SO SUNLESS SEA IS OUT.

After months of playing a pretty damn kickass early access version of Sunless Sea, I was pretty stoked to realise the other day that it had actually been released. Cue me rapidly installing it on Steam on my laptop so I could play the finished product.

For those who don't know, Sunless Sea is a roguelike-like with the same setting as Fallen London (formerly Echo Bazaar), a browser-based game with several thousand lines of really well-written Lovecraftian dialogue. The basic premise is that bats stole London. No, seriously. London and the surrounding land has been sucked down into the bowels of the earth, into the Neath, and most landmasses are now drops in a literal ocean called the Unterzee. You play as a zee-captain, a man (or woman) who has given up the life they knew and answered the siren call of the zee, exploring where no one else dares in search of interesting stories and forbidden treasures.

Gameplay largely consists of sailing your ship through the Unterzee, visiting the various ports and islands you encounter on the way. At first you'll be limited to short voyages before you return to Fallen London to stock up on fuel and supplies; after a long, long, long, long time you may have enough Echoes (the local currency) to buy a slightly better ship or upgraded weapons, but the meat and potatoes of the game is in the narrative. There isn't a set storyline to Sunless Sea per se, so much as a large number of events dotted around that you can encounter in any order, some of which have choices which will change the way they play out.

By default, the game has permadeath; you get one autosave and if you die, that's it. You do get a small respite in that you have a number of legacy options to give your successor either half of one of your stats/money, the map you'd completed until that point, an officer you'd recruited, one of your weapons etc. Sustained play may result in finding some more permanent legacy items.

So far I've logged about 18 hours in this game, and I've only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. I have not yet had to play messenger to the conflict between the rats and the cavies on Pigmote Isle, nor have I recruited the Imaginary Officer. I'm looking forward to getting there, though.

Anyone else played this or have any commentary on it? If you're into roguelikes I'd highly recommend it, though Sunless Sea isn't quite a roguelike in the traditional sense.

In other news, Prison Architect is coming out of alpha this year. :D

No. But you can smuggle sunlight into London.