Ship Shapes: Wayward Terran Frontier
Welcome to Space Gamers Anonymous, my now regularly scheduled meeting for every RPS writer who can't stop posting about space games. I just checked and I am present so the meeting can move on. The point of today's meeting is to accuse me, Craig, of finding another space game when I've already posted about a zillion of them. Well, what do I have to say for myself? That Wayward Terran Frontier is a bit like a cross between FTL and Gratutious Space Battles, where you design your own ship and take into space. I go on to say that you can hop from the outside, where the battle is blasting away bits of your hull, to the inside to see the damage being taken. And that maybe a few RPS readers might like to see it in action and play the alpha? Well, that seems perfectly reasonable. Well done to me. Meeting adjourned.
I *think* I got away with that. Mmmmm, space. Wayward Terran Frontier's interesting for the roadmap the developer has set: a persistent universe where people will crew ships, take missions, loot, and most importantly adventure. All the stuff we expect from space. The server host will act as a dungeon master, creating a particular environment for the players to thrive or survive in. Ship choices are pretty complex, with you linking systems, and worrying about potential air breaches. It puts me in mind of a more complex, less event driven variant of FTL.
Of course, he still has to build that. At least he's someway there. And here's a half-hour long developer look at the game. It's in very early alpha, so it's not gorgeous looking, but I think it has a functional charm.
Here's the wee video demonstrating the damage that got me investigating the game.
The big difference between this and 90% of all the other games-o-space that I find myself staring at is that this one is actually playable.