Ooooh wish I had seen this before - I really loved the game. It's almost like sort of a collection of minigames with a smattering of the old Star Control.

A lot of people complained about the "awful" lander controls, but really what it is is like those old gravity based ASCII games you used to program onto school computers. Learning to fire and counter fire your thrusters, getting used to the wind and gravity of particular planets - it's like a dance and I enjoyed it in a zen-like kind of way. There's something satisfying about firing your thrusters in reverse at just the right moment to slam your lander into the ground and plant it there on a low gravity ice world.

Of course I have played Kerbal, so that made the lander and also spaceflight seem a bit more easy and natural. There are all these little threads of story and mission that you pick up and it really feels like a mystery trying to solve them. You can't do them all in one playthrough - heck you probably won't even SEE all of them until you've had several under your belt. And as you move desperately across the universe if you're lucky you start to crack the nut of them.

The only downside is that it almost suffers from what Sunless Sea did. On my favorite setting, the game DOES have permadeath... but obviously it's a longer game where you really get invested in a run. Lose a run in FTL or Invisible, Inc. and you fire up a new one. Lose a run here and it might represent a pretty decent chunk of time and a lot of compiled game actions. I don't remember but I *think* this is optional... but I'm not 100% sure.

I can't recommend the game enough though. I had a lot of fun with it and there's this neat zen like charm with just the right amount of humor and discovery. Oh and investing in weapons early helps a lot. I had my first victory because I beefed up my ship and sort of tore apart this hostile alien race ;)