Captain Forever (Pre-Launch)

By: Derek Yu

On: September 8th, 2009

Captain Forever is the latest project of Farbs (ROM CHECK FAIL), and his first commercial project since he quit his job and became a full-time indie developer. In the game you pilot the Nemesis, a spaceship which can be modified with scrap parts taken from enemy ships. Despite the relatively few types of ship parts in this version and the limited scope of the game’s world, I found Captain Forever to be quite enjoyable – the pacing feels brisk and there’s always another ship design to try (or admire) on the horizon. This makes deciding whether to fight or flee and how to do it a blast.

Although there’s no demo for the pre-launch, Farbs himself gives a few good reasons for why you should or shouldn’t buy it now ($15 for pre-launch, discounted from $20). Personally, I’m glad I got it early, because 1. the game is already great fun, 2. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s coming in the supporter-only updates and 3. it’s easy to want to support Farbs, creative and lovable bastard that he is. You might also check out the TIGSource thread for more opinions about the game.

TIGdb: Entry for Captain Forever

Posted in Browser Games, Highly Recommended, Shoot-em-ups | Tags: Farbs

derp

is it just me or is there no demo?
yomomma III dawgington

So there no way to play without registering? I can’t understand the interface
raigan

You’re never going to be able to turn that boat :)
http://b-mcc.com// BMcC

Yarr, I was going to post this today!

I don’t think there’s a demo, but having played this game extensively, I can say, without doubt, it is totally worth the support. Captain Forever is extra, extra good. You will lose hours to this.
http://fortedante.blogspot.com/ Forte Dante

I concur, though its understandable that people might want to demo it before purchasing. Might just want to wait for this version to become free in that case – you’ll miss out on the $5 discount for the support version, but you’ll be able to decide whether you want it or not.
FISH

INDIE GAME OF THE YEAR
http://0xdeadc0de.org Eclipse

fuckin’ awesome
hurr

LIKED IT BETTER WHEN IT WAS CALLED TUMIKI FIGHTERS
jimmykane

+1 to the calls for a demo.
http://www.woggleknot.com Adam

Love it
GC

+1 to the calls for read the post.
http://www.ponged.com/ LAD

Great! I might try this afterwards.
Derek

I tweaked my post and added a note about there not being a demo (yet).
Ezuku

Just by looking at the screenshots, no idea what sort of game this is. Need demo. Incidentally, GSB beta is out, need article on that.
raigan

Man.. I don’t know what’s hard to understand about this, if you actually visit the game’s site it’s very clear what the deal is, and there’s a video and everything — you can even read the damn manual.

So are people just not bothering to follow the link?!
Melly

People in the internet are notoriously lazy. They need al the nformation as concise as possible right on their face.
Melly

information*
Derek

Am I the only one that doesn’t want to know exactly what I’m getting when I buy a game?
Quazi

reminds me of a game concept i half programmed already, except the construction was higher detail, and parts affected your weight, speed, thrust, maneuverability, energy storage, energy charge speed and more. its a working ship editor/ save&loader, the ship physics and movement are all working, the only thing missing really is enemies and levels
Synnah

Oddly, the screenshot above was enough to convince me that I wanted to play this. It gives as much information as I needed; shoot-’em-up, ship-building mechanics, obvious nods to Warning Forever. I may end up paying money for this in the next few days (Though that decision was largely influenced by the response in the forums).
jimmykane

Hm. I’ve read the post, I’d read Farbs’ website for the game before it was even linked here, and I’m aware what the deal is, I just felt that I wasn’t willing to “take the plunge” on what I’ve seen so far, and that a demo might sweeten the deal just now. But hey, I’ll wait.
http://www.necessarygames.com Jordan Magnuson

+1 to support Farbs.
bored2de4th

I figure we’ll have to trust the TIGS cronies on face value and send money to FARBS if we want to be part of the cool gang.
http://www.farbs.org Farbs

That’s a great plan!
th15

Woohoo! You go Farbs!
MisterX

Derek: I’d love to know nothing about games I purchase other than that I’ll like them. I thought about this considering movies and that would just be so great. Not having a clue what to expect, but knowing it’s going to be good.

Anyway, unfortunately that is hardly possible, so if I plan on buying something without regretting it afterwards, I need some information on it to guess what I can expect.

Though, that’s not related to this specific case. I think it’s obvious that Farbs doesn’t intend to make Captain Forever playable without purchasing it right now.
xerus

This game is fucking amazing.
http://iterationgames.blogspot.com/ jph_wacheski

Seems like a reasonable buisness model to me, what to play it, pay for it,. perhaps a tad too old skool for some.
My only concern would be ppl with odd hardware setup that pay and then have some problem running it. Perhaps a rolling demo (non-playable) would take care of that,. but by the looks of it it should run most places. and it do look rather interesting,. although the building looks to be more the point than any actual fighting with the lumbering constructions,.
dposse

I really wish that this game was freeware. It looks just as great as Warning Forever.
george

I don’t think the free version is that far away, but for the record it runs perfectly on my 4 year old x41 laptop/windows XP/flash player 10, which is not exactly a blazing setup.

Anyway, the game is awesome.
jumps

i have no doubts that this is going to be the most exceelent game i have ever played. today. (or last year)
Epitaph64

I love to see a good idea come to life with good programming.
Pharrous

argh… stuck in CHINA… no youtube to video
looks GREAT
but where to order it???