GOL Cast: Blowing Up Raiders Mad Max-style In Convoy

So what do you get when you mix FTL and Mad Max? Well, the answer would probably be Convoy. Let's take this roguelite game for a spin and blow up some nasty raiders in a very desolate wasteland on a planet far far away.

Convoy, developed by Convoy Games, is a tactical roguelite game in which you must guide your convoy around a post-apocalyptic planet in search of spare parts to fix your crashed spaceship. You need to be aware of the dangers that lurk behind every corner on this desolate planet, or else your convoy will be destroyed.


Convoy is FTL in a Mad Max universe. That sentence came to mind very quickly when I started playing Convoy and I think it's the perfect summary of the game. Instead of jumping from planet to planet, you travel on roads from one point of interest to another. Your space ship is now a regular old ground vehicle and your weapons and crew have been replaced by escort vehicles.

So your main objective is to find the required spare parts to fix your ship. These required parts are randomized when you start the game and are scattered around the planet, often quite far away from each other. Getting those parts isn't all that easy, since the planet is full of hazards. There are environmental hazards, such as sandstorms, and regular old bipedal nasties that have formed three factions that rule their own parts of the planet. These factions are Raiders, Privateers and T.O.R.V.A.K. You know who the raiders are in post-apocalyptic scenarios, they are scum that usually likes to cut people up and hang them on lamp posts. Privateers are more of the same, but slightly more civilized. T.O.R.V.A.K. on the other hand are a very technologically advanced faction. They have the newest and shiniest toys and can sometimes be reasoned with but you shouldn't count on them not shooting you on sight, especially in their central territories. These factions will expand over time, forcing you to make progress or fall victim to the ever stronger enemy forces.

To avoid getting destroyed by these factions your convoy has a number of escort vehicles. Each one can be upgraded with new weaponry and equipment and you can acquire new escorts by completing quests and random events or by buying them from friendly camps around the planet. You can also buy fuel from these camps. You start off with just 2 escorts that have light machine guns and cannons but later you will find shield generators, laser turrets and, for those who want to get a little more post-apocalyptic, even chainsaws for your vehicles.

Similarly to FTL, the world is full of random events. Most of them will involve combat but in some cases you can talk your way through without lifting your gun. Or sometimes just lifting your gun is enough. Usually you are given at least two options to pick. The events are also randomized so that answering the same way in the same event doesn't necessarily cause the same outcome. This keeps you on your toes even when you encounter the same event on future attempts. The game also has quests which work mostly the same way but they often involve driving to various places.

Combat in Convoy is basically a car chase that could have been a scene in Mad Max. You control your escorts with your mouse and can move them around your MCV, main command vehicle, to take out the attackers. Your MCV itself doesn't move and will always stay in the center of the battlefield. Your MCV doesn't have many ways to directly defend itself but it does have some special abilities. For example, depending on the equipment you've found, you can lay down mines on the road or stun enemy vehicles. Your escorts are basically your way of dealing with enemies since they have actual weaponry. During combat there are various obstacles on the road and running into them is quite deadly. You need to be careful when you move your escorts around or you they might just drive straight into a wall and get destroyed. There is a way to utilize these obstacles by taking cover behind them or by ramming your enemies into these obstacles to kill them off instantly. Ramming also damages your own vehicles, so it's not always the best tactic. You can also pause the game during combat and give orders while the game is paused if you need more time to plan your moves. It's sometimes quite helpful, though I personally didn't use this functionality a whole lot.

If Convoy does something better than FTL it's that it gives you more freedom to explore. FTL was constantly pushing you into one direction and made you decide how much exploration was worth doing before the risks became too high. Convoy sort of has this in the from of the factions expanding over time but the world still felt more open and I didn't feel like I was being rushed. Instead, Convoy seemed like it wanted to show its world to me and wanted me to explore and complete side-quests and stray off into the distance from the path that would have taken me to the main objective. It also felt like the random events had more variety than the events in FTL and exploration was often rewarded with awesome new equipment. That is, when you weren't rewarded with a swift death in the hands of a band of raiders. Some of the side-quests also unlock new escort and MCV configurations for you to use on your runs, just like FTL did with its ship configurations.

So, did I enjoy Convoy? Yes, I did. I think Convoy is a really nice game and people who loved FTL will most likely love Convoy and vice versa. There were some problems with the original GOG build of the game but those were fixed in later versions and I had no trouble getting it to run on my laptop and main rig. My biggest problem with Convoy is that I think it's too close to FTL. Being like FTL is not a big sin and I liked FTL quite a lot but I think it's a bit weird to mimic the game to such an extent. Of course not every single game has to be completely unique and special but when I played through Convoy I felt like I could have just played FTL.

But, because there isn't anything inherently wrong with Convoy from a technical point of view and because I think it's about as good as FTL, I'll give Convoy a recommendation. If you want a post-apocalyptic Mad Max style FTL, Convoy is for you.

Get it from GOG: http://www.gog.com/game/convoy

Humble Store: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/convoy_storefront

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.