You know, I hadn’t made that connection, but I totally see that. I think Fallen London’s really tilted away from his sensibilities in that regard as well. And I have to say, it’s not that he was wrong - it does, as you say, really make sense for Cultist Simulator, and there were interesting things about it in Fallen London and Sunless Sea as well. But ultimately it does tend to frustrate me (in Cultist Simulator too, tbh). And one of the things that really reinvigorated my interest in Fallen London (in addition to so much of their development focus returning to it so there’s actually notable new stuff on a regular basis) was going from a state where I’d pop in occasionally to poke stuff and grind a bit but had really no direction, to having concrete goals that I could work towards. And some of that required wiki visitation, but some of it was having explicit directions to go in again. I’m way more okay with grinding carousels etc when I know I need X of this and Y of that in order to do this cool thing that will unlock new cool things and give me more story to boot.
Skies is much easier to approach than seas.
Skies iterates on the the questing interface, streamlining it in a way that makes the total game much more enjoyable. You rarely question what you need to do to advance a quest in skies where in seas it’s often not clear what you need to do next. This greatly reduces frustration.
It’s less easy to get yourself into a no win situation in skies where you are going to get into a no-win situation in seas.
I think there is a bit less atmosphere and fear in skies, but those elements are certainly still there.
It may be a taste thing, but I prefer the music in seas.
Please post your experience. I would like to get it on the Switch, but worry about performance.
Another good reason to get Skies! Kennedy doesn’t get a cut of my money.
I was curious to see if he had any sort of, I dunno, like peripheral credit for Sunless Skies (like “inspired by the world created by” or “creative consultant” or something like that) and nope. Does not appear in the credits, unless he’s in the endless loop of hundreds of kickstarter backer credits somewhere.
One PSA for folks who’ve played the game before, but haven’t gone back in a while. If you’re wanting to play from an existing save game that you have – but it’s a really old save game (from before the Wayfarer patch in April, 2019), be sure you start up the game and load your save and then re-save it before the Sovereign Edition patch drops Wednesday.
This thread is making me want to give Sunless Skies a spin - any reason to wait until tomorrow (patch/SE), or just jump in today?
Honestly wish I could give you an answer that feels smart, but I can’t.
What I will say is that the Sovereign Edition apparently makes some changes to the character advancement system – in the current edition, you have a pretty wide open set of choices when you go up a level, so you can pick as you like. In the Sovereign edition – if my reading of it is correct – your advancement choices as you go up levels with your captain are more focused, based on your chosen background and also your previous advancement path.
For that character progression reason – which feels more in keeping with the narrative conceits of the game – I’ve held off playing until the new edition and will then start a new character. But I have no idea if there’s any merit to doing that at all. :)
Threads like this one are the embodiment of the Qt3 ideal, in my mind. Finding a thread about an, if not exactly obscure, then at least underappreciated game and reading its advocates tell me why I should give it a shot. I’m no stranger to Fallen London, in fact I kickstarted both Sunless Seas and Sunless Skies but they never quite got their hooks in me like I hoped they would. I’m going to give Sunless Skies another opportunity to do so when this revision releases.
Is this game better with m/k or controller (console)? Anyone have any opinions on either or?
Dunno if anyone knows yet, because a big feature of this sovereign release is revamped controller support.
Yeah, I’ve only ever played with M+K. I might try with a controller, but it’ll be weird learning to do stuff that way now since I’m so used to doing it the other way.
The game is supposed to come to consoles that I imagine the new update should bring a decent controller layout.
I’ve gotten to play a little over an hour on Switch before work and during lunch, and the controls seem fine to me. The only bummer is that the buttons aren’t remappable and opening your inventory/journal radial menu is mapped to pressing in the right stick. There are two identical cruise control toggle button mappings, but this very common action requires a kinda finicky joycon stick press.
Other than that minor quibble, I haven’t run into any issues playing portably. I haven’t noticed any slowdown or weird performance issues, but the tiny ship size on the portable screen and general slow pace of the action makes it difficult for me to tell.
I look forward to playing it docked tonight to see it blown up to TV size.
I’d be interested in playing this with a controller, which feels more natural for me when I’m doing this kind of top-down driving. However, I don’t see any way to mouse over icons to get the tooltips I want. If I want to check the prerequisites for certain choices, it seems like I’m out of luck with a controller. And, sadly, this isn’t the kind of game that lets you drive with a controller and then switch to the mouse when you want to manage story stuff or inventory. You have to toggle one control scene or the other in the options settings.
I’ve gotten spoiled by games that let you freely alternate between mouse+keyboard and a game controller…
-Tom
EDIT: Okay, I spoke too soon. It turns out there’s a prompt at the bottom of the screen to press X to see the requirements for a choice. I’m going to stick with trying the controller for a while.
So on a console there is now way to see tool tips?
There is! I spoke too soon and I’ve since edited my post. You can press X to see prerequisites.
-Tom
How does playing with a controller feel? All else being equal, I’d probably prefer to go with that.
I am still 2 hours away from beginning my new adventure. Jealous!
Anyone found a way to make this run ultrawide?