Sunless Sea

Sunless Sea: a combination of a roguelike 2D game with a modern text adventure. That certainly sounded dull to me. Buying it nevertheless got me one of the biggest surprises since I first basked in the glory of the original "Elite". The 2D "roguelike" part of the game has you exploring the shifting map of the "Unterzee" in beautiful, lovingly detailed graphics. Whenever you hit a port, you (can) play through stories in the fashion of a point-and-click text-adventure, greatly enhanced with complex dependencies among each other. These stories, like the game world, are shifting and can be quite different in another playthrough. The writing is superb, easily matching the best fiction authors I know. Failbetter Games also provides regular updates with more stories. Perhaps the most controversial part of the game is permanent death. While many people complain about it being unfair, I did not experience that yet. Unlike FTL, where you can lose a game by simply being unlucky, every single death in Sunless Sea was entirely my fault. For me, this is the one game that perma-death really adds value to, since it gives your decisions weight. Believe me, when your captain is already a week old, and you cannot go back to a save game, you will think very hard when that nice "Wistful Deviless" shyly asks whether you want to give her your soul for "keeping it safe". You can also provide for your "successors" by leaving them a legacy, so starting over will be much easier. Every aspect of the game is interwoven with stories, to the extent that you even use them as currency. For example, experiencing a small, one or two paragraph-long story might yield a "Zee-Story" or a "Tale of Terror!!" that will spark interest in the realm behind mirrors or other, stranger places. Sunless Sea plunges you into a dark, mysterious, shifting and uncertain realm H.P.Lovecraft would have created if he had the chance of making a computer game. This is why you will love the game - or hate it.

I have the game on Steam. I've dedicated 140 hours to it. And the only thing I want to emphasize is that this game is not a roguelike; it's not a mechanics-based sailing, trading, fighting or whatever-ing game. This is very important: Sunless Sea is a text-based adventure game – with a sailing mechanic to set the mood. I'm not going to criticize people who approach this game without knowing what Fallen London is (which would be reproachable of me). But still, it would be wise to at least acknowledge where this game comes from. Approaching the game as a collection of adventures which exercise imagination and emotions, and not gamer's savvy, may save a lot of disappointment for a lot of people. True, Sunless Sea has just enough game mechanics to keep you motivated (just like Fallen London does): new, shiny and insanely expensive upgrades, faraway lands that hint at treasures to be traded, intimidating monsters. But as in FL, pure grind is never the solution to this*. The feeling of progression and grand adventure comes from doing stories. Only stories and meaningful actions give you progress, only stories bring you wealth, and only stories (and story items) make long voyages worthy. Then come, effortlessly, upgrades & power like you wouldn't believe. And sitting through an hour-long expedition won't be boring because you actually have ultra-cool reasons to go there (no, it's not resources), checking on places you actually care about on the way (AND getting richer). A familiar route is twice as short, as you well know. And NO, trading does not work here, at all. It's done on purpose. You can do "profitable trading rounds", but only late game, only in very certain items, and mostly to get to other, story-related items – when you already know what you're doing. *Yes, FL HAS grind aplenty, but a) here it's almost impossible to grind at all; and b) the point was, all REAL progression is in leaps and achieved through crafted stories, not creeping numbers.

Yeah I said RPG, fight me. Okay okay, let me explain. The game's main draw for me is it's stories, it's form of questing as it were. You'll journey from island to island, collecting items, secrets, stories, and practicaly living the adventurous life of a Victorian England version of Sinbad...if Sinbad sailed in a Lovecraftian underground sea. Now why do I say it's an RPG, well, because it has one of the aspects that I value most about RPGs, choices and player involvement. You're not just following a single linear path, or fighting enemies and completing jobs. Much of the game is about how you choose to act, what you do, how you progress, and the kind of sea captain you want to be, all of which can have varying consequences, some of which determine the fate of entire civilizations, be it small civilizations. There's also a multitude of skill checks that unlock options to take, which reflect on how you build your character. Your skills are as follows: Iron: The game's version of strength. affects gun damage and your effectiveness in choices that require brute force or combat ability Mirrors: The game's version of Perception. Affects weapon charge up speed. has a kind of miscellaneous use when it comes to skill checks. Veils: The game's version of Dexterity. Affects how easy it is for enemies to spot you, and your effectiveness in choices involving speed, agility, and stealthy actions Papers: Intelligence. Affects how quickly you gain secrets (the game's main method of leveling and a valuable commodity overall), and your effectiveness in acts of intelligence, wit, and knowledge. Hearts: I guess it can be considered this game's version of willpower or endurance. Affects your effectiveness in actions that involve emotion, a strong constitutions (like eating) and will. Through much of the game, these skills come into play to determine failure or success in the choices you make, and thus affect what kind of choices you make. On top of this, you may also choose how you win the game, your personal victory condition, being either finding your missing father, getting fabulously rich, writing the ultimate adventure book (my favorite), and creating your own island nation. So, yeah, I'd say it's an RPG........fight me. Aside from that, it's a great game especially for those who like a good bit of reading, beautiful soundtrack, good visuals, fun gameplay though it can be slow during long voyages, and I wholly recommend it.

The core of the game is the writing, which I don't find all that good. And without the writing, the gameplay is far too weak to stand on its own two feet.

An exceptionally well written, atmospheric and content rich roguelike sailing game. It filters the usual suspects, people too dumb to read, too impatient to explore, too distracted to plan ahead, etc. if you don't consider yourself these things don't take advice from those who are these things. That is, every negative review. What this game sets out to do it does masterfully. Whatever expectations I set going into this game have gotten exceeded again and again. Every time I tell me myself "well surely NOW I've heard about everything in the game" I then stumble on some new rabbit hole showing me hours more of potential gameplay. To put it in context, in 50 hours I have not gotten a single ending or finished a single "ambition" yet, of which there is like a dozen. If I did get one ending it would take me roughly the same amount of time to get to the others. Since you need a new character. So there are easily hundreds of hours of exploration and reading to be had here together with the DLC. The stories are fantastic, the setting is incredibly deep, and the gameplay is simple but adequate. If this game seems like something you would enjoy don't miss it.