Subset Games Create Near Perfection
This game studio and publisher takes their time to craft complete experiences.
Making a game is hard. The art style needs to be appropriate, the mechanics need to make sense, and both have to work together for the game to be appealing.. Subset Games has showcased a clarity of vision and the will to see it through, without suffering from feature creep or deviation. Subset Games started as a two-man team, which heavily informed and reinforced the decisions they made going into FTL. The success of FTL drove the creation process behind Into the Breach.
The original Art style of FTL is simplistic to the degree that it’s barely more complex than simple, pixel style works like Dwarf Fortress.. The art style of FTL is most definitely endearing, and it is a clear case for keeping the art simple to allow for a greater focus on mechanics. It could be argued that whenever a game’s art style is limited to this degree that its mechanics MUST over-reach.
The final graphics in the released version of the game are relatively simple, even by pixel art standards, while still interesting and engaging. The ships on the other hand, aside from having an interesting outer hull and different styles, are basic colored squares with symbols identifying the different roles rooms can have. . The weapons attached to the ship are given better service, mostly due to the mechanics surrounding them that indicate charge levels and other aspects of their deployment. The characters are the simplest and least interesting part of the game, visually at least. Rather, it is the travels and experiences of the crew that give the characters their depth, perhaps more than a thousand more pixels could have.
Tying the whole of the mechanics together into one cohesive package is the “Rogue-like” aspect of the game, creating a randomness to the universe that drives exploration and flight equally. The constant threat of the rebel fleet behind you mixed with the demands of your ship’s fuel and ammo. The random events are bound by two constants, the fleet will always be advancing behind with every jump made and there are only eight sectors to move through before reaching the end.
Into the Breach was created after the success of FTL and had a larger budget and breathing room for the creators. They still opted to go for a relatively basic pixel art style, though far more involved than FTL. It was visually pleasing and animated in ways that the player could directly engage with, rather than being admired from a distance like the backdrops in FTL. By intentionally committing to a style similar to the one explored in FTL, Into the Breach can match mechanics to art in a clean and cohesive manner.
The art style of Into the Breach is decidedly more advanced than FTL but it maintains the same spirit.. The team did not necessarily have to choose a pixelated style. Looking at the complexity of the game as a whole, a more 3D oriented style could have been achieved, something more in line with the X-COM inspiration that the game draws on. Instead, they developed a unique game using their own style, with a primary focus on the mechanics with an art style that complimented that.
With the updated graphics came a clarity in communication, allowing different status, attack animations, and effects to be shown to the player in a visual manner rather than the somewhat clinical style of FTL. Replacing a random screen shake from the impact of a missile with a crunchy splash of ichor and gore after a crushing attack from your mech communicates an entirely different feel. Where Into the Breach has a visceral feel to it, FTL has an almost clinical, commanders chair aspect to its visual communication that is wholly different.
Simple mechanics done in complex ways can have an exponential effect on a game, leading to anything BUT a simple game. “FTL” and “Into the Breach” both involve very simple mechanics. Resource management feeds into the harsh Risk versus Reward system built into the rogue-like exploration of each game’s maps(The eight Sectors in FTL and the 4 Corporate Islands in Into the Breach).
Players in FTL are forced to manage a layered series of systems, each of which are very simple in their own right. Fuel, Oxygen and specific ammo are all grasped in the first few sectors that are traveled through and the first enemy ships that are fought. The strength comes whenever these different systems are layered together, creating a complex tapestry from simplicity that in turn creates a nearly unending form of game-play.
Players in Into the Breach still have to address Rogue-like mechanics as well, and though the resource management is seemingly less intense, it is very similar, but applied in different ways. Rather then fuel you have a power grid, which can be damaged during battles and replenished through a one time- purchase at the end of an island, or through completing special objectives during battles.
Taking the fuel mechanic and essentially spreading it across the entirety of the game and making it a resource to be “defended” rather than expended is an interesting take, and the game is better for that. Other resources are almost side notes; reputation is used to purchase upgrades for your mechs and power cores are used to power those upgrades but the game can be completed without interfacing with either of those (there is even an achievement for doing so).
“Form follows function,” is a long idolized architectural principle that has found its way into nearly every walk of life over the last century. When it comes to the IPs in Subset Games’ catalog, this ideal is evident, and it creates beauty in its own right. Keeping a tight grip on the scale of your creation is the best way to take a game from its initial idea to a successful launch. The clarity of purpose that being a small team gave the studio fully balanced the lack of manpower needed to make a more artistically robust game. The limitations placed upon the studio in its infancy informed the mechanical and artistic directions they took and helped keep them fully melded and cohesive. FTL and Into the Breach clarify and build upon principles put into place by the most primordial games in our industry: Solid mechanics will create solid games.
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder and when I look at these, I see beauty.
Sources:
https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/3/12/4090522/the-opposite-of-fail-the-story-of-ftl
