FTL: Roguelike in Space?

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. I make no apologies, I like “some” reality TV. I don’t talk about it much on the blog anymore because I don’t think people are all that interested, but I still watch. If it’s a decent show and it’s shown on Netflix or Hulu Plus, it’s something to watch while gaming.
Anyway the premise of that show is that five actual real businesspeople, the “sharks”, listen to pitches by would-be entrepreneurs, the “chum”, and if they like what they hear, they invest. It’s an American version of the UK’s “Dragon’s Den”, a show I have not seen.
I don’t have millions of dollars, but I do have a few, and right now some of them are being sent to entrepreneurs who pitch their products on Kickstarter, asking me for my money, in return for rewards. Largely, I have been investing in gaming products.
I was checking up on the progress of some of my investments today when Kickstarter suggested I take a look at FTL, a kinda retro space based rogue-like.
They had me at “space based rogue-like”. So after I invested, guaranteeing myself a DRM-free copy of the game when it is completed in August, I took them up on their offer to actually play the game in its current shape… on OnLive.
OnLive is a service that lets you play games as a stream. You don’t have to have the actual copy of the game, or even hardware that can run the game well. All you need is a fast internet connection. OnLive runs the game on their servers and streams the sound and graphics to you (hence the requirement for a fast internet connection). They had FTL up as one of their independent games festival winners, I played it a couple of times.
The game isn’t really a rogue-like. There’s no way to save and death means end of game — but that’s where the rogue elements end. You don’t get the treasure with the odd names you have to figure out. It has real time combat, not turn based. You don’t have a character on the board. I’m not really sure why they call it a rogue-like.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game, though. You’re given a ship with some crew and a number of ship’s systems, which must be kept in good repair, by sending crew to repair it in real time. Your job is to keep the ship intact, the crew alive, the energy allocated, the missiles loaded and so on as your ship, the Kestrel, struggles to keep ahead of the rebel fleet. The enemy, when you encounter them, can target specific ships systems, set fires, hole the hull and so on. I was happy to see I could extinguish fires by venting the atmosphere into space 🙂
You’ll meet allies and enemies as you warp through the sector to the exit system on each level. Take too long exploring and the rebel fleet will catch up to you and kill you. Take too little time exploring and you will miss friendly encounters which can result in new crew, weapons or other helpful items — or in unexpected calamity.

The demo ends after finishing two sectors. To make you understand just what sort of worm you are, you’re destroyed by the ultimate power of destruction in the universe, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
It’s a cute little game. Not a rogue-like, but it looks like it’ll be fun. It’ll come out on Win/Mac/Linux.
I was very impressed with OnLive. I’d always assumed I wouldn’t have the internet connection speed to handle it, but it worked very well for both FTL and Assassin’s Creed II. I tried their 30 minute free trial. No loading or patching or anything, just went right into 16th century Florence… after the prologue. I was very impressed.