Sunless Sea

Tries to phone home and crashes to desktop if blocked during startup.

This game's world is very unique, and as someone who loves other games based at sea such as Subnautica, this game seemed like it would be just what I'm looking for. The music and area themes are well put together, the UI makes you feel as if you are a real "unterzee" explorer and the art goes well with the dark and dreary world envisioned. Sadly the gameplay overshadows everything else in this game. To the gameplay, your first character, choose from a list of predefined options that decide your goals and origins, and who accompanies you on your travels. It's no DnD character sheet, I'll say that. Few options. Then choose a portrait and you've started the game. It's relatively easy to get started, might take a few minutes to get used to unique the UI and design. When you've adjusted yourself you have a few options. Do what the tutorial says and go exploring new islands for money. (Actually doesn't work if you don't talk to someone in spawn first, which the game says nothing about.) buy some supplies and fuel, (though usually not much) and explore. You'll probably die somehow, run out of fuel or supplies, pirates or monsters killing you or something else. The game tells you that this is what's supposed to happen, because when you die you keep a few things depending on what you choose to take from your dead character. Alot of it is absolutely worthless, but you can keep some fuel or supplies and what your character learnt from the journey. As well as what you personally learnt and how to do it better, like fighting a boss over and over again and learning it's weaknesses. Pretty cool concept, right? Make a character, learn how to survive through each life, where locations are in the unterzee and what to do when you get certain quests. Except.. The map resets and loads new random locations for 90% of areas.... So wave goodbye to learning from your past life. The quests are also exactly the same each time. Overzealous, glorified and repetitive mobile game/10

With a lot of practice and study, I think this game could be pretty fun. I haven't quite figured out how to survive more than a few minutes, since money, fuel, and supplies are extremely rare. So why don't I spend the time necessary to learn how to be successful in this game? There just doesn't seem to be much incentive. I'm not interested in sleeping with crew members, so that's out. I also don't tend to invest a lot of time in games that require you to practice for hours before you can begin to enjoy yourself. Also, the speed of the game is very slow. I often set off on a long voyage across most of the map. Will I run out of fuel or supplies before I reach my destination, since none are available along the way (which doesn't make any sense economically)? Who knows, because I'm just going to have to watch my ship sail along for a couple/few minutes to find out. I can't speed up time, and if I increase my ship's speed it eats up precious fuel. I often don't even need to steer at all. It's not very fun to watch the computer play itself.

This is one of the very few games that have caused me nerd rage- vein-throbbing, rant-inducing, table-flipping nerd rage. The reason for that is the ship travel mechanic, which basically consists of the player pressing down on the arrow keys for a few minutes of real-world time, in order to sail between destinations. The closest ones may take a couple of minutes. The ones further off, more than five. I repeat that these are real-world, real-time, real-life minutes. You spend most of your time in this game holding down the arrow keys to move your ship around while nothing else happens. Nothing. Else. The ship moves over water. That's it. Eventually you reach a destination, then the "actual" game-play that consists of a dialogue tree takes a fraction of the time you took to get there. Then you have to go all the way back to deliver goods and get rewards. Then you go out again. At first I thought this was just a case of getting an engine upgrade that would give me a speed boost. Well, you do get a speed boost with a better engine and a better ship- but it's minimal. You still have to press on those arrow keys for ever to go anywhere interesting. After your first few visits to the closest ports, you basically need to travel to the farthest reaches of the world. It's that, or repeat the same quests all over again, only this time with diminishing returns. Some quests also "turn off" once you've completed them so the closest destinations become useless. The longer you play the game, the further off you have to venture to keep things interesting- and the longer it takes to sail there. What really did it for me though was reading an interview with the developer where they basically justified this mindless, pointless grind by saying that it's meant to create a "mood". It's their artistic vision, see? To make you press on the same button for minutes on end. Real minutes, from your real-world life, where you could be doing something useful, creative, or interesting. No. You have to press the arrow keys to sail over empty water. Because that's artisting vision. That's where the nerd rage hit. I uninstalled the game and I haven't played it since. I didn't get a refund and nothing will give me back those precious moments I lost just moving a pixel boat around a pixel sea. I'll save you the rants. If you have a life, don't buy this game. The "writing" is not worth it. If you want to read Lovecraftian horror, go read Lovecraft, or his friends. This game is just a pastiche of half-formed ideas interspersed with long hours of performing a pointless task.

The world is interesting and while you won't have any meaningful conversations with its inhabitants trough extensive dialogue trees, the writing on display here is very solid and has both atmosphere and humor. It's just not as life altering genius as some people claim it to be and it doesn't make up for the bad game design plaguing nearly every aspect of Sunless Sea. I tried several times over the course of a few months to enjoy this game, willing to take my time with a cup of nice cup of hot coffee on my side, ready to be sucked in. I wanted to like it since what it tries to achieve with its world and it's story is very much up my lovecraftian alley. Sadly, t always ended up being a frustrating chore that left me boring and annoyed. I don't mind hard games and I don't mind the permadeath setup. What I do mind is unengaging and repetitive gameplay. Death is advertised as part of the experience and you can chose from a list of perks you may carry over on your next play-trough. It states loud and clear that you shouldn't expect to achieve anything on your first try. But then it starts you again on the same map, with the same ship, the same initial quests and the same progression. This works in faster paced and more gameplay oriented rogue-likes, but not in game that expects slow and methodical exploration. You try to manage rapidly depleting and very limited resources, roll the dice on random outcomes for port events and hope to survive long enough to achieve something of value. It's a game that needs either a colossal time investment, or a Wiki always open in the background, hence completely negating the exploration aspect of the game. Even if you manage to get the hang of it and push trough the repetitive start of the game, from what I've read so far you'll only be faced with a never ending grind for upgrades. A noble effort on part of the devs, but the bottom line is that I didn't have any fun and I would rather explore the world in a book.