It’s kind of one of my dream side projects, to bring back a trade-y ship game with a story. Right now I go try a Port Royale or something and I’m just disappointed since it doesn’t feel like I’m a character, it’s just spreadsheets and math. Or something like Pirates! which is disappointing because it’s procedural so it feels too random and rote.
Stardew Valley, even though it’s farming obviously, is probably the closest I’ve gotten recently to that small-character-story-with-fun-game-mechanics vibe.
Nesrie
2931
I did Uncharted Online for a little bit, but it fell into the typical F2P PVP issues and didn’t have the magic of just… finding stuff, or getting that next big ship or chasing down a pirate.
I feel like a game like that with today’s tech would just have so much… like maybe not everything would be the same each play through, and the characters would really pop with their differences. And of course 2 had a unique story for each one. It was so great.
Did you try Neo ATLAS 1492, by any chance? Might be close to what you’re looking for (although you have to be patient with the pace of its storytelling).
The subject matter is the same, and there is an emphasis on discovery, but I think they are very different games and appeal diverging things. Sadly, the story part of Neo Atlas just gets in the way and doesn’t bring anything to the game in my opinion, quite the contrary.
I’ve heard good things but haven’t tried it yet. Thanks for the recommendation!
Aww, thanks for the counter recommendation. :)
It is worth a try, don’t mistake me! but I was fearing you may be disappointed if expecting something like Uncharted Waters.
Setting expectations low as to not disappoint, that’s my way of life!
Left_Empty might be totally right, btw. I liked a lot of the ideas in the game, but didn’t care for how ponderous the dialogue was. But some people have more tolerance for that, so…
I’m seeing in the reviews many references to VNs which aren’t really my deal, but I’ll still probably check it out.
Calling it a VN is quite a bit unfair as well. But the game doesn’t fit many things: it’s like one of those 8-bits computers conceptual games that had a crazy idea they supported by mechanics that were quite a bit too simple. At its core, the game is just about sending ships and drawing paths over and over and over. If that sounds like a chore, it probably because it is, to most people that are better at strategy games than me :D
I played NeoAtlas for an extended play session and found that the tutorial was way, way, way too long, always putting gameplay on very narrow rails, with ponderous commentary. When I posted about this as a complaint, I was told that that was not the tutorial, that was the whole game. One of my least favorite games ever.
The reply you got was most likely tongue in cheek.
Like a bunch of Japanese ‘strategy’ games, the story mode acts as a tutorial. Pokémon is laid out the same way: you play a small, on-path story before the game lets you lose. I think it is the same thinking behind a lot of RTS campaigns.
Neo Atlas is way, way simpler than Pokémon though, making that extended tutorial quite ridiculous if you ask me.
So the story mode isn’t the whole game, but the mechanics it presented you with was the whole game, strictly speaking. If the prospect of repeating over and over the very simple gameplay isn’t appealing, it won’t get any better.
Wow you guys are really selling me on this game. :D
Good thing we aren’t salesmen!
Tom will probably tease us and show us his skills when he gets to play it 3 months before it’s released, because of his dirty journalismistic ways.
Bobtree
2945
Hades is in Early Access.
Mobile port:
Rust-like:
