Star-trekking sandbox roguelike Approaching Infinity launches after more than 12 years in development

Us old-school rogue-likers are eating good. It feels like we've barely had time to digest the fantastic 'final' version of Caves Of Qud (there's more coming, of course), and already we've got another massive indie roguelike passion project to dive into. Approaching Infinity by micro-indie outfit Ibology has been in development for over twelve years now. It's a massive turn-based sandbox heavily inspired by classic Star Trek, and now freshly launched out of early access after many an update.

From what little I've played (and I do hope to pour more time into this one), Approaching Infinity is just about everything you'd expect when you hear 'Star Trek roguelike'. You're the highly customizable captain of an equally modular ship, assembling a crew of specialist oddballs and rank-and-file staff to keep your exploration boldly going and your reactor from exploding. There's planets to survey, problems to solve, shipwrecks to explore and an assortment of strange aliens of varying levels of friendliness to meet.

For when the going gets tough on those planetside away missions, another nod to Trek is that redshirts will save your neck. Reminding me of the old Star Trek point-and-click adventures, each time you or one of your important officers would normally die, an expendable (and posthumously named) crewmate will take the hit for you. Let this be a lesson: if you're ever going on a space adventure, make sure you've properly introduced yourself and your specialist skills before the danger starts.

Much like Caves of Qud, while there is an end goal (several, even—you can complete some game-ending objectives within a single sitting), this is a sandbox experience to be played your way. While the general behavior of each alien race and species of critter you can encounter remains consistent, the universe is reshuffled with each new character. There's a lot of fun stuff to discover in the weirder corners of the galaxy, owing to this being a mostly-solo passion project in the works for over a decade.

Approaching Infinity definitely has a sense of humor to it too. Space is full of weird problems, like planets overrun by carnivorous, rapidly reproducing bunnies, or the occasional haunted space-casino, walls lined with slot machines and halls patrolled by the undead. Some sectors are crawling with cutthroat space-mafia, while some warrior races will continually pick fights with you until they've lost enough times to begrudgingly respect you.

Unfortunately the universe of Approaching Infinity hasn't reached the utopian state of fully automated luxury gay space communism, so money is what makes the galaxy go round here. You'll be taking jobs from any species that's willing to pay, and making ends meet by selling salvage and sometimes even fixing up and towing ships that you've poked sufficient holes in to vacate the previous owners. It's a good metric of progress, though I'm curious what a true post-scarcity take on the game would look like.

Idle musings aside, this one seems legit, and the only thing keeping it from Steam's coveted 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating is it needing a few dozen more user reviews. If you're fresh from Caves of Qud or Dwarf Fortress' new adventure mode, you might want to look to the stars. Approaching Infinity is out now on Steam for £15/$18.