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From: JAB <noway@nochance.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: FREE GAME: Sunless Skies
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2024 07:44:08 +0100
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On 27/06/2024 16:02, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 
> <BANG!> Yes, that's how I'll open this week's free-game-on-Epic
> announcement. I'll open it with a BANG! There's no reason for this
> onomatopoetic explosion; it's just there as a starter. But now that is
> out of the way, we can get to the actual game.
> 
> 
> 
> * Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition
> https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/sunless-skies-bb4947
>     This game, for me, is the epitome of Indie gaming: a
>     solid title with workable (but slightly flawed) mechanics,
>     an interesting (usually offbeat) concept, and visuals that
>     are /just good/ enough. Take your steampunk spaceship out
>     into the darkest pockets of ether-space, discovering strange
>     aliens and horrors beyond imagining. The gameplay is a
>     weird mixture of rogue-like shooter, RPG, space-trader
>     sim... and visual novel? It's... fine. Honestly, I find
>     the appeal of the game drains away pretty quickly, but
>     I can appreciate the innovation.  The "Sovereign
>     Edition" is essentially the base game with several
>     years of bug-fixes and feature improvements.
> 
> 

I got it in early access, played it for a bit and then put it down until 
the official release. The visuals are one of the best parts for me as 
combined with the music they conjure up this strange world across which 
you navigate and explore.

The gameplay I also like as it's a mix between trading, resource 
management and a choose your own adventure. A lot of the stories are 
really top notch and it's really good at a theatre of mind immersion. It 
can be quite terrifying exploring new areas without knowing whether you 
crew will go insane or starve.

The downsides, the first one is that it is (or was) very difficult and 
it was easy easy to die not because you did anything wrong, as such, but 
instead you just choose the wrong direction to explore. That was 
compounded by one save only and that was just for exiting/re-entering 
the game so if you die, you die. They did acknowledge that this could be 
frustrating so introduced some save options.

The biggy is the combat, mechanical it's poor and it really doesn't feel 
that it fits with the rest of the game.

Overall though I'd say it's worth a try but it's also worth finding a 
brief introduction to the game to read that explains the basic of 
resource management and also a few starter trade locations to set you on 
your way.