Cartoon spaceship disaster sim Space Crew is free to keep on Steam for a limited time

Back in 2017, indie studio Runner Duck released Bomber Crew, a game we said wasn't quite a World War II version of spaceship sim FTL, but was pretty close—a cartoony management game where you've got a mission to accomplish and a team of experts to do it with, until you accidentally lose an engineer over the English Channel and it all goes a bit pomaceous.

In 2020 Runner Duck followed Bomber Crew with a game even closer to its inspiration called Space Crew, a game of juggling plates only instead of plates you're actually juggling Star Trek redshirts, and also the gravity has just failed. Its «legendary edition», which includes a new campaign, away missions, and unlockable legendary crew, is available for a grand total of zero space or Earth dollars on Steam until March 13.

The giveaway is to promote Runner Duck's next game, Badlands Crew, which will let you build and operate your own adorable Mad Max war rig for tactical post-apocalyptic shenanigans. The studio has found another genre to mine for chaotic good times, and it's the one where a gigantic repurposed truck covered in guns, fuel tanks, and possibly one musician playing extremely loud, hurtles across a wasteland while fending off attacks from rival gangs. Also, it's got sandworms.

Badlands Crew is due out later in 2024, and you can wishlist it now.