Sunless Sea

It's an eldritch horror that still feels like I'm goming hope everytime i play

This is an interesting game, with a number of strong features. Its not for everyone. The strengths of the game include its story, atmosphere and intriguing thought provoking gameplay. Its light on combat, but its my favorite taking a boat around kinda game (better than Sid Meier's Pirates or Windward) - Tropico 2, Anno and Conquest of the New World are not quite the same type of game. Its not a trading game, its closer to an adventure, but it really is its own kind of game. It can be an immersive pleasure. You have to dive in and take chances, and the game offers meaningful choices. The DLC expansion zubmariner for it was a little weak, not a crucial one imho.

The above describes both the game itself and its setting, an enormous subterranean ocean full of ancient secrets and monstrous creatures, where your Victorian-era captain must explore, barter and battle to survive. The controls and graphics are pretty simple, but this game is enormous and addicting for those invested in uncovering the lore of this detailed and fascinating world. Every encounter is laced with ambiguous, ominous threads and it's rewarding to try and piece together the clues- the writing is strong and draws you in, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that bits and pieces of varied spookiness eventually do meld together to form a larger picture, rather than the lazy route of being there at random. The Lovecraft and steampunk influences are subtle- you won't be meeting Cthulhu or wearing goggles with gears on them, but you'll feel the wrongness of your surroundings, and British imperialism is evident in many of the characters. The gameplay is challenging but not unfair- it's a roguelike in a sense, but not a merciless one where one mistake will end your game. If you're cautious you'll rarely run out of supplies or fuel, and soon you'll find ways to set aside bonuses for future captains in case the worst happens, with the result that each new captain begins with more wealth, experience and knowledge. The controls are simple, as is combat, and most of the challenge lies in resource management and avoiding encounters that are beyond your ship's abilities at that moment. The replay value is enormous- there are hundreds of choices to be made in the game, each leading to different possibilities, and many quests and storylines to pursue. Exploring the game to a satisfying completion took 5 captains and over 100 hours, and that's only in pursuit of one victory goal out of several, taking only one of the multiple choice paths for most quests, and barely scratching the surface of the Zubmariner DLC. Highly recommended for those who like story-heavy games.

I bought this years ago as a way of supporting the dev that made Fallen London. I did not find the game play compelling and frankly found it incredibly boring. Then I bought the expansion and the sequel. They're slightly better than Sunless skies but also very boring. The developers think they made narrative games... 95-99% of what you do in this game is "sail" the unterzee. It's boring, and it's incredibly slow. Entire games were build on the skeleton this game uses. This game is an insult to trading games, an insult to exploration games, an insult to frankly every type of game genre it has even a bit of in it's DNA, including narative games. If you liked Fallen London you might think you'd like this game. You'd be wrong. Because 99% of what this game is about is just patiently waiting for your boat to go from point A to point B. This game and it's sequel are everything wrong with open world type games today, pointless "content" that adds nothing to the game experience. This game's core gameplay loop isn't a narrative chose your own adventure book, it's not trade, it's not exploration, it's waiting as your ship slowly crawls from point A to point B. The fact this has a 3 on here is an insult to good game design. The fact that only sycophants and idiots like me bought the sequel resulted in that having an even higher rating is absurt. They say no game really deserves a 1 star review. They are wrong. This game is the literal embodiment of the phrase "time waster". The RNG map generator, the shitty combat and the freaking slow movement need to have all been removed from the game. The chose your own adventure book style narrative is the only good part of this game and it's locked behind incredibly shitty game play. If anyone from Failbetter games is reading this: you did not make a narrative game, you made a waiting game with attached narratives. The core game play loop is waiting, not reading. Congrats on failing to fail better.

Breath of fresh air.