Saturday Morning Gaming: Sunless Sea

By all lights, Sunless Sea shouldn’t work. It’s not particularly fast. The graphics aren’t particularly flashy. There’s a lot of reading. There are long stretches of empty sea.

But, jeez, it’s interesting.

The game is one where you are… well, who are you? The game lets you pick:

And, finally, you can pick your silhouette:

Then you start the game proper:

Meet with people around London, get a mission here or there, but know that your main short-and-medium-term mission is to explore the world and come back with dock reports. And you get dock reports by going out and visiting new and interesting docks.

Oh, as you go out and visit new and interesting docks, you’re probably going to die. After you die, you can pick which bonuses from last game you’d like to keep. And the world gets rebuilt and now you can explore anew…

But the exploration reminds me of those tile games. The starting tiles are pretty much always the same… you always start in New London, Hunter’s Keep is usually the first island you’ll encounter when you leave New London, for example.

Venderbight is usually the same distance to the North after you leave… but all of the other tiles get reshuffled. Gaider’s Mourn won’t always be in the same place. The Salt Lions won’t always be in the same place. You’re probably going to spend a *LOT* of time looking for Khan’s Heart (except, of course, when you’re looking for Polythreme instead).

And each place has a little something for you to learn about. Some places are easy. The sisters of Hunter’s Keep just want to each lunch and maybe hear some gossip. The Salt Lions just want you to move cargo. But some places will want you to make decisions. Maybe bring them specific cargo, maybe bring specific stories.

As time goes on, you’ll unlock more and more of this gothic and beautiful and sad world. And it moves so slowly! Oh my gosh, does the game move slowly! You might think “well, can’t I upgrade my ship?” and the answer is that you can but it’s so expensive. And the upgrades that are really good are *SO* expensive that you’ll knit your brow the first time you see the prices and ask “how in the heck am I going to make *THAT* much dough?”

And I don’t know. I certainly haven’t even made half that.

But it’s a great exploration game and I can’t even imagine how much time it’d take to beat it. If you like exploration, this game gives you an amazing world to play with. If you want something fast-paced? Run, don’t walk, in the opposite direction. (I’m having a blast, though.)

So… what are you playing?