Quick Look: Sunless Sea

I've really got to play more of this game now that it's out of Early Access.

Edit: Abridged version now available. Audio version coming to Audible soon.

That Primus impression at the start was pretty spot on.

The Sea is watching...

Thanks for doing a QL, interested in this game but wanted to see more.

If they improve/deepen the combat a bit this game could be a true winner.

@alex There are some interesting variants between the words for sea and lake in different European languages.

Translation for the English word "sea":

German: meer

French: mer

Spanish: mar

Italian: mare

Dutch: zee

Translation for the English word "lake":

French: lac

Spanish: lago

Italian: lago

German: see

Dutch: meer

I need to get this.

You can pass your charts and/or whatever else the options will let you when you die. Also, if you managed to get an heir, you can obtain an ironclad will which will allow you to pass more valuables onto the heir/new captain.

@smellylettuce: That only can happen after you get far enough to buy a good house and whatnot, which is pretty expensive.

My biggest complaint with the game is the speed of the starting ship, in the video Mr Navarro was moving at speed 1, which isn't the fastest, but even at 2 the game feels slow, i feel it needs a timewarp that deactivates when near enemies or something.

Man, those anxious, first moments as you wait for someone to speak so you'll know if it's a Vinny-having quicklook! Tense! Also, yay, Vinny quicklook! :D

BEAST!! :D :D

@dberg: you can also tell by who posted the video :)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was rad.

Primus is rad.

Captain Beefheart is also rad.

Trajan, however, is not so rad (that's the title treatment font).

Vinny is the pirate and pizza editor at Giant Bomb.

Should have named it Mr. Bubbles.

Been playing this game a lot recently. It only gets better, and you only get more and more in to the little stories. Buying a new engine early on to move faster is a must.

Oh right, this game!

Going to play Fallen London then this.

Comatose ferret and guinea page should both be nominated for best video game character 2015.

This game has a very charming style and humor to it, while at the same time managing to have a sort of lovecraftian horror theme. I've really been enjoying this.

Man alex wasn't kidding when he said he went in blind. I don't want to be that guy but if you commit to reading the guide you won't have the problems he's having.

I don't know if going slower actually conserves fuel. Traveling at 1 is agonizing. The game is already pretty slow moving when you travel around at 2.

oh man alex. you can go to speed 2 without wasting that much more fuel

@jukeboxzer0 said:

QLcrew.com lists who's in a video before it's even posted, somehow.

somebody needs to inform Brad this game contains feudalistic guinea pigs

I should've known that Captain Beefheart would get referenced on this site eventually.

I love this game. It's incredibly well written and it's atmospheric as hell.

Alex was a showing-scalp flattop, particular about the point it made.

I believe traveling at half-speed is actually less efficient than full-speed.

Only played around 6 hours of this game but it's really engrossing. It definitely pays to be patient and build up slowly rather than over extending yourself in the early part of the game by trying to voyage too far out of home waters or by spending too much money too early. Once you learn to pace yourself and extend your run to several hours it becomes much more involving. The combat isn't great but you don't have to engage with it too often (and it's often better to avoid getting into a fight in a lot of circumstances anyway given that fixing your ship can be expensive). The writing and atmosphere more than make up for it.

I'm not really feeling it. Looked kind of slow and plodding when GameSpot played it, and Chris kinda knew what he was doing, and it looks even slower here. As much as I love a good story, I need some half decent gameplay to back it up.

It's very light on gameplay but I'm loving it despite it's glacially slow pace. The writing and general aesthetics are spot on.

EDIT : Wow, Alex is terrible at this :-)

4 minutes in and this is going into my wishlist.

This sounded really interesting to me when it first came out, I've had it in my wishlist for a while now but been hesitant to dive in on it. Looking forward to seeing a bit more of it in action!

Really appreciate alex's attention to detail and thoroughness! GBEAST FOREVER

Gloom Bazooka!

I thought this looked familiar, realized what it was half way through. Apart from the boat and combat, it's the same systems in Dragon Age The Last Court, the browser game set up for Inquisition. Looks like Failbetter made it before.

"Captain Beefheart" . and you fuckers dare to say Alex is bad ;P

If, like me, you find the idea of the story content/writing of this game great (say you played Fallen London) then, they kinda hit the nail on the head when explaining this games problems.

If you wish to experience all the clever writing and plot the game has to offer, you must first sacrifice several dozen hours to repeated deaths, never gaining more money then you spend per-trip out, and in general being frustrated by the slow ship movement.

That said, this games writing is absolutely fantastic. The story elements are interesting and if you don't mind sitting down and reading, you are doing yourself a grave disservice to miss out on it.

If all the game play looks great/worth the effort? Go for it.

Or, if your like me, and want the story but don't have the time/patience to jump through the various hoops in order to enjoy the story? Just Hack the save file, give yourself 500,000 echos, and off you go.

Or you could always turn off the perma-death..but eh. Given just how bloody good the story in this is, its one game I full heartily invite people who would otherwise miss out on it due to the game play to cheat their way into experiencing instead.

Looks extremely boring and empty.

This is great if you want a heavy narrative driven game but there are other games on Steam that do the exploration stuff as well but focus more on the gameplay mechanics more. Starpoint Gemini 2 and S.P.A.Z are two that come to mind.

This game would have been better if they added more interesting gameplay elements to go with the heavy narrative focus. It just seems to slow and not enough to keep you playing after the first few games.

I find this game super fascinating. It sets out to be exploration game with focus on narrative without bullshit mechanics and atrocious gameplay as Telltales stuff, and it has superb writing. World is actually interesting and original, and has a narrative to it, as opposed to exploration in (probably) No Mans Sky. And because its not scripted, and you have that "download new stories" button, it has a pretty high replay value.

Alex should've played 5 to 10 more hours of this before doing the quicklook. It's an amazing game but like patrick did during his own ''quicklook'', Alex is struggling with the most basic gameplay concepts.

1-There is literally no reason to go at half speed ever

2-You need to click on enemies to target them

3-Work with the admiralty in the early game to earn enough money to buy stuff

I know the tutorials aren't great but it's not really that impenetrable of a game. Exploration, smuggling of dangerous and highly illegal cargo, cannibalism, spy networks and unknowable horrors are just a few of the aspects I love about this game. That and the amazing writing.

Re-cuh-noy-terr

Eh, I died 3 or 4 times before I had a handle on the flow of the game. I've been on my current character for about 20 hours and only came close to death a few times because of hubris (living icebergs are dangerous, khan's ships can rip you to shreds, etc).

I'll make a forum post for early game tutorials but for now a few tips:

1-Always compile a port report everywhere you go (if you can, some places it's rather hard/not worth it)

2-collect all the officers you can (their personal chain quest can often lead to great rewards and only sometimes screw you over)

3-Learn to manage Fuel vs supplies vs terror vs money

4-Learn to fight dirty (attack ships from behind and take advantage of their poor firing radius by using the spiral of deathTM maneuver)

5-Don't attack harder foes (learn which ones are worth it in the early game) and kill the light to avoid detection (you can actually travel the whole world with the starting ship if you avoid enemies properly)

6-Look for ''choose your own adventure'' type story lines on certain islands. Some are rather easy and lead to great rewards when completed.

7-Spend your ''something is waiting ashor'' token wisely. On some islands there's not many options on how to spend it but on other islands it's essencial to advance important story lines.

8-One repeatable delivery quest requiring a deposit is a incredibly efficient way to earn money in the early game if you find the specific island where it starts

So it's basically steam punk Escape Velocity? Because it looks like steam punk Escape Velocity.

"Throw a cannibal at it" is my new go to solution for every problem

Zhay are fanzee, zis iz why Zhey uze za lezza Zee.

@pyrodactyl: I'll stand by my initial statement then. For those with the patience to sit down and learn and/or read up on what they need to do? Then yup, all of the stuff you said is completely worth reading/learning.

For me though? I bounced off this game hard about 4 times before finally just saying 'screw it' and more or less removing the game-play to get at the story. I have now found the game to be much more enjoyable.

I know for most people, your advice will be the one to follow. It is just that there are going to be some, like me, who would otherwise miss out on the great writing (as said before) if not for being notified that, there is in fact a way to get at it without all the headache.