Captain Forever
A modular ship-building shooter with limitless expansion.
Captain Forever is a multidirectional shooter video game series by Australian developer Jarred 'Farbs' Woods. The name derives from both its ongoing development process and its limitless gameplay experience. The series comprises four games, with the first being free and paying supporters gaining access to future sequels without extra payments.
- developer
- Jarred 'Farbs' Woods
- nationality
- Australian
- field
- Video game development
- first release
- Freeware (date not specified in article)
- known for
- Modular ship-building gameplay, ongoing development model
- award
- Best Game at China's first Independent Games Festival (2009)
Lore & Background
Captain Forever was inspired by the 2007 freeware game Battleships Forever, which itself drew from the 2003 game Warning Forever. In each game except Captain Impostor, the player pilots a ship that expands by attaching modules (such as lasers or boosters) from defeated enemies to a command module containing a broken heart. The goal is to keep the ship alive as long as possible, with stronger enemy ships arriving labeled by NATO phonetic alphabet letters. Destroying stronger ships increases Law levels until Protectors (Peacekeepers in the original) attack. The game effectively ends after the first Protector is destroyed, replacing the broken heart with a complete one, but the player may continue indefinitely. If the ship is destroyed, it explodes, clearing the area for rebuilding from scratch. The default background is a green-line grid over black with a faint pilot's face, changeable to a webcam image.
Reader's Guide
Captain Forever's significance lies in its innovative modular ship-building mechanic and its ongoing development model, where new versions were regularly created and released. The series includes sequels Captain Successor (November 2009), Captain Impostor (March 2010), and the scrapped RPG project Captain Jameson (early 2013), which evolved into The Dawn Star and later Captain Forever Universe. In May 2018, the first three games were rebuilt and bundled as Captain Forever Trilogy on Steam, with supporters receiving free Steam keys and the supporter program ceasing new members. A standalone remix, Captain Forever Remix, was created by Pixelsaurus Games in conjunction with Woods, released in March 2015 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The game won Best Game at China's first Independent Games Festival in 2009 and was named in 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.
Did You Know?
- Captain Forever won Best Game at China's first Independent Games Festival in 2009.
- The game's name comes from both its ongoing development process and its limitless gameplay experience.
- Captain Forever Remix follows a schoolgirl named Natalie Norberry who imagines herself as the character Captain Forever.
- The default background can be changed to an image taken by the player's webcam.
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