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FTL-inspired Shortest Trip To Earth offers extensive free demo, seeks funding

Shortest Trip To Earth

We’ve all dreamed of being a starship captain at some point. Whether you envision yourself as more of a Picard, Kirk, or Han Solo may be a point of fierce debate, but we can all agree that a boundless sea of stars, a loyal crew (or hairy copilot), and your fate fully in your own hands is a heady combination. Shortest Trip To Earth, by Estonian studio Interactive Fate, is the latest to offer this dream packaged up in digital form, and they need just a little bit more money to bring it on home.

Wanderlust for that endless stellar sea got you bad? Here’s your spacey fix.

Clearly inspired by FTL, although citing broader influences such as the classic Star Control 2, Shortest Trip To Earth offers a more detailed, broader universe to bumble around, with larger, more complex ships than FTL and even small fleet-scale encounters as opposed to purely one-on-one battles. The small four-man studio seem experienced as well, with the lead designer having worked previously on the excellent Teleglitch, a low-fi roguelike survival shooter.

Shortest Trip To Earth is already years into development, and complete enough to offer a sizeable demo, letting you play two star-sectors worth. As solid as the foundations are already, game development is expensive and Interactive Fate are asking for at least $35,000 to help get the game across the finish line, detailing that the money will primarily be going on rent, food, and other such life support essentials, as well as licensing of official development tools.

The developers state that the game is effectively feature-complete, mechanically speaking, and the remainder of development time will be focused on content creation. New worlds, events, ships, races, and all the other flavoursome crunchy bits that make a universe feel alive and tangible.

Putting down $15 on the game now will get you access to beta builds going forward, and the full title on release, although there are the usual slew of higher-tier perks for more generous backers. If all this talk of unbound space adventure tickles your fancy, give the demo a look, and tell us if you think it’s worth putting some of your hard-earned spacebucks on.