Captain Sucessor Forever

Captain Forever is a game by independent developer Farbs, a former employee of 2k Australia who after quitting his job in a spectacular fashion developed the acclaimed Rom Check Fail. It’s a free to play in browser game in which you play as a small spaceship constructed from Lego-esque parts, shooting other ships and bolting their parts onto yourself to create bigger and more powerful ships. Captain Successor is the paid version, it costs £12 and opens up far more parts, because they’re in many ways the same game, I’ll be talking about both here

Captain Forever:

Is in many ways Captain Forever is a simple game, there are seven keys, move up, move down, strafe right, turn right, strafe left, turn left and fire. So far, so Asteroids, but the unique hook of both you and your enemies being constructed of interchangeable Lego blocks, you attempt to incapacitate an enemy ship (by shooting the cockpit) without damaging it’s parts too heavily in order to attach them to yourself, stitching together a ghoulish Frankenstein’s Monster of a ship. While there are only a few blocks available too you, guns, engines and one or two block hull pieces, you can assemble them in any way you like, from simple boxes with guns at one end and engines at the other to giant cathedral like death palaces (credit to @ex0 for that ship).

Components range in strength on a phonetic alphabet scale from Alpha to Kilo, with each having it’s own colour, ranging up from simple greens and yellows (Alpha and Bravo) to the iridescent rainbow blocks of Kilo. One of the loveliest features though is that each grade of weapon fires at a slightly faster rate, with it’s own musical pitch, meaning that cobbled together crafts with many different weapons create a strange music all of their own.

It’s an experience that veers rapidly between relaxed and frantic, while the other ships are usually around the same level as you, occasionally the sight of a neon pink cruiser will see you scurrying away in a panic. Adding to this is the curious decision to have you construct your ship on the fly between engagements, meaning you are frequently ambushed before you can execute your masterful designs. While I can see the logic of putting pressure on the player, the fact that the majority of my deaths when playing came at this vulnerable juncture was more than a little frustrating.

Ultimately Captain Forever is a fun but shallow affair, exactly what one should expect from a free browser game, and while the excellent ability to save your ship configuration and send it to a friend gives it some extra longevity, it isn’t going to divert for for any substantial period of time.

Captain Successor:

Given the lack of depth in Captain Forever, one could be forgiven for not wanting to play £12 for what appears on the surface to be a souped up version with a few extra gubbinz, but in reality Captain Successor offers much more. While the main, and indeed only substantial addition in the paid for version is additional parts for the ship, adding these actually changes the game substantially. Whereas previously only two things, quality and quantity of parts and the player’s ability to manoeuvre, impacted on combat, the addition more variety allows a whole new dimension of strategy.

A ship equipped with sniper lasers for instance, has improved range but reduced rate of fire, allowing the player to kite around and destroy his foe from afar, but a ship equipped with sprint boosters and ramming spikes might easily nip under his guard and tear him to pieces. Prismatic lasers fire in multiple directions, covering a broader area but meaning care must be taken in construction lest one shoot oneself to pieces in an embarrassing fashion. Bubble shields block a small amount of damage but regenerate between fights, translators offer little forward thrust but can turn on a dime, the combinations are near endless.

However this endlessness itself provides a bit of a problem, the minimalist, in character menu was perfectly acceptable for Captain Forever, but for the expanded version the lack of documentation makes things problematic. I still, for instance, have no idea what this pulsating ball called a ‘blurst shield’ does, and the game itself provides little information. Captain Successor strikes me as a game which would thrive on having a community that could trade tips and discuss builds, so the lack of even an official forum, never mind a manual, seems like a poor decision.

Final Summary:

Captain Forever is simple, fun, pretty, shallow and free. Captain Successor is deeper and more tactical, but also costs money. While I’ve enjoyed the latter far more than the former, I can’t see many gamers deciding to put their money on the line for it.

Captain Successor – 76%