Faster Than Light, usually abbreviated to FTL, was a fantastic, explorative, spaceship combat and management game with elements of randomized events and roguelike permadeath. As great as it was though, few games have offered a similar kind of experience since, so it's with great excitement that we can introduce you to current Kickstarter project, Crying Suns, which looks like it has a heavy dose of FTL under its pixellated, '80s aesthetic.
Crying Suns puts you in the shoes of a legendary admiral who's been awoken from cryo-stasis by an unnamed robot with severe Matrix-leanings. You then take control of a massive behemoth of a ship, complete with smaller vessels and fighter craft at your disposal and then make your way through the universe. You'll jump from system to system and galaxy to galaxy, fighting enemies, completing randomized events and quests.
But where that was 'all' FTL: offered, Crying Suns is a little more ambitious. It's larger in scope, focusing on larger scale battles than single vessel on vessel fights. It also plans to deliver notable characters to have back and forth talks and battles with. There will be heroes, exploration of systems and planets, and ground fights.
Think a little bit of Halcyon 6 and you'll have a rough idea of what it might be like.
The game has blown well past its Kickstarter goal of $30,000 so is going to be made no matter what you do, but if you want to send some money the developers' way to help them finish it by the end of the year as planned, you can do so on the campaign page.
If you'd like to try out a rather impressive demo of one system in the game's universe, you can download it here.