Wfgodbold sent me some info on this game.
They call it a roguelike which it seems to have a LOT of similarity to (Randomly generated levels, permanent death, open-ended gameplay) but it also has elements of RTS which are a bit of a turnoff to me.
Still there are some interesting gameplay videos on Youtube. Have a look, and if you like it, buy it for cheap!
Me? I’m sticking to nethack! (My Character just got PASTED!)
FTL is pretty fun. I think the “roguelike” term is being thrown around in a lot of places it doesn’t really belong, though. Seems like there should be a bit more to being called a roguelike than “Randomly generated levels and you die a lot”.
Well looking at it I didn’t really see the “Roguelike” side of it…it certainly is NOTHING like the Game Rogue. Still it is an RPG where you are upgrading your ship and crew. The levels are random, there is instadeath. Given how most of these factors are pretty darn rare in games in general, and commonplace in “Roguelike” games, I don’t see why you can’t call it that.
Still all the Rogue games have been single-player turn based RPGs with ASCII graphics, meanwhile this game has simple, but polished graphics, and is a RTS….
If you accept the fact that you are actually playing as the ship, not as its captain, it makes a lot more sense as a rouge-like.
As for it being a RTS, with the pause button (if you are not pausing and reassessing constantly, you are making your game very difficult), it falls somewhere in between. It doesn’t have a dependency on the players ability to maximize clicks per second like some classic RTS games (a la Starcraft).
While it may not be a “traditional rogue-like”, it has interestingly brought more publicity and interest to the rogue-like genera than any other game in recent history.
Not Kerbal Space Program, not interested!