Space Rogue

not to be confused with the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/569200/]1989 game of the same name[/url], this is an ftl clone with really nice graphics and music, though not as good as ben prunty's ftl soundtrack. same gameplay of jumping through nodes, encountering random events, fighting ships in pausable real-time combat, etc. unlike ftl, where you have to cross your fingers, do a rain dance and sacrifice a goat to maybe pull off a ship unlock through random happenings, here all you need is perseverance. leveling up over multiple runs unlocks more campaigns, still with randomized galaxies (4 total, 1 available in the beginning), starting ships, perks and difficulty settings. [b]less resource management and the exclusion of a pursuing threat and time limit[/b] are welcome changes in my book. random everything ♥♥♥♥♥ you over all time anyway, but at least [b]fuel and ammo are of no concern here and exploration is less limited and stressful[/b]. there are still cooldowns on weapons and gadgets but you're not just rushing through everything, though always pushing forward is possible if that's your preference. [b]what I found most frustrating is the inability to target enemies on-board.[/b] crew can only be moved and they shoot if there's something in the same room, but if the enemy keeps moving who knows where, it becomes really annoying. medium and hard modes offer greater rewards but even medium is a lot more difficult. on easy I cleared the first 2 missions with ease, on medium I died after a few encounters. [b]custom difficulty[/b] lets you tweak pretty much everything from galaxy size to jump limit, damage to rewards and health. on top of upgrading the ship, crew members also level up during runs, increased hp, damage, repair, even specializations, but everything is lost when a run ends, naturally, and [b]if the captain falls, it's game over regardless[/b]. mining is another option in certain places (tritanium is the second currency, used for ship upgrades and gadgets) and crew placement can be saved and restored, don't have to reposition them manually over and over. plus giant space monsters on top of various ships, pretty cool. decent amount of settings available anytime, though there's no menu icon, only pressing esc works. resolutions, windowed mode, very separate volumes, rebindable controls, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, toggles for depth of field and bloom. handy mouseover [b]tooltips for everything[/b], including system upgrade benefits, and the game [b]autosaves constantly and on exit[/b], and keeps a backup of when a new sector is first entered. interactive tutorial but only highlighted things are clickable. [b]the only thing missing is a ui/text size setting[/b], some of it is a bit small. and a pause/unpause icon to click for 100% mousability, and maybe fast-forward for when you're just waiting for oxygen to replenish. also, no scrollbar on the galaxy map and with multiple active missions, not all the descriptions might be visible. [b]would've been nice if completing a campaign automatically unlocked the next, skipping the grind.[/b] doing everything thoroughly and relatively well in the first only landed me on lvl3 and the second mission needs lvl4, then the second left me at lvl6 but mission 3 unlocks at lvl8. due to the nature of the game, every run is pretty much the same with different flavor text but I still wanted to do all the campaigns initially. then I realized how much repetition I would've had to endure to get to the next story bit and decided to move on. still, it's pretty good overall if you like this sort of thing.