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.
