Strange Adventures in Infinite Space is back, free

(Image credit: Cheapass Games)

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space was a sci-fi roguelike developed by Digital Eel and published by Cheapass Games back in 2002. If you imagine a line extending from the Star Control series to FTL, put your finger on a point roughly halfway between them and that's where you'll find Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

It's about captaining an Enterprise-esque starship as you boldly go where nobody is legally allowed to go, exploring an alien system before it's declared open. You bounce from planet to planet finding alien species to trade or do battle with, discovering new technology, and trying to make it home before the time limit's up. Every game of Strange Adventures should last less than 20 minutes—significantly less if you get blown up by a Tan Ru demolisher near your fourth planet. It's the snack-sized videogame equivalent of a party pie, or whatever you give children in countries where putting beef in pastry is weird.

Digital Eel made a couple of sequels that are available on Steam, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space and Infinite Space 3: Sea of Stars, but the original game stopped being supported and was victim to various graphical glitches from Windows 7 onwards. This new updated version is compatible with modern operating systems (there's even a Mac option), and remains DRM-free as well as pay-what-you-want. It also comes with a pack of community-made mods like The Urluquai Crusade and Even Stranger Adventures in Infinite Space. You can download it from itch.io.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.