My principle with run-based games is that I have to be making forward progress on a semi-consistent basis, even as incremental as it may be; it's an intriguing framework that uses RNG in place of a considerable amount of level design work, one of the first instances of AI algorithms taking over what would normally be a human's job (see how you like it now, artists and musicians), but one that can be overindulgent to the point of mindless repetition. There comes a time where I want to make a game that a person designed and built, not robots, but I don't think that's a complaint you can levy at Void Bastards in particular: the game not only benefits from a very distinctive personality ("Britspacepunk", though the development team Blue Manchu actually hails from Australia and Canada which I suppose are Brit-adjacent) but an equally distinct way of going about its loop of looting derelicts of anything valuable and using those parts to create or upgrade the weapons, tools, and key items you require.

In Void Bastards, the player controls a procession of "clients" (prisoners) of the Void Ark which are revived from packets of powder to rescue the ship from its current predicament: being lost in the dangerous Sargasso Nebula. Similar to its namesake sea, it's a mysterious region of space known for trapping passing spacecraft and transforming their crews into mindless space zombies. However, this also creates an opportunity to avail oneself of anything on board if they can overcome the hostile zombified population and the equally hostile security measures. The usual loop has you crafting a specific item needed to further the plot, but in the meanwhile you'll be gathering vital parts—usually one per ship, sometimes more and sometimes fewer—to craft weapons and tools to make life easier for you and your successors. That is, every weapon and tool built will be passed onto the next rehydrated prisoner, allowing for some permanent progression. As the ships in the nebula are randomized it's not really a big deal if you let your current dude die, though it will also mean losing all the supplies you've stocked up like ammo, fuel (needed to move between nodes; if you have a lot, you can skip dangerous ships if you'd prefer), food (needed to not starve while moving between nodes), and merits (a special currency earned through exploration that can be spent on unlocking better loot nodes, switching the allegiance of gun turrets and patrol bots once you have the right tools, and accessing special functions on various terminals like using the Helm terminal to reveal all enemies on the map).

The game's flow isn't wholly distinct from something like Heat Signature, which also had you jumping from one randomized spacecraft to the next in search of treasure and glory. It's paramount to learn how to react to enemy types by packing the right weapons beforehand: you can bring a firearm, an "indirect" weapon which includes grenades and stealthy spike launchers, and a tool which might include a taser or a robot kitty that trundles around distracting enemies. With specific enemy types different weapons work better, so for instance the "patients" enemy are a swarm of disembodied heads that each require ammo to defeat: for those, a spread weapon like the shotgun-esque stapler or an area-of-effect weapon like a grenade would work best to kill them all in one go as a group. Weaker foes like the "juves" or "tourists" can be dealt with by using smaller weapons, saving the explosives and big guns for the tougher foes like the burly "screws". That edge, plus randomized ship variables like total darkness or an enemy health debuff not only keep the game from feeling too repetitive but also often have you reconsidering your tactics and loadouts.

I also got a real nostalgic blast-from-the-past vibe while playing because I recalled an ancient first-person shooter that had you running real-time diagnostics on a barely functional spacecraft you were trespassing on, called Federation Quest 1 (there was no 2, incidentally). Like in that game, each randomized ship has compartments with different functions: the Helm offers you the means to download an internal map that tells you where all the loot caches are, including the specific crafting item you're perhaps there to find; the Atmospherics is where you can top up your oxygen (essentially your time limit); the Generator is obviously where you need to be if the power goes out; while the FTL Bay is where you're likeliest to find fuel. Others tend to be exclusive to specific types of ship: for instance, a medical ship will have an Operating Theater where you can restore a good chunk of your health if you're getting low, making these ships a good port of call if healing from travelling would otherwise take too long. Each ship type offers unique benefits as well as a preponderance of certain crafting item types, ammo types, and other boons like torpedoes (removes troublesome node encounters such as pirates) or warp keys (lets you skip around the map if there's no direct path to where you want to travel next). The game's pretty dense with these "you need to know this to not die" mechanics early on but it takes very little time to get on the game's wavelength and start making sensible decisions, your resourcefulness only growing as you continue to develop new weapons and tools for later ventures.

I had a surprisingly good time with Void Bastards given how few FPS games I play these days. The length isn't insurmountable—the in-client tracker suggests about 12 hours—which I always appreciate knowing before jumping into any run-based game that might not be too respectful of the player's time, the challenge level was always fair and deaths tended to be my own dumb fault for biting off more than I could chew (though the game has a funny idea of what "few" means with regards to quantity of certain foes; in addition to the enemies present upon entering a ship new ones will tend to warp in through rifts if you spend too long there, adding yet another reason to get in and out with expediency), and that cel-shaded style is one I always enjoy seeing in games because it makes them feel ageless, and in this case like some 2000AD gritty British sci-fi comic book come to life (though maybe with some Tank Girl vibes in there too; it has that same anarchic corpo-dystopian flavor). Glad I broke my "no run-based games" rule for this one.

Rating: 5 out of 5.