Sunless Sea

The gameplay just felt... annoying. The combat feels tedious and annoying, the controls are uninspired, and feel incredibly slow and unresponsive. The fuel and other survival mechanics, which I thought would be interesting, just ended up making the game feel claustrophobic, since venturing anywhere meant you might not make it back before you ran out of fuel, etc. etc. Maybe this game just wasn't for me. Honestly, I loved the idea, but really boring combat, and mechanics that actually punish exploration (sparse and expensive fuel, food, etc.) made me dislike it. If you want to give it a try, at least wait for a sale imo.

It took me three tries to even start this game, but I've finally played it enough for a review. I believe this is the developer's first venture outside the world of idle/mobile games (although they were making them back when they were Twitter games). This has the same pacing. In a mobile game, you can take one or two actions, then you must wait (or pay). In this game the wait-or-pay period is replaced with steering your ship. You go to a location, click a few times, go to another island...repeat, repeat, repeat. The game is somewhat linear in that if you want to just sail around selling goods, you can make just enough to not run out of food and fuel. There are a strictly limited number of high-earning opportunities that come up that you will eventually locate and then feel compelled to pursue, as otherwise the grind is 100x as long (not an exaggeration). The game is set up to require several attempts at getting started because the budget is so tight without knowing about these opportunities and combat so deadly that your character will most likely die. This makes it difficult to connect to your character because you have to make so many to restart with. There is some attempt to make each character a "successor" of the other, but that doesn't quite work because the timeline resets, and all events proceed in exactly the same way with a slightly randomized map. The writing is good, but to be honest, it feels way more 1700s than 1800-early 1900.

So, it's quite a while that i last played this game. I only have now an Imac 2008, on which I cannot really play it without overheating the machine. I don't really understand all the praise for this game. I mean, there's a lot of work in it, it's true, but it fails in delivering a sense of narration and involvement. A bit like the "fallen london" browser game. I mean, if you like a bunch of unrelated stories with a bit of cyberpunk, a bit of gothic in it and some awkward boat simulator that's it. For me it's not worth my time, and i played quite a bit, so i'm just unhappy in thinking about it.

It has an interesting premise in a rich and deep setting, but it’s slow at telling any kind of story and it’s slow in the gameplay department. The intrigue and mystery kept me going, but the harsh difficulty in combat, constant resource management, and relying on luck to win encounters were really annoying - these mechanics get in the way of exploring the world and enjoying the stories within. Beautiful and eerily atmospheric in art style and design, but as the locations are all menus, the different areas end up being very similar. It also takes a while to experience new things, especially upgrades. The steep learning curve is off putting, as is the perceived lack of tangible progress. Overall, I did enjoy my time in the Sunless Sea, but was a bit disheartened towards the end.

Do not play this game if you hate reading. Or if you hate reading interpretable text. This game is best enjoyed in lew of a good book. Start the game, have a glass of your favorite beverage nearby and enjoy a slow burn game that will surprise you in a lot of ways. Perfect for people who like to take their time or finding ways to expediate repetitive actions. Not recommended for people that think that they can blast through the game in a few hours to check it of their list. This is a longhaul game that will keep you engaged for hours if you enjoy a lot of text or skill based interactions and if you do not mind starting again (but with added bonuses from your previous run, which if you planned carefully will make the next run even better) from time to time. The lore of the game is not required, as most can figure out what is happening within the game, but if you are craving for more of the same, Fallen London (a browser game also available on most mobiles) will provide what you seek (including a nice bonus for your Zee Captains)