The initial development by the two-man Subset Games was self-funded, and guided towards developing entries for various indie game competitions. The concept for FTL was based on tabletop board games and other non-strategic space combat video games that required the player to manage an array of ship's functions. Combat takes place in pausable real time, and if the ship is destroyed or all of its crew lost, the game ends, forcing the player to restart with a new ship. The player must guide the spacecraft over eight sectors, each with planetary systems and events procedurally generated in a roguelike fashion, while facing rebel and other hostile forces, recruiting new crew, and outfitting and upgrading their ship. In the game, the player controls the crew of a single spacecraft, holding critical information to be delivered to an allied fleet, while being pursued by a large rebel fleet. FTL: Faster Than Light is a space-based top-down real-time strategy roguelike game created by indie developer Subset Games, which was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux in September 2012.
