Out There (in Infinite Space)

[MojoJojo]

So this is a recent mobile game that's been getting pretty good reviews. And it is pretty good - the best description I've seen has it as a cross between a spaceship management sim and a choose your own adventure book, which is fairly accurate. You travel from star system to star system, replenishing your fuel, oxygen and iron and dealing with random events and the occasional alien species. New technologies and repairs need rarer elements. There's a discovered narrative and a captain's log full of hangman's humour and desperate isolation.

But I don't want to talk about that. Many reviews have referenced FTL in trying to describe Out There, probably because they're both sort of indie games with spaceships in and people have heard of FTL. But the more accurate reference would be Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

I've been playing SAIIS[nb]I can't help but think part of the reason for it's commercial failure is the long name that's not SEO friendly[nb]which is a point of comparison with FTL - FTL is short and googles well, but evokes nothing and is intensely boring, as titles go. The title equivalent of a tax dispute. Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is undeniably clunky but creates the image of silly fun that we should want from space ships and little green men[/nb][/nb] and it's sequel off and on for 10 years now. I always felt that it didn't get the recognition it deserves - it anticipated the indie scene by a good few years and came out at a time when games  that didn't it neatly into one of the 4 approved genres got chucked in a pile labelled weird.

SAIIS has a great sense of fun about it's randomly generated galaxies. In between collecting rare animal species you might catch a galaxy famous thief with a toy or blow up a few suns to stop an invasion of giant space faring beetles. Games are designed to take no more than 20 minutes so everything feels quick paced with very little padding to your adventure. You don't have time to get too attached to your playthrough which means the randomness isn't annoying,

It's a shame the combat never really worked.

Anyway, maybe it wasn't as much a flop as I believed - the first sequel, Weird Worlds, has been ported to iOS&Android. Weird Worlds is a big improvement over the first game and it's the version I've played most (although I haven't tried the mobile version yet). There is also a new sequel in the works, Sea of Stars. Maybe they'll get the combat right this time.

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is free for Mac and PC from the developers here - http://www.digital-eel.com/sais/

Weird Worlds is on Steam for about £7, or £4 on Android.

Strange Seas is available on early access for £7 or as part of this £3 bundle - http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/the-intense-bundle/