As a diehard fan of shows like Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, and nearly all iterations of Star Trek (You broke my heart, Enterprise), I loved “FTL: Faster Than Light”. The setting and gameplay did an amazing job distilling what it felt like to sit in a starship captain’s chair without having to take a correspondence course for Eve Online or magically conjuring enough friends with working tablets to play Artemis.

Especially after my crew’s Mutiny last April.

Driving FTL’s simple plot is an enemy fleet chasing down the player’s vessel as they race back to headquarters with intercepted data vital to turning the tide in a vaguely alluded to war. The game is played by charting a course through several sectors using your FTL drive to leapfrog through space sectors. After each jump, as your engines recharge, a randomly generated situation is presented. These can vary from pirate ambushes to paid escort missions or distress calls (the latter two can also end in pirate ambushes). Along the way you acquire resources, salvage derelict wrecks for parts, and barter with merchants to upgrade your ship with more powerful weapons, upgraded technology, and skilled crew members to help take on the increasingly difficult (sometimes maddeningly so) challenges in the course of completing your voyage.

Because who says space pirates can’t be creative?

One of my favorite things about this game is, paradoxically, how unfair it is. No matter what my preferred playstyle or ideal loadout (All burst lasers all day), I’m forced do the best I can with what the game gives me. Sometimes I get a Cadillac build and can lay waste to whatever I come across. Other times I’ll have a horribly un-optimized wreck that can barely escape each jump. Seeing how long I can just survive these play-throughs makes for an entirely different kind of challenge. Even when things were going horribly, the game was still fun.

Or at the very least, it ended quickly.

The sort of decisions the game asks you to make usually had no strictly “right” answer. Often, they came down to a value judgment. Do you magnanimously accept an enemy ship’s surrender or destroy them and loot their wreckage for valuable scrap? Do you risk taking damage duking it out with slavers or pay them a tribute to pass without incident? Do you respond to a distress call regarding “mutant spiders” or just drift on by? These choices all bring different rewards and punishments, long and short term. As you upgrade your ship and crew they, and how you command them, begin to reflect what sort of captain you are.

No option for “cackle maniacally”?

It’s also possible to avoid having to make any of these difficult choices. At each encounter, the player can run away from every fight, plot the shortest course through each sector, and make it to the end as quickly as possible. Playing it safe like this has some appeal. Even easily defeated foes, if engaged, can inflict some damage, which adds up over time and costs valuable resources to repair. This strategy always runs into a bad end though. Upon reaching the final sector, the enemy fleet catches up and at the tip of the spear, the final boss, is their massive flagship.

…

The only way to stand a chance against this daunting foe is a combination of well spent resources, strategies learned through trial and error, and no small amount of luck. One of these is beyond the player’s control, but the first two can only be gained by taking a more scenic route and by engaging with the galaxy around you rather than simply passing through it.

I know it’s just a game, but this is something I like to think of this whenever I’m worried or self-conscious about putting my work out or when I grapple with the benefit trying new things when it may feel in that moment pointless and that it would be easier to just hide; to avoid confronting situations that confuse, frustrate, or even scare me. So instead, I’ll take that improv class. I’ll write that terrible idea for a story if only to get it out of my head. I’ll even publish that essay about an old indie game. I’ll keep on the lookout for things that keep me engaged, curious, and connected instead of expecting things to be delivered to me if I “play it safe”.

Because at various points in my life I’ll have the opportunity to make some sort of positive change for myself. And in between me and my goals, there may be a massive enemy flagship I’ll have to destroy or out-maneuver. When that happens, I want to be as ready and well equipped as possible to do so.

…and the next one too.

Thank you for reading. “FTL: Faster than light is available on Gog, Steam, and the iTunes store. If you want to see more of my overthinking, have a look at some of my other medium.com pieces.