High score

This is a scene inspired by 2012’s Faster Than Light (FTL) - a game in which players sometimes have to make questionable moral choices if they want to win.

Around deep games like FTL there is often a group of players who attempt for some sort of a record. For a community like that to form, the game has to have a sufficiently high skill ceiling, and FTL is exactly like that: easy to start, hard to win, with many interlocking systems resulting in non-obvious behaviours. FTL rewards manual dexterity, long-term planning and deep knowledge.

One record that is attempted in FTL is a win streak, which means going for as many wins in a row as possible. As of 31 August 2024 the no-pause record is Holoshideim’s 124 wins in a row and with-pause record is Neozar’s ongoing 126 wins in a row. To put this into perspective, a casual player might need to attempt the game 20 times to obtain a win, with each playthrough taking 2-4 hours.

Since the game has been thoroughly researched and all multiple-choice event outcomes well documented, players attempting a record (“a run”) will simply choose the option they know has the best outcome.

This comic depicts one such event from the perspective of the virtual crew member.