FTL - Faster Than Light (PC, Mac, Linux - 2013)

I love independent games, visually they are not always appealing, but for me who's first video game console was an Atari 2600 clone that's not an issue. Games can be fun and entertaining even without cutting edge 3D graphics and Hollywood style cutscenes.

Faster Than Light was developed by the two-man team of Subset Games. The idea for the game came from playing a lot of board games, specifically Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game. The basic goal of the game is to get from one side of a randomly generated galaxy to the other side while being chased by rebels, and fight the rebel boss ship at the end . It's a kind of a suicide mission especially if you play on normal mode, your chance of success is around 10% and you loose everything once you've been killed - you can start the game again.

While this game mechanic could seem cruel you're are not really loosing everything because with every battle you learn a little more, and even without completing the whole mission you can unlock new ships.

You are a commander of a single spacecraft, you have crew members who can control certain systems on the ship (engine, shield, piloting and weapons), so basically you need a four member team to succeed, but you can hire more members which is useful because in the case of your ship being overrun by aliens you can use them to defend important systems on board.

Every system is upgradeable, there are various weapons and subsystems you can install on your spacecraft and there is a total of nine different ships you can choose from - but only one at the beginning, you have to unlock the other ones by achieving certain tasks throughout the game.

There are six different races throughout the galaxy, some of them are friendly, others are not. You can hire crew members from all races, they all have different skills - can be used for different tasks.

One more thing is really great about this game is the music, it really transfers you into outer space, you really feel like a space explorer, drifting in infinity, reaching destinations where no man has gone before.

http://www.ftlgame.com/