Abandon Ship - Sunless Sea, FTL, and a Kraken

Even in its EA state, ACG likes it:

Is this the game that has one of the writers from Sunless Sea working on it?

Bleh, Early Access. Let’s see how early:

Estimated 9-12 months before it’s an actual game instead of an early access thingie. So, I’m guessing summer 2019.

-Tom

32% off @ GMG. With voucher: TRYTHESE20

So…how is it?

Eurogamer also with effusive praise for the game even in its current EA state.

The gameplay looks kinda like Bomber Crew on sea. Is that remotely accurate?

It is very similar, the only thing that auto fire is the normal canon if you have crew manning it, otherwise all other special weapon or any action(repair, winch, heal etc.) require micro-managing/targeting. So far the game is not too hectic, and the combat is enjoyable, but I’'m still in the beginning of the story mode. Tried combat campaign also, also in the earlier stages, so can’t say how hectic is the micro-managing for later stages.

Thanks, Storz - looks quite fun. While I tend to avoid Early Access games like the plague, this is quite tempting.

Thanks for mentioning this!

I picked it up due to the GMG sale (thank you @lordkosc), but don’t plan to play it too much yet, too much other stuff going on. Only played through the tutorial’s first battle so far. One thing that needs to be mentioned though:

You can pause and give orders.

THANK YOU!

I tried this. It feels lacking. Maybe one day it will be a good FTL alike, but it is not there now (in my opinion) and i’m not sure it ever will be.

In a way this reminds me of bomber crew, a game that tries to be like FTL, but is a lot more repetitive. However Abandon ship is a lot less polished and feels even more repetitive.

I also ran in to what i assume is a bug. You need to do X amount of actions on the map before being able to go to the next area. In the very first area after the tutorial there were not enough actions for me to be able to unlock the next area even with the full map revealed.

I’m early in the game, because my first game ended due to a bug, but so far it seems like nothing i do really matters at all. Hopefully that expands VERY quickly.Every battle is basically the same. I might as well just be replaying one battle rather than getting in to different ones.

The negative reviews on Steam for the EA point to some design issues that is in the game at the current stage.

Hopefully, they take some of the criticism in stride and positively improve the game.

This is why I hate Early Access - Whatever vision the developers may had, and which is most probably not implemented yet, will get completely overwritten by the vocal minority that screams at them, more or less forcing the developers to change course, so that they are seen to be “listening”.

What you end up with, is a game design by the steam forums, and I really don’t think that is a good idea.

That is true. Tyranny of the loud minority is quite a scary thing to behold.

Whatever.

It is an early access game. Potential buyers should be aware of the game’s current status because they never know whether that “vision” will be reached or whether what you buy today is what you get 10 years from now.

If a developer is not able to take criticism of an early access title, they should not release their title in early access before it is done.

As always, don’t blindly take any opinion you see on the internet as gospel, try it yourself. However… every time there is a game with serious problems you get a vocal minority talking about how the “vocal minority” (who just so happens to be everyone except them) is trying to ruin the developer’s vision. I hope this is not one of those instances though because I do like FTL and i do like pirate/sail games (which is why i bought this game).

You missed his point by a country mile. Razgon isn’t talking about whether he’s interested in trying the game or whether the game is worth playing yet. He’s rightly pointing out the pitfalls of early access for new developers or developers without much experience. They release a game while the development is still very much in flux and then get buffeted around by the loudest mouths on the forums.

-Tom

Indeed - I don’t know what @murbella is reading that requies a “whatever” response, but you understood correctly what I was getting at. Its something that I’ve noticed quite a lot, and why I’ve changed my stance on EA games to Mr @tomchick stance, and I’ve stopped buying the games in EA, because they often end up completely different from what the developers originally promised.

Subnautica was VERY close to being a victim of this, seeing how people have been clamoring for co-op and multiplayer over and over and over - thankfully, the developrs have held out, and delivered a kick-ass single player game.

No it wasn’t. The game was intended to be multiplayer from the beginning, they decided to focus on single player and ignore the calls for multiplayer. All it meant is they didn’t delay the game to add multiplayer.

While am sure you are right, some game dev out there listened to fans and the game wasn’t as good, but I have had a positive experience with 99% of the EA games I have played. I would bet the devs listening to feedback is extremely beneficial to most EA games.