# Breaking My Rules I've been low on updates for one simple reason: *FTL: Faster Than Light*. In conversation I've compared it to early Civ, but in terms of its effect on me it's been more like *Touhou*. You play hard, harder than you've ever played before, and then you're defeated in the last sector in a way that, and this is key, never quite manages to feel unfair, even if you feel you never made a mistake. In that respect it's even worse than *Touhou* - at least there, you screwed up and walked into a bullet. In *FTL* you can often see your eventual defeat slowly creeping up on you from two sectors away, as your hull plating depletes and you run from foes because your weapons can't defeat them, and then you have no resources with which to upgrade anything and by the time your ship actually crumples it was all but inevitable, but you can't help feeling that you had a fair chance if you could've just *been a little bit better*. I mean sure, you can't defeat the big boss without the right weapons, and even if you spend half the game scouring all the shops for weapons then there's no guarantee that you'll find them - or be able to afford them when you do. But you have enough freedom, *nethack*-style, that it feels like every single game should be ascendable with perfect play. I've defeated it now, so hopefully I can get back to writing. But first I want to have one more run with the new Federation Cruiser... [Home](/) <div id="disqus_thread"></div> comments powered by Disqus