basic layouts

[@spudozaurus7975]

Can confirm it is possible, I have beaten it on hard with all ships, but it took me 450 hours of my life :'(

[@rowdy35967]

High engines, level 3 shields, and cloak and you should be good to go. I prefer flak, high burst lasers, or chain vulcan. Fire in a salvo to burst through shields, then open up when they're compromised. SPACEBAR IS YOUR FRIEND.

[@Obyvvatel]

If you spend enough time you work out some strategies for winning the game, but you still don't win like 33% of the time.

[@FlatlandsSurvivor]

Obyvvatel even on normal and considering myself an expert, about 50% of runs end in failure.

[@cortster12]

I can win almost every time if I'm not playing with the DLC enabled. With the DLC on, the variables blow up a bit too much to win almost every time.

[@Obyvvatel]

I like advanced edition, because flak cannon. OP

[@canebro1]

In the height of my playtime easy was about a 90% win rate, normal was probably 60%, and hard was in the 10-20% range. It is a bit ship dependent, but you learn how to manage the randomness.

[@saykhia]

Large flagship game with thousands of crew members. Maybe pick up a 40k licence since GW is throwing them around these days. I would throw at them ALL THE MONEY

[@Kneenibble]

Justin Ma is pretty cute.

[@soundrogue4472]

36:53 that is where I would disagree. A rogue like BENEFITS from a bunch of content and different type of content! Look at Dead Cells one of the best Rogue Like games I've ever played! A TON of content and all that content would slowly be unlocked for you over time!

[@MiraPloy]

Yeah they were a bit too early on the refinement of the roguelike concept. FTL was made a very long time ago and not having everything available at the start is standard for roguelikes now.

[@soundrogue4472]

@@MiraPloy I mean yeah because of choice complexity.

[@tomasxfranco]

Why do people think releasing games without a savegame system is ok? People shouldn't have to tell you to add it.

[@itsraventm]

i think you mean a quicksave system, which would ruin it.

[@Jorgy411]

shut up and take my money