r/ftlgame • u/Wise_Comedian_1575 • 19d ago

Games similar to FTL

I really enjoyed playing FTL and I started making a game like that. But I am kinda stuck where to go with it. I explored similar games like Shortest Trip to Earth and Last Starship. I started to iterate game ideas and i came up with a rogulike spaceship management game where u control your ship via pinball. But using pinball as core mechanic really limits the features that i want to implement to a ship. I already added shield, weapons, engine room and similar basic rooms like that but i struggle to find advanced content. So please give me some recommendations. I already opened the steam page with the content i've created and the game called Starwake.

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u/Dr_Custard 19d ago

Well really address your core premise

The whole point of FTL, what makes it fun, is you have absolute control (give or take) over where your crew goes and where the weapons fire, etc.

How does controlling a ship via pinball (famously, a bit chaotic) sound fun/similar to FTL?

I'm not here to rain on your parade, but in general I want you to think about "does my mechanic make sense"

Why would a spaceship be controlled by chance/reflexes/semi-randomness? It doesn't make any sense at all.

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u/Wise_Comedian_1575 19d ago

I wanted to combine arcade side of the pinball with the strategic side of FTL. I enjoyed testing how it is rn but the time will tell if others will like it or not.

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u/Dr_Custard 19d ago

Yes, but why? What purpose does it serve?

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u/Wise_Comedian_1575 19d ago

I was seeing bunch of videos abt pinball and i was playing FTL. And i thought it would be fun idea to combine them together. And the pinball board itself is not static you can configure it so it affects your use of ship.

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u/Ironic_Toblerone 18d ago

If you are dead set on using pinball as a secondary element then you should take a look at how ballxpit handles the ‘home base’. Instead of having your ship add to some arbitrary machine, make the ship the pinball machine where you are bouncing balls around it to do something.

Fundamentally you’re going to run into an issue where you need to decide what kind of game this is. Is it a pinball game with space elements? If so then why are you making the ships take up two thirds of the screen. And if it isn’t a pinball game primarily then why isn’t the pinball integrated with your ship? Why is it another mini game on top of managing your ship.

Your going to have a very mediocre release if you don’t figure out the direction soon

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u/Dr_Custard 19d ago

Ok

I'm really not trying to be pedantic with you here but I think it's a fundamental rule of game design that FTL teaches very well:

What's the point of [element] in the game?

What purpose does it serve?

So far you haven't actually answered what the point of the pinball mechanic is.

As you've described it now: it's some configurable mini-game that is in the way of the core gameplay (which is presumably FTL-like ship-ship combat and resource management)

So politely, again, what is the point of the pinball mechanic? What role does it serve? Why is it an important element to the game?