Two things have happened to one of the best space-captain simulators on the market. First, FTL: Faster Than Light launched its #AdvancedEdition, a free #update that adds a plethora of new content. Second, you can now get the game on iPad.
For those who missed its critically acclaimed launch back in 2012, FTL is a space-exploration #roguelike for PC, Mac, and Linux. You control a single ship and a crew tasked with outrunning an enemy fleet on a randomly generated series of star systems as you attempt to deliver critical intel to your allies. Originally Kickstarted for $200,000, most of the game plays out through ship-to-ship combat where you control weapon, defensive, and support systems by moving your crew throughout the vessel.
So as a developer, how do you make a great game even better? Add more content, enable new gameplay methods, and support new platforms. In other words, think like a modder. Developer Subset Games has been hard at work on all these things since the initial launch.
The game launched on iPad with and update on Steam last week, with it a set of fancy new controls. From the beginning, FTL‘s top-down view seemed perfect for the poking and swiping of touchscreens — most of the game is controlled through mouse clicks—but when playing with a touchpad or Surface Pro touchscreen, the lack of mouse precision was just imprecise enough to be frustrating. The iPad version fixes this. Some precision-based clicks have been tuned for touchscreen input, while swiping motions have replaced others, such as powering up and down ship systems. Everything is intuitive.
The new version includes FTL: Faster Than Light Advanced Edition content (also available as a free update to owners of the original PC/Mac/Linux version), which adds new weapons, drones, ship systems, enemies, missions, and entire ships. More and better everything, basically.
What does this have to do with Linux gaming? Subset Games plan to bring FTL: Faster Than Light to Android and other tablets, as well as to implement the new touch optimizations as a control option for touchscreen PCs.
We could have told you that from the beginning, but we scoured the internet and found this post to share a few simple points.
Reblogged from: wired.com
