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I’m always on the lookout for an odd little roguelike, so imagine my surprise when I see one that’s years old and I’d never spotted before, and it’s the oft-ignored space roguelike to boot? Well, that’s Approaching Infinity, a sci-fi dungeon crawler that’s looking pretty interesting after a few years of solo developer toil in early access release. (Though they’ve been working on it, on and off, since 2013.)
The easiest way to describe it is as a space exploration roguelike where the star sectors you navigate with your ship are the regions you explore with your ship and the wrecks and planets you land on with your away team are sub-levels mini-dungeons you find in the larger environment.
Add a silly sense of humor on top of that and a healthy dose of sci-fi stereotype weirdos to meet and/or pirate and you’ve got a nice little setup for a classic roguelike—though as is often the case these days you can just turn off the permadeath if that’s not your bag.
But there are enough captain archetypes, starting spaceships, and equipment loadouts to claim for your journey that I expect you’ll be fine each time you die. The half-dozen things to try out in the demo were pretty exciting. In a pair of runs I was a military corsair who fought other ships for loot. In another I was a planet-focused explorer and selling my valuable data for a profit.
The developer says you can “fight or make peace, mine asteroids, buy and sell commodities, survey planets, extort freighters, smuggle illegal goods, engage in diplomacy, collect powerful artifacts, choose a side in the galactic conflict, craft, become famous (or infamous), harvest rare plants, grok creatures, destroy the universe, become a god, salvage shipwrecks, avenge humanity.” Among other things to do.
Approaching Infinity has a pretty generous demo to try out, though I’m not sure how much it differs from the full game.
You can find Approaching Infinity on Steam for $18, though it’s on winter sale for $13.50. You can also find it on the Approaching Infinity website.
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Kurt Indovina
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