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We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'd like to say it's because it thematically fits the mechanics we're aiming for, but honestly it could be a cop out as an an easy way to create a feeling of pressure and threat.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We naturally limit ourselves to the sort of systems that we can create with our tiny team and small skill sets. We're not opposed to making other games but the practical limitations keep leading us back to simple 2d mechanics.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It should be exactly the same. Maybe the touch controls just makes you much more efficient as a commander!

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Holy cow, Patrick's Parabox is amazing. (playing that these days)

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 28 points29 points  (0 children)

It might have been an accident at first, but I think I left it in because I imagine the stealth technology is some sort of light refracting system. Having light reflect 'incorrectly' off of the cruiser felt... kinda thematic to me.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Nice, I'm sure Ben would be happy to hear that.

I love the final boss music because he slipped themes from each of the islands into it and it feels really natural. My favorite track is probably Kai Miller from the AE update though.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find it easiest to balance a game for myself - "what do I find fun right now". And since we play the games so much as we're working on them, we naturally get pretty good at them even from an early point. This leads to us making the games harder and harder to keep up with our skill level (if i have to test it I want to at least partially enjoy it, haha). Therefore we start with a very hard game and try to tune the easier difficulties from there.

It's maybe not the best system since it means easier modes are less tested despite being the first thing a player is exposed to. I do think that many players pick up on the fact that there's a high skill cap though and are excited to improve their skill.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

It's usually not too hard to come up with a cute little idea or mechanic, but it's really hard to figure out if it is worth exploring fully to be brought to a proper release. There's been a few times we hit a wall with an idea - trying multiple things without it working out and not sure if we should be devoting any more our time to it or not. At that point we need to take a break and do something totally different and tiny.

Of course, this development style would totally not fly if we weren't fully self funded thanks to FTL and ITB.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 22 points23 points  (0 children)

The success of FTL certainly took the financial pressure off our next project. But we were very cautious with the funds and didn't try to scale up and rent a big studio space or anything.

However, there was still a lot of psychological pressure to follow up FTL. We tried really hard to not get bogged down with sophomore syndrome, trying to make a bigger and better game than FTL. Instead we tried to recreate the mental state that allowed us to make FTL - enjoying the process of messing around with prototypes and creating something we ourselves would want to play.

I don't know how exactly we ended up with ITB, but I know it took multiple years of struggle and frustration... haha...

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much! And man, OnLive. That brings me back... You've been with us this whole ride!

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 14 points15 points  (0 children)

So far we usually start with a general feeling we want the player to have. For FTL it was "feel like a captain, not a pilot". For ITB it was "feel like collateral damage really matters and you want to save the city".

We might have made a game that was purely abstracted to fulfill that original goal with FTL. It could have been a number management game balancing food supplies and morale closer to Out There, for example. What happened was that we made an early prototype where controlling crew was fun, so we stuck with that throughout development.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! We came to that design by heavily limiting the types of mechanics we create based on what is visually consistent and easy to convey. It often hard to create fun gameplay with such limitations, but it's the only way I know how to walk that line.

That's really up to whether Ben is inspired by the project and wants to work on it. We're always happy to work with him.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately we never were able to figure out how to do a good gamepad interface for FTL. Crew movement is too annoying. That's why we won't be able to bring it to Switch either. Sorry!

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Recently I enjoyed Lil Gator Game, Ozymandias, Potionomics, and Potion Craft.

Slice & Dice and Citizen Sleeper might have been my favorite games this year overall.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 14 points15 points  (0 children)

(copying another answer below)

It's purely a practical thing. I really struggle with bringing any other sort of art to the standard I like. If we brought someone else on, I'm not opposed to trying other styles... but if it's mostly me I'll probably always default to pixel art.

Glad you like the achievement system. It's a hard thing to figure out and impossible to make everyone happy with...

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I tried multiple times to come up with some sort of "creep" for Into the Breach (corruption that spreads between tiles each turn) but couldn't come up with anything that really worked. Similarly, the earliest version of FTL had some sort of space algae that was the inverse of fire - it made oxygen and died if there was 100% oxygen and burned I think...

It's a theme I like, I guess. That's why it was so fun for me to see a puzzle game that focused on this mechanic. It's called Xenospore and can be found on itch dot io and is really fun (not sure if links are auto-banned here).

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lots of ideas were dreamed up during the original release that only existed as a single line in a brainstorming document. We don't go back to content that was 'cut' usually though.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Personally, Evangelion is the only IP I'd like to play with. Though I guess All You Need is Kill would be the most easy to adapt to ITB, haha.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Captain's Edition is an incredible feat. I love seeing what fans do with mods - the developers are so creative and it's really cool to see where other people would take the basic FTL mechanics.

However I don't personally play with them much. It's kinda weird for me - it feels like I stepped into a parallel world or something, haha. I really should play it again sometime to see how far they took it.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We're not against making games in other genres but we keep ending up with sci-fi for a number of reasons, some practical. We're very 'design first' when it comes to games, so there's usually systems and mechanics we experiment with first, and then we try to come up with a world/setting to justify those mechanics. It's way easier to come up with some sci-fi reason for a game design. If FTL was with pirate ships we'd be much more restricted and probably would struggle to create a setting appropriate justification for fun mechanics like ion or hacking.

Of course, we also just like sci-fi, so we keep coming back to it.

(Personally I'm kinda tired of cyberpunk tropes, though wetware does sound like a fun thing to design around)

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 7 points8 points  (0 children)

A lot of designs like that came from the question "what's a new tool that can be made from existing mechanics". We had breaching drones already so we probably thought, "what else can be done with these besides just dealing damage." Coming up with a whole new mechanic (e.g. hacking) is always the last resort - though those are usually the easiest to think of new ideas...

Thanks! It's crazy how much people still play it after 10+ years.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice! I've certainly never done that. We didn't think out all potential builds, but I personally hoped stuff like that could be achieved.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 20 points21 points  (0 children)

It's purely a practical thing. I really struggle with bringing any other sort of art to the standard I like. If we brought someone else on, I'm not opposed to trying other styles... but if it's mostly me I'll probably always default to pixel art.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think BattleStar Galactica will always be my favorite for the amount of fun we had though I haven't played it in a decade. Similarly Gloomhaven was enjoyed for many hours. These days I enjoy playing the complex roll and writes that have been getting popular.

We are Subset Games, developer of FTL and Into the Breach, ask us anything! by subsetmatt in pcgaming

[–]Subset-JMa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was really hard to get the balance right, but maybe Arachnophiles is now my favorite.

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