FTL: Faster Than Light

Subset Games' 2012 debut is a spaceship management roguelike played almost entirely in pause. You command a single ship fleeing across eight randomly generated sectors with a pursuing fleet always one jump behind, and every encounter is resolved by allocating power between shields, engines, weapons and life support while assigning crew to repair, man stations or fight boarders. Fights are won by targeting systems rather than hulls - knock out the enemy's weapons room and you have time; vent their oxygen and their crew does the rest. Everything is scarce: scrap buys upgrades or repairs but not both, and a bad jump can end a run in thirty seconds. Eighteen unlockable ships have wildly different starting constraints, and the hardest of them are effectively puzzles. It is unfair in ways players learn to read rather than avoid. The free Advanced Edition update added hacking, mind control, drones and a new sector, and the Ben Prunty soundtrack is one of the most-loved in indie games.