Great game
This is an excellent game. Everything Alexis Kennedy touches is pure gold. His writing really shines in this.
I’ve never seen literature commit self-harm with game mechanics before
This is an enormous, extremely complex choose-your-path novel strapped to one of the worst games I have ever seen in my life. The story is witty and well written and engages with deep, unique lore that I really enjoy. Unfortunately, the tedious, luck-based, and shallow gameplay actively prevents you from engaging with and enjoying it. As I note, the novel portions are great, but your progress in them is limited in every direction by resources - you need money or certain trade goods or a tough enough warship to advance in virtually every storyline. But the best ways to earn money, trade goods, and better equipment require those things - money to buy goods in bulk for reselling at a markup, goods to trade, and powerful equipment to kill the few tough enemies who consistently drop valuable enough items to make them worthwhile targets. Not only that, but doing ANYTHING costs you, because moving around consumes resources you need to pay for. Thus, the early game is horrifically grindy. You have to squeeze out the same repetitive hauling runs that reward maybe one to three hundred currency, avoiding all the enemies because it’s not cost effective to fight them, while you save up for hours towards ships or equipment that can cost into the thousands. Even once you get to that point you’re not safe, because this game made the baffling decision to be permadeath by default (there’s apparently an option to change this, but I can’t figure out how). And you can die FAST - text/story events with stat-influenced RNG outcomes can be triggered at random or without foreknowledge of what you’re doing, and some of these will kill you instantly if you happen to roll poorly. In the worst cases, you can spend hours clawing your way out of the mindless early game slog only to randomly trigger an event and then die through no fault of your own because you didn’t get a high dice roll on it (this is particularly bad with the “Terror” stat that functions as crew morale, because so many events can increase it in large increments, it’s expensive and hard to reduce, and when it caps out you get a guaranteed event with very poor odds of success that kills you instantly if you fail). I love the story here. But I’ve played about fifteen hours and haven’t gotten to experience hardly any of it because all my time is spent grinding out resources to set myself up and then losing them to inexperience or getting bad event RNG. The combat is shallow, the exploration becomes stale because the map remains largely static between lives, and the progression is both deeply unsatisfying and schizophrenically balanced. It feels like a freemium mobile game trying to frustrate you into paying to skip content, but it’s not malicious, just really stupid! Look, unless the story, writing style, and setting of the game really appeal to you, don’t get it. And if those do appeal to you…also don’t get it. All of the dialogue and story paths are available for free on the wiki. Just go read it there and avoid the self-sabotage of the paid product.
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Fantastic
This is honestly the best roguelike rpg I have ever played, the story is incredible and the exploration element is eery and exciting as you take risks regarding having enough fuel/food/money for your crew and engage in combat with other ships / monestets. In particular the map is mostly randomised upon each death, some ports stay in the same places but others move considerably and this both helps exploration and also massively increases replayablilty as you do storylines in different orders etc. There are many many ways to win, even more to lose. In particular, this is absolutely ace on iPad / switch, with headphones, whilst it’s raining / stormy outside. To the developers: thank you so so much for putting this on iPad, at least 3 of my friends have bought this game from me banging on about it to them. You guys are great, I’ve heard sunless skies is a blast too! Hope it comes to iPad with controller support maybe? Haha
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Please add support to iPad mini 6!
Real masterpiece but not support iPad mini 6 screen! Please add support!
No DLC
The game will always feel incomplete with the DLC being brought to IOS
Niko
This game has good and bad :
The good:
-A literate masterpiece
-HUGE map!
-Lots of different items
-Scary enough
The bad:
-Limited transport options
How to improve:
-Zubmariner DLC(free?)
-Also sunless skies would be cool
The good:
-A literate masterpiece
-HUGE map!
-Lots of different items
-Scary enough
The bad:
-Limited transport options
How to improve:
-Zubmariner DLC(free?)
-Also sunless skies would be cool
Great game but takes a while
You have to be patient with this one. Also I recommend reading about how to sell sunlight. The money it brings in will make this one bearable.
Great conversion
I was a kickstarter backer for this and have all the content on my PC. But I find that I much prefer to be able to play this tense and beautiful mix of text and survival arcade on the move. My only great sadness is that I have now played through much of the content and I am aware that there is more in the submariner expansion. Oh how I long for that expansion on iPad…
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Amazing
A beautiful, enthralling game. It’s not easy, and it has a pace about it which some may find slow, but both those are positives in my view. I simply cannot stop playing it. Total immersion in the created world. Thank you developers.
Could be an awesome game...
... If the black bars on the iPad pro 11 2021 would be fixed. The game itself is pretty brilliant!
Keine Übersetzung auf deutsch...
...3 Sterne Abzug! Sonst gäbe es 4–5. Es gibt nichts schlimmeres als Spieleentwickler, die sich auf Ihren Lorbeeren ausruhen!
Brilliant game, let down by crashes
I love this game and have played so many hours of it. The trouble is that there are so so many crashes. The screen turns purple, the audio stutters and my iPad restarts. Really not ideal as I want to be able to switch in and out of it, and I’d rather not have to resort to manual saving. Also the lack of the Zubmarina is a bummer. Highly recommend the game, just play it on a different platform.
I’m using an iPad Pro 11 inch 2nd gen, iPadOS 14.2 (in case the devs want to fix this :) )
I’m using an iPad Pro 11 inch 2nd gen, iPadOS 14.2 (in case the devs want to fix this :) )
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DLC needed
Since you've already ported the game why not complete it and release the DLC
Outstanding
Really engrossing game with many and varied possibilities depending on your choices.
I understand that this is cut down from the desktop version, but it's good enough.
I understand that this is cut down from the desktop version, but it's good enough.
Truly a masterpiece!
Was definitely worth the $10. Found Fallen London afterwards and can’t stop playing that as well. I wish you could connect the Fallen London to the Sunless Sea app however, but I think it is only possible with the PC and Mac versions. When is the Sunless Sky coming to apps??
Sunless sea
Does not work on ipad pro 2020. Cause device restart.
ระบบที่ค่อนข้างลึก
เกมส์นี้จะเดินเรื่องช้า ไม่ใช่เพราะเกมส์ แต่เพราะเนื้อเรื่องทุกอย่างยาวมาก และเราไม่รู้ว่าส่วนนี้สำคัญหรือไม่ส่วนระบบของเกมส์และ HUD สวยงามมาก ตอนแรกระบบอาจจะดูซับซ้อนแต่พอเราเปิดใจลองเรียนรู้ดูแล้วแม่งโคตรง่ายและสะดวกมาก
เวลาที่เรียนรู้ระบบเกมส์ทำให้รู้สึกเหมือนเป็นกะลาสีจริงๆ ทำให้อินไปอีก เวลาที่เราทำภารกิจเราไม่รู้เลยว่ามันจะมีอะไรรอเราอยู่บ้าง
แผนที่เกมส์นี้จะสุ่มทุกครั้งที่เริ่มเกมส์ใหม่ ยกเว้นเมืองหลักที่อยู่ขอบแผนที่จะไม่เปลี่ยน ทำให้ทุกครั้งที่แล่นเรือไปเมืองต่างๆ ทำเอาขนลุกเพราะไม่รู้ว่ามันมีอะไรรออยู่ ซึ่งไอ้พวกที่มันรออยู่เนี่ยแหละแม่งทำให้ผมต้องเริ่มเกมส์ใหม่55555
โดยรวมผมคลุกคลีอยู่กับเกมส์นี้นานมากเพราะเนื้อเรื่องและภาพของเกมส์มันทั้งลึกลับและน่าค้นหาในเวลาเดียวกัน ดึงดูดให้กะลาสีใหม่ทุกคนอยากจะมีส่วนร่วมใน “มหาสมุทรไร้แสง” แห่งนี้ถือว่าคุ้มค่ามากครับ
เวลาที่เรียนรู้ระบบเกมส์ทำให้รู้สึกเหมือนเป็นกะลาสีจริงๆ ทำให้อินไปอีก เวลาที่เราทำภารกิจเราไม่รู้เลยว่ามันจะมีอะไรรอเราอยู่บ้าง
แผนที่เกมส์นี้จะสุ่มทุกครั้งที่เริ่มเกมส์ใหม่ ยกเว้นเมืองหลักที่อยู่ขอบแผนที่จะไม่เปลี่ยน ทำให้ทุกครั้งที่แล่นเรือไปเมืองต่างๆ ทำเอาขนลุกเพราะไม่รู้ว่ามันมีอะไรรออยู่ ซึ่งไอ้พวกที่มันรออยู่เนี่ยแหละแม่งทำให้ผมต้องเริ่มเกมส์ใหม่55555
โดยรวมผมคลุกคลีอยู่กับเกมส์นี้นานมากเพราะเนื้อเรื่องและภาพของเกมส์มันทั้งลึกลับและน่าค้นหาในเวลาเดียวกัน ดึงดูดให้กะลาสีใหม่ทุกคนอยากจะมีส่วนร่วมใน “มหาสมุทรไร้แสง” แห่งนี้ถือว่าคุ้มค่ามากครับ
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Lingua italiana
Peccato non ci sia la lingua italiana per poter godere appieno la trama del gioco.
Mixed feelings, mostly negative
Pro's: Lovely ambiance and sound design, and the characteristic Failbetter grim, quirky, mindbending writing is always a delight.
Con's: Terrible, non-intuitive interface, difficulty curve for performing even basic tasks is frustratingly steep, no tutorial section to speak of besides the occasional dropped "hint" that explains a fundamental mechanic of the game *several hours in*. Not for players even remotely interested in casual play. The difficulty of this game comes not because it sets challenges per se, but because everything from the interface on up seems designed to be as cumbersome and opaque as possible. It's a full-on misery simulator. I have to suspect this was the devs' intent, as it dovetails perfectly with the ambiance; it's just not for me.
Con's: Terrible, non-intuitive interface, difficulty curve for performing even basic tasks is frustratingly steep, no tutorial section to speak of besides the occasional dropped "hint" that explains a fundamental mechanic of the game *several hours in*. Not for players even remotely interested in casual play. The difficulty of this game comes not because it sets challenges per se, but because everything from the interface on up seems designed to be as cumbersome and opaque as possible. It's a full-on misery simulator. I have to suspect this was the devs' intent, as it dovetails perfectly with the ambiance; it's just not for me.
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Amazing writing, now give us the DLC!
A fantastic iPad port, totally addictive gameplay and setting. Just a shame there is no sign of Zubmariner for iPad players. Help us out FailBetter!
