Developed/Published by: Blendo Games
Released: 03/25/2010
Completed: 13/07/2025
Completion: Survived an entire run with… caveats.
Well, I didn’t get the Xbox out as I said I wouldn’t in my Gravity Bone essay, but I did decide to play some Flotilla on PC. This worked out in my favour because I almost immediately remembered why I gave up on Flotilla the first time–that I don’t have a fucking clue how to move ships in 3D space–and was then able to abuse a save mod to be able to literally not die in my first or second battle every time. I mean I literally died in the tutorial on my first run!
Flotilla is an interesting one, because it’s a good example of a “nearly there”, a work that makes you think of a huge hit that came later that just nails what it was trying to do. In this case, it’s FTL, which takes the metagame (travelling between nodes in space, experiencing events or battles) but ties it to a much more understandable battle system more inspired by board games like Space Alert and a clear drive towards a conclusion.
In some respects, it’s a shame that Flotilla wasn’t a success, because arguably FTL misses some of the spirit of Flotilla, but in others, it makes total sense. As I said above, the battle system is extremely taxing. Not only does it require the player have a really strong understanding on how to position things in 3D space on a 2D screen, you also have to be able to predict how multiple opponents will themselves move in 3D space, because turns happen simultaneously. And ships are only really vulnerable from above or below, so it’s not even a matter of just trying to make a beeline to enemies and wipe them out–you have to track how they’re oriented and consistently flank them to do any damage.
In my case, once I had worked out how to move my ships (you do x/y movement first, then z, which while not intuitive, does make sense if you can stand to constantly reposition the camera to see what you’re actually doing) I quickly learned I have no knack for prediction whatsoever. Send a ship to flank? It’d just end up miles away from the ship I intended because that ship would move in a way I didn’t expect–or somehow it would end up exposing its belly while flying directly at it. Again: I died on the tutorial.
The mistake Flotilla makes is that it’s designed to be a short, replayable experience–each run is supposed to be, like, a half an hour, as you’re cast as a starship captain with seven months to live–but thinks that makes it ok that you’ll die in the first couple of nodes tens of times because the game is hard. It doesn’t! You just feel like you’re not getting it. You never get to settle in, see the campaign play out a little.
It would be unfair to call the game complicated–the rules are very simple once you understand them. It’s just that the combination of rules, interface and simultaneous movement makes the whole thing deeply frustrating, and it stops you enjoying the metagame, which hints to everything that FTL would do. You get to experience cute events which can pay off in future events or battles, ships “level up”, and you can get useful upgrades for them. You can even expand your fleet with new and bigger ships.
You’ll probably face those bigger ships before you get any yourself though–nothing quite as demoralising as getting further than you ever have and immediately having your ships carved into pieces by a “beam ship” that the tactics now require you keep your distance from (how!!!)
One thing I do like–perhaps counter-intuitively–is that the game doesn’t have a final boss or conclusion that you’re working towards as in FTL. In FTL and other games of this sort–your Cobalt Cores, for example–you have to always be building towards that final battle. If luck doesn’t grant you the build you need or are working towards–your run is pointless. Here the end is: you die, either in battle or from your terminal illness. There is an “endless” mode (added after release) but I like that the idea of the game was just “have fun in space until you die!”
The problem is that I don’t find the battle system fun at all, so I can’t! In the end I just used save backups to play a full run, which of course, was meaningless. But it was nice to have this deadly, upgraded fleet after rescuing some cats and ripping off some hitchhikers before I shuffled off this mortal coil. Felt like I’d done something with my life.
It’s that stuff that makes Flotilla so charming, and kind of what kept me battering my head against it so pointlessly. It’s got style. Panache. And I think if you like this type of taxing, 3D space battler, well, this is a step out of the norm and all the better for it. But it’s not for me.
Will I ever play it again? Absolutely never, no. There’s a sequel, Flotilla 2 for VR, and feel like moving ships around literally in 3D space might make it more playable. However…
Final Thought: Flotilla 2 cuts the campaign out completely! Even if I was to get fancy and pick up a Steam Frame or something being unable to rescue cats drops what feels like the unique selling point of the game (for me.) But at the same time, really the battle system is the distinguishing factor, and I don’t actually like it! So I suppose if I want to play a node-based event/battle roguelike-like with funny events, there’s like… six hundred I haven’t played. I can just play one of those.
