Tactical spaceship sim Shortest Trip To Earth is out today
End of a five-year mission
Brendy seems to have taken over my mantle as the RPS deep space explorer, which is fine. I’m definitely okay with that and not at all outside the bushes of his house right now, slowly planning to turn his abode into a vacuum. And while I’m definitely not there, I found out about Shortest Trip To Earth, a game that’s been around Early Access for ten months. The tactical space disaster sim is just about to upgrade to a full-on release this very day.
Your ship is fleeing across the galaxy while dealing with all the various calamities that space offers. It looks like FTL, but there’s a lot more to it, leading into areas of micromanagement that the classic space-rogue never dealt with. There are layers of detail in how the power thrums through the wires, and how your crew’s skills are managed.
It has a whole asteroid field of words to mine, and everything I’ve read so far makes me want to read them all. It has a similar off-kilter atmosphere to the Weird Worlds series, with aliens inviting you to provide crew members for a non-lethal tasting party. Space is strange, and it definitely reflects some of that.
Its cautious captaining and wordy wandering is very much a thing I’m eager to dip into. The game has been on its own five-year mission to release, a mere blip in galactic terms, but it’s definitely a long time to be polishing a game. I’ll be playing in the not too distant future and hope they managed to fulfil their plans.