Sunless Sea

... it's just the sort of thing that you would like. This is the sort of game which you either get or you don't. I have liked it (so far - full disclosure: I haven't beaten it yet, and I have not played either Zubmariner, Sunless Skies, or the online game). The mechanics of this game are not inherently exciting - it's just accepting certain text prompts. The characters are not particularly strong either. They are *interesting*, but you don't really get attached to them. Getting money can be a bit of a grind, although there are good ways around that. (Try getting a bit of money from port reports and/or taking salt from the Salt Lions to London, buy a few mirrorcatch boxes from Khan's Shadow, and do a few runs between the Cumaean canal and London.) Where this game stands or falls is its worldbuilding. The best way to describe the world of Sunless Sea is that Victorian London fell into a giant sinkhole into the Lovecraftian hollow Earth. However, because these are Victorians, they took one look at Cthulhu, walked up to him, and asked "do you have a flag?" If that sounds like fun, you will love this game, as I have. If not, Sunless Sea will just be frustrating.

The free browsergame 'Fallenlondon' is probably better. The gameplay is not good enough to justify the time which is wasted traveling between ports. The combat is simplistic, interactions depend mostly on tradeable goods and skillchecks.

Would be 5/5 if it weren't for: -slow movement, shitty upgrades don't help much and cost a fortune -the grind is real, grind is not fun -after a few hours the best quests adventures are completed in your world state not much fun remains, just grind and boredom -replayability, not much really, boring after your first run, some perks and twerks here and there but same old same old in your new game + mode -end game rewards are lame, not fulfilling Would have worked better if it was a colony/base building, management sim, where you would manage and build your own island/colony/base in Fallen London, would have been 10x more fun, unforgettable fantastic game. A rimworld or Dwarf Fortress mod based on this would be awesome to be honest. Iamgine building your own colony in the world of Fallen London, would be much better than this game.

Many reviews ctiricise their attempt at merging a very long grinding adventure game with roguelike, arguing that the two don't really go together. Roguelike's are OK when you're spending 5 to 30 minutes each time before dying, but when you spend hours or days just to be picked off by some random chance which there was nothing you could do about is frustrating. Like in many adventure games and RPGs, there is a certain amount of grind to it, travelling around building up your skill/money/items; and this doesn't sit well with randomly dying and having to start again pretty much from scratch. I'd agree with all that. However it's worth pointing out that you don't HAVE to play this rouguelike. You can disable autosave, and just save at regular intervals, then when you do get caught out by random chance, or fall foul to something in this unfamiliar world which you had no way of expecting, you just restore your last save and carry on. You could even open up cheatengine and top up your echoes to make the grind a bit easier. I'd never cheat in a multiplayer, but this is a storyline game to me, it's something you play to enjoy and be immersed in. There is a challenge to learning the world and what to trade etc, but it is very unpredictable and unforgiving so I didn't see the harm in a little top up. I agree that the roguelike elements don't suit this type of game. But that aside it's a wonderful game to get lost in the immersion of it all, and I'd thoroughly recommend giving it a go.

- Very slow paced game - unfair roll based win/loss events which can lead to unfair deaths - basically a fancy text based adventure with minor (bad) combat mechanics - half-hearted RPG elements - while it's clearly a 'Lovecraftian' world it does not belong in the "Horror" category