Icarus Proudbottom: Starship Captain swaps typing for Star Trek-style bridge command

Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing was a game about typing in much the same way that Frog Fractions was a game about dodging projectiles - ie it wasn't. Holy Wow Studios' game quickly ventured into uncharted, and hilarious, territory - just like their newest project, Icarus Proudbottom: Starship Captain is planning to, it seems. From the looks of things it's essentially FTL as an adventure game/bridge captain simulator, viewed from the perspective of a starship captain rather than some omniscient thing in the sky. The Kickstarter trailer is wonderful. It is also below.

This isn't the first spaceship bridge simulator , of course, but it is one of the first I'll be able to play without having to recruit several accomplices, computers and costumes (hey, you may as well go the whole hog). The voice acting is a little scrappy in the above video, but I think that adds to the charm, at least when the dialogue appears to be so very cromulently written.

In Holy Wow's own sacred words, "to control the IBS Sea Pickle [that's the name of your spaceship], you need to issue commands to your crew. Talk to Digby to set a course or warp to distant planets. Talk to Mark 22 to manage your weapons systems and shields. Talk to Jerry to scan objects and manage your ship's power levels. Talk to Kelso to communicate with other ships or objects."

They do note in big bold text however that IP: Starship Captain is "not an action game, a strategy game, a build-a-ship simulator, or a 4X Space Epic" - it's a "character-driven adventure game & bridge simulator whose goal is to make you feel the pressure and joys of being a captain and communicating with your crew". Essentially it's that bit in Star Trek where Kirk/Picard taunts some ululating alien captain while issuing orders to his crew - I'd say there's more than enough room in this universe for one of those.

If you have quatloos to spare for their Kickstarter , the team are asking for $50,000 to make Starship Captain happen. The money will go towards ensuring they don't "starve to death during this time, or go into financial ruin for life if our appendixes burst". Well, I SUPPOSE that's fair enough.

Interestingly, there are no stretch goals present here, with the fabulous reason given that the team want to avoid "bloat". You'll know bloat if you've played any Ubisoft game made since Assassin's Creed 2, so I hope you'll find Holy Wow's bold decision as reassuring as I do.

Icarus Proudbottom: Star Captain won't be done until late 2015, if it's funded, but you can always play the original game , or the episodic World of Typing Weekly while you wait.

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Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.