Shrapnel Games announces they will release Approaching Infinity on December 15th for Windows and OS X, saying Ibology's sandbox roguelike should go gold in two weeks. Those interested in the game can still get a discount by preordering this month, while those still on the fence can check out a playable demo for either system. Both the demos and the preorder links can be found on this page, along with the following description:

Approaching Infinity is a science fiction rogue-like game of infinite intergalactic exploration and adventure. It is a game of stellar exploration, planetary investigation, starship battles, diplomacy, crafting, commodity trading, and much, much more, all set in a totally procedurally generated infinite universe. In layman's terms this means that with each game an entirely new universe is created, allowing for unlimited replayability.

While rogue-like games are not true role-playing games they do focus on a player generated character, and in Approaching Infinity that character is the starship captain and his (or her) starship. Each starship has its initial strengths and weaknesses, but are upgradable with new and superior components as the captain's career unfolds. Of course no captain ever got to where they were without their Scotty to squeeze out a few more warp factors or Jayne to control planetside disagreements. As the game progresses officers with special skills can join your crew, each contributing to the successes of your adventures. And if they're not contributing there are ways to deal with a bad crew, from firing to letting them lead an away team on a lava world polluted with poison gas and hostile critters.