Staff – April 16, 2019 at 9:54 AM
This is what a typical run-through of Blue Manchu’s Void Bastards looks like: You’re a space prisoner, a victim of a bureaucratic nightmare of an industrial system. You’ve just been rehydrated and awoken by your ship’s computer, who consequently informs you that you’ve got to get the FTL drive kicking. To do that, you’re gonna need to raid other ships for parts and resources to stay alive. Other than that, you’re all alone.
You select a derelict ship to raid. You’re a security expert, so you immediately know where all the derelict’s security systems are placed upon boarding. You check your map, which displays the floor plan of the ship. You decide to first worm your way to the dining cabin, loot everything you can find, then make your way to the helm of the ship to gain access to more map info.
Unfortunately for you, you’re a smoker, which causes you to cough periodically. This happens to have the nasty side effect of alerting all nearby enemies of your whereabouts. While you’re sneaking through the dining cabin, your coughs attract a group of nearby hostile aliens who instantly overpower you and blast you to smithereens. You die before you can reach the helm of the ship.
But then, miraculously, you respawn in your base ship. The resources you’d had before boarding the ship that carries your laser-ridden corpse have remained intact. The only catch is you’re no longer that smoking security expert; instead, you’re a whole new prisoner, rehydrated to pick up where your counterpart left off. This time, you’re a colorblind plumber. If you’re wondering, yes, these details do have palpable effects on your experience.
That’s the beauty of Void Bastards: Every single element of the game — from its enemies to its weapons to its player character traits — does the double duty of contributing to the game’s world-building while possessing distinct utility within the context of the gameplay. Art Director Ben Lee explained that this was a conscious design decision.
“There isn't anything in the game that doesn't have a purpose,” Lee said. “There might be a couple of cosmetics as decoration, but in general, our rule of thumb was: If it doesn't do something, just cut it.”
The result is a game in which every game element is rich with narrative detail. Take the Kittybot, a deployable sentry with cat ears and a cute feline face. In combat, the Kittybot helps scout ahead and distract enemies with its robotic mewling.
But it also has a narrative purpose. In the universe of Void Bastards, Kittybots are marketed as a robotic companion for the lonely, but in actuality they serve as tools of government surveillance that record everything you say. There are even posters advertising Kittybots posted along the walls of certain derelicts.
That’s how everything in Void Bastards was designed: to fit neatly into a darkly humorous, dystopian universe. Having the “diminutive” trait actually makes your player character shorter in height (affecting your perspective and hitbox), while radiation can be dispelled not by using some highfalutin piece of tech but by using a toilet or shower. It’s a remarkably cohesive narrative universe that complements the game’s mechanical depth well.
The same is true of its meticulous audio design. Different audio stems emerge to signal various events, and listening for enemies’ footsteps or voice lines can provide valuable information. “When you’re engaged in combat and enemies are chasing you, more intense music comes in,” explained Audio Designer Ryan Roth. “Cameras make loud sounds, Secbots [i.e. security robots] have sirens. Everything has a purpose.”
The thing about Void Bastards is that some of the rules that govern the game’s various elements are not explicitly stated nor made apparent from the game’s outset. In some ways, players need to become immersed in Void Bastards’ universe in order to succeed, either by paying close attention to flavor text, learning from past mistakes, or simply getting familiar with Void Bastards’ humor and narrative logic.
For example, you might want more ammo for your Stapler, which serves as your main shotgun. The Stapler, naturally, uses staples. You might ask yourself, “Where can I find staples?” As you scan the map of a derelict ship, you might notice that there’s an “office” module. There’s your answer.
This anecdote exemplifies what’s so special about Void Bastards. While other games might treat their mechanics, narrative, and aesthetic as separate layers, Blue Manchu seeks to have them work in tandem, creating a playable universe that rewards inventiveness and creativity, that encourages making decisions based on calculating risk vs. reward.
As you continue to play Void Bastards, you gain a more intimate knowledge of its quirks and nuances and get much more adept at forming strategies that suit you. Ship layouts start to become familiar and enemy patterns start to become more apparent. Though you reroll new character traits upon death, you not only keep your resources when you get a new character — you also retain all your knowledge of the ins and out of the game that you’ve accumulated through experience.
Lee explained that this causes every playthrough to look different and allows players to adapt their playstyle to their own preferences. Every strategy has its tradeoffs, but that’s part of what makes the game unique. “I love that, the feeling of not being fenced in by what the game designer wanted,” Lee said. “It's on you how it works out. You might try something and get killed as a result, but you can try it and there's a chance that it will work.”
You’ll likely find yourself in countless situations that force you to ask yourself that very question: Do I retreat back to base, or do I stick it out for just one more room, all in the hopes of upgrading my Toaster? Luckily, Void Bastards ensures that even stressful decisions are fun ones to make.
