KickStarter Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition - new Fallen London game from Sunless Sea devs

[Verylittlefishes]

still no sunless skies sovereign edition btw

I wonder if they'd fix the performance issue on PC too.

 

[Lithium Flower]

still no sunless skies sovereign edition btw

I wonder if they'd fix the performance issue on PC too.

Well it seems like they are mostly delaying the update to fix some of the performance issues of the WIP console port, and that "the PC and console versions share code, so that both will benefit from all the performance improvements and bug fixes developed for the ports."

Fingers crossed.

 

[vortex]

>no Alexis Kennedy

He may be involved in Dragon Age 4.

 

[Fredward]

still no sunless skies sovereign edition btw

They did mention it's gone in for console certification though.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.failbettergames.com/sunless-skies-sovereign-edition-now-has-a-release-date/

Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition now has a release date!

We’re glad to announce that Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will be released very soon, on 19th May. This will be a free update for all our players on PC, and will also be the first version of Sunless Skies we release on consoles!

This is a greatly enhanced edition of Sunless Skies, containing all additions and improvements we’ve made to the game since launch as well as many more completely new ones.

For the Sovereign Edition, we’ve reworked and extended the starvation mechanics. Captains will now find a range of increasingly dubious gastronomic options available to them as desperation grows.

We’ve improved character progression, with a new interface, a greater range of facets to define your past, and even a way for experienced captains to continue improving their capabilities after reaching the level cap.



There are also new trading opportunities to exploit, an exotic engine for your locomotive, better performance, greatly improved gamepad support, and literally hundreds of fixes and small improvements. If you’d like to know more, we’ve included a more detailed list below.

This ultimately took longer than we’d hoped, partly due to the considerable scope and partly because it turned out to be pretty difficult to achieve the level of performance optimisations we wanted. But all is now well, and we’re very glad to be able to share it with you.

We think this will be by far the best version of the game for new players, and we hope the new features and many quality of life improvements will make it exciting for the veteran captains among you, too.

There is a small caveat to the release date – it might yet go back a little bit if we run into too many snags with console submission, but we think that’s unlikely.

We’ll be making the Sovereign Edition available on Windows, OS X, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, and the Switch.

Spoiler

A Note about Save Files and Gamepads for Returning Captains
Because the Sovereign Edition includes so many changes, there will be a couple of significant oddities if you play it with a very old save file.

Specifically, if you haven’t used your save file since we released the Wayfarer update in 2019, the chart will forget which areas you’ve uncovered, and you’ll begin play near New Winchester, wherever you were before. Everything else will work fine, so you won’t lose any progress with stories. If you want to avoid this, you can just briefly load up your save in a current version of Sunless Skies before 19th May when we release the Sovereign Edition.

Also, for any GOG players who value the ability to roll back their game to older versions – once you play your save file in the Sovereign Edition it will no longer be compatible with them, so you might want to make a back up first.

Finally, the Sovereign Edition includes a much better default experience for gamepads, but it unfortunately doesn’t support rebinding for them. We anticipate that there will now be much less need for most players to rebind the controls, but we know that some players may have specific accessibility needs. There is some third party software that should still make it possible to rebind the controls in this case – if you need some support with this, please do get in touch with us and we’ll do our best to help.

Feature List
For the curious, this is a slightly more detailed list of new features and changes in the Sovereign Edition – we’ll share a full and much more detailed changelog at the time of release!

• A major rework of starvation, with various new and probably inadvisable choices about what to eat.
• The character progression screen has been completely redesigned.
• On level up, the winds of fate will now offer you a choice from a subset of available facets, rather than every facet available.
• To compensate for the reduced control over your captain’s exact stats, the requirements for locomotive equipment and weapons are now substantially less demanding.
• Also, level 20 is no longer the end of your captain’s development: while they will not be able to choose more facets, they can now continue to improve their stats.
• Several new facets: perhaps you lost your soul (and found it again) or attended a seance. Perhaps you have a notable hobby, or are close to rats, spies, Rubbery Men, devils?
• You will now be informed whenever you’ve unlocked a new deed.
• New trading opportunities.
• Hints for prospects.
• Many improvements to the chart.
• A saving indicator (finally!).
• A new exotic engine to discover, which may be of particular interest to experienced players.
• Numerous performance improvements.
• A rework of the saving and the save file system that should result in fewer eccentricities if your play session is interrupted by a power cut.
• Various quality of life improvements: for example, the first officer of a given type will now be automatically appointed to the position.
• Literally hundreds of bug fixes.
• A UI overhaul to provide better support for controllers. This will generally not be very noticeable to keyboard and mouse players, but should provide a much more intuitive and pleasant experience for anyone using a controller.
• Sundry small and subtle things, which we’ll get into in the full patch notes!

 

[Verylittlefishes]

will they fix the weird FPS drops on PC that x4 faster than the system requirements
Infinitron you should totally play this

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

Looking forward to it. One of the few "new" games I actually enjoy playing these days.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I'm still curious what they will change/fix technically.

 

[Rahdulan]

Sovereign Edition is out with hefty patch notes.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/596970/announcements/detail/3034842167041237082

As promised, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now available on PC and consoles!

This is the game’s debut on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, with many completely new features, fixes, and improvements. And if you already own Sunless Skies here on Steam, you can play it now as a free update!

There are many, many changes, but here are a few highlights:

• Major changes to character progression. We’ve reworked the interface, and added new facets to define your captain – did you lose your soul (and find it again)? Do you have a special connection with spies, devils, talking rats, or Rubbery Men? And legendary captains can now continue to improve their ability even after reaching the cap of level 20.
  
• A reworked and expanded starvation system. As desperation grows, you can now attempt to eat an unprecedented selection of unwise, unpleasant, or tragic things.
  
• A new exotic engine. It’s very fast, but not very good at stopping...
  
• A complete rework of controller support and many improvements to interfaces, to make it as smooth and pleasant as possible.

There are literally hundreds of other improvements, bug fixes, and optimisations – you can read the full change log if you’re curious! And of course it includes everything we’ve added since the original launch in the Wayfarer, Vagabond, Horn, Hoarder and Urchin updates.

We’d like to take the opportunity to thank our excellent porting partners, BlitWorks, for doing such a fine job with the ports. And whether this will be your first visit, or a triumphant return, we warmly welcome you to the High Wilderness!

 

[Verylittlefishes]

And still no save system(

Anyway, time to return to this fucking Eleutheria.

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

While the SE doesn't change that much in the end, I gotta say that the new model for the Curator bats is actually terrifying. Way better than the old one.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

I think they fixed performance issues.

 

[Baptismbyfire]

Is this game worth it. Or is it just a chore?

 

[Optimist]

So, I finally played it through.

I was very much in love with Sunless Sea. I played through it while down with a pretty bad flu a few years ago, and while I am absolutely not going to deny that it had some problems with its pacing and general gameplay, it also had fascinating writing, a hugely immersive soundtrack, and an atmosphere that just sucked you in, and encouraged you to do one circle around the Zee after another. I fondly remember the Irem fuckery, trying to achieve anything in Khanate, eating my crew, or that one time you delivered a port report on London to Iron Republic embassy. SS got me into Fallen London for a few weeks, and while its gameplay is absolutely bare metal, I had fun reading through the storylets.

Once Sunless Skies was announced, I knew I was going to play it. The only thing was - since I traveled a lot back then, and have a Switch, I decided that I might as well wait for the Switch version, as I was not going to be able to sink enough time into it locally. Then the coofs happened, and it only released what, two months ago? Bought the Sovereign Edition on Switch day one, and saw one of its endings yesterday.

Spoiler

Can see shit capt'n

The first impression was a strong positive. The UI got improved, the icons got overall snappier, and - most importantly - short 'Captain's Log' entries are now displayed on the screen, rather than in the scrollbar down left. I know that this sounds silly, but in a game so heavily based on text, this change means that one of its main appeals got so much easier to appreciate.

The scrolling, parallax'd backgrounds were supposedly hand-drawn, and they're pretty nice, although this differs by location. My main issue with those was that in some areas - Albion was the worst offender here, but some pieces of Blue Kingdom and Eleutheria are pretty bad with this as well - it was mighty difficult to differentiate background from objects. This meant that I rammed into stuff/ went around background rocks more often than I'd like to. I ended up with one finger constantly on the map button, checking on collision contours regularly. I know that if your headlight goes through something, your locomotive should be able to do so as well, but dunno, it just didn't feel like it worked three times out of ten.

I'd say that the backgrounds, in general, didn't have the same oomph they did in Sea. No living-rock-faces appearing in the Zee's bottom for you, no unsettling cobwebs, no interesting architecture. Some pieces of Skies do have something going for them, like the mushroom area in the Reach, or giant scorn fluke appearing in the ocean of mists, but it felt as though Sea has done more with less.

I have read some people complaining about stutters - they're still in the game. Nothing game-breaking, but every now and then while changing 'biomes', the game would freeze for a second, oftentimes loading a set of textures in the background. With these graphics, stuff like this really shouldn't happen, even on the Switch, but eh, I've played much, much worse.

Despite my complaining, though, it does feel like an overall step up. The graphics are perfectly functional and nice to look at. When it comes to sound, though...


The hills are dead with the sound of mushrooms

Let me get this out of the way - Sunless Sea had a much better soundtrack. It fit well with the atmosphere but is a pleasure to listen to on its own (which is what I am doing right now). Skies - dunno, it feels as though its best piece is used on the title screen. This is surprising, as the OST was made by the same people, but maybe they just feel better with themes on the verge of comfortable and absolutely fucking terrifying, than with whatever Skies try to be. It has its moments - like the unsettling, sucking noise around the shrooms I've mentioned - but is otherwise quite bland.

Sounds are OK. It is hard to say something more about them. Right, you can toot your horn! Loading screen message tells you that it doesn't do anything, but this is obviously untrue, as your horn remains tooted once you do this.

I do believe that aurally it's a step down from Sea. I imagine that the fact I feel about it this way might be related to the fact that the audiosphere doesn't help with the atmosphere all that much. This is likely caused by the fact that the game itself doesn't really know what its atmosphere is, though.


Disco Elysium before it was uncool

Sunless Sea had amazing writing and themes. The contrast of British "comfyness", with the "all manner of things shall be well" mindset laid upon it by the authors of Fallen London, contrasted oh so perfectly with all manner of pants-shittingly terrifying, and topsy-turvy weird shit you gleefully encountered on your way. Death was always close, and the tools/allies you've had at your disposal were of as much danger to you as your enemy, but you trudged on just to see more of it. The fact that the Surface was there and that you could visit it, served as a kind of a grounding, and the straight edge to all the weirdness you have constantly encountered. Deathlessness was weird, but the game played with it in an interesting way; devils were weird, but they added to the whole spirifying angle and kept Britain in check. The island which was all about a post office was fun to visit, and I think one of the very few times a location relied so heavily on its wackiness.

Skies... doesn't have it! Its theming and how readily it drops one motif for another make it feel a bit like an amusement park. You are presented with the world's weirdness very early on, but then the writers and designers keep adding more and more and more shit rather than saying "this is OK, let's see what interesting stories can we build with this". The London is a soulless ruthlessly efficient bureaucracy, but also weirdly incompetent, the devils and Masters and rubberies are just there, with roles assigned to them depending on what the author wants to do, the time shenanigans which the game introduces rather early on don't feel like they hold together.

One other thing I disliked was how the writers occasionally punished you for curiosity. Look, in Fallen London, the only way you could damage your progress in an irreversible way was following the Mr Empty storylets, which threw a bunch of warnings at you. In Sunless Sea death was rather easy to achieve, but any damage could be worked back from in some way. Skies give you a few opportunities of permanently damaging one of your four key attributes, which are - in most cases - not really foreshadowed in any way, and feel like a dick move every single time.

Your actions don't really have that many consequences, other than some minor changes in Reach status, and being able to set up an additional transit relay in Albion.

Also, this might be a mark of the times, but there is a lot of rainbow people in the game. I liked how Sea treated it (roughly paraphrasing a possible answer about your character's sex in Fallen London "There are people with squid heads out there, SQUID HEADS, and you're asking me about my gender?!"); Skies is much more in your face with this, up to a point of somewhat losing coherency (one character talking about how hard it was to be a woman on a sky train, while also showing badass female characters very, very often). The four bangable characters include a (not really) crazy cat lady, an unsettling furafinnity OC, a SAD stone dude, and a surprisingly rapey devil. I literally wanted to ask you a question about a place we've visited dude, no reason to stick your horns into my anything. Surprised this made it into the game, what with the team being supposedly super careful around stuff like this.

As long as you want to enjoy the heavily stylized, oftentimes poetic weirdness of this game, you will be fine. I missed the feel of the very visceral horror of Sunless Sea. It felt like Skies wanted to get a bit Lovecraftian with how immaterial your character supposedly is when compared to ruling suns, but seeing how you can (I think? I think I didn't follow this all the way through) kill a sun and bombard emanations of another sun's will into submission, it feels like Seas done this so much better as well.

The words are still nicely put together and a pleasure to read.

Up and down, up and down, this is the way to London town

Gameplay-wise, it's a step up, and in more ways than one.

The big picture remains roughly the same - you get to a central port (one in Sea, four in Skies - one for each region), and then start planning your routes. In Sea, this was usually a single route you forged early on, with an occasional side trip to a location or another, where you've had some quest to handle. In Skies the routes are dictated by trading opportunities you pick up in the central port, allowing you to sell wares of a specific type for lodsamone, landmarks which can be used to reduce your terror, ports which net your port reports which can be then delivered for money and reputation, a plethora of small and big quests you gather along the way, and your companion quests, which are usually big enough to be put into a separate category. You need to consider how much of your bay you'd like to fill with tradeable wares, and how much fuel and supplies do you want to take with you, considering possible random events, the size of your crew, how much terror you've accumulated, etc.

The way you progress on this layer is really smartly done. By completing some quests, you open repeatable opportunities of making money while traveling - transferring colonists, fixing clocks, delivering pieces of monsters, etc. This means, that it becomes much easier to plan a route, which will score you a net gain. Similarly, you can install three systems that allow you to gather additional resources along the way - cannery, mining tools, and assaying array - which make it so you can profit from small opportunities while traveling around.

This system is very easy to break, though. At some point, it becomes possible to travel literally anywhere, without too much planning, and still make some money from mined resources and destroyed enemies. You only need to make sure to stock up on supplies and fuel, and then it's wide skies for you.

Moreover, it feels weird that the easiest way of making a lot of money is staying in the Reach for however long you'd like to. You won't find trade routes more profitable than those there, and there are a few Reach-exclusive opportunities for making an additional buck; a single phlegmatic researcher visit can easily net you 2000+ sovereigns. You can easily complete the Wealth ambition by only visiting Reach and Albion, which is something I will come back to.

The moment-to-moment gameplay got improved so that it's not painful now. Movement and combat are a bit more skill-based - rather than clicking on an enemy once and then firing whichever cannon loads, you are now sidestepping enemy fire while letting off a forward-facing shot every now and then. The locomotive can get pretty heavy, so maneuvering it is not always that easy, but it's nothing for anybody who played some Asteroids in their life.

There are some wasted opportunities, though. There are a lot of weapons and systems that could be implemented into the game. What you can install on your locomotive, are storage compartments, armor, aforementioned gatherer systems, crew compartments, storage, and five types of weaponry - a few quick shots in an arc ("SMG"), a single shrapnel shot ("shotgun"), a long-range shot ("rifle"), a long-ranged shot which you can detonate at will ("rocket"), and a mine ("a mine"). No broadsides, no ways of managing heat (which is taken up by both shooting and strafing), no flamethrowers, no thruster upgrades, no shields, no rams, no terror-costing short-ranged teleports, no deployable mini locomotives, no growable Guest-arms to mangle a dude at short range, no weaponized hour-spinners, no living, regenerating hull. It feels like a lot of lost potential.

The enemies also are nothing to write home about - they circle around you, occasionally throwing a blast or three, and ramming if they feel comfortable in melee range. Most shooter's AI can be easily abused by kiting them at max range which makes some of them not fire at all. Melee chargers are super easy to evade so they're even less of an issue. I confess to dying in combat once, at the cannons of a Guest-taken dreadnought, as their erratic flight patterns make them super fucky to nail. I could have survived that if I turned tail - you can always run if you'd like to, the enemies are not aggressive enough to handle this - but I trusted in my new, shiny cannon so much...

Before I add a few words about other mechanics, let me go over something - I've heard people praising the new combat system. It doesn't deserve it, the mechanic changes just make it so the gameplay is not painful. The large-scale improvements are great, though, although they do make the game a tad too easy.

The only connection of locomotive gameplay mechanics to narrative ones is the fact that you need high enough skills to equip certain pieces of equipment. Supposedly these costs have been lowered somewhat in the Sovereign Edition, and they do seem about right now - you should be able to equip end-game items related to your main stat, and your sub-stat (if you have the officers set up in the right way), with the basic stuff for you, lower-end stats available as well.

The narrative mechanics remain about the same as they were in Sea. You read through a nicely written CYOA game, rolling the dice every now and then, or paying in gathered items. You start with 10-20 across the board, and with each level-up, you add +6 to one stat, and +3 to another. This comes in the form of facets - events from your past that you just happened to recall. A weird explanation, but I guess it makes about as much sense as draining soul-stuff from the rats you kill. Weird thing is, you'll be able to pick up to 20 facets, and since there is what, 25? 30? of them in the game (and another handful appearing based on your origin), you'll be going through a lot of the same on repeated playthroughs. You can shore up your weak spots - or bump up your strengths - by selecting appropriate officers. The rolls can get rather difficult - it's expected that your main stat should be in the 80-90 zone to bring you consistent successes (although even then you'll sometimes roll with 50% chances). The sub/off stats should be at about 60-70; this should give you enough options to avoid rolling for your dumpstats.

So, considering all of this, what is your end goal? To win, of course! In the beginning, you can pick one of three ambitions - wealth, fame, or truth, with truth being the most involved of the three. I went with wealth - and it turned out that it was easily completable in the first two zones. I continued playing anyway, as I wanted to see more of the world and prepare the game world for potential New Game +. The game carries some of your stuff from your captain to the next one, saves the explored parts of the map, carries over officer quests, the relay you can build, and some stats related to the areas. In general, it's not worth trying to 100% the game with your first captain - I've headed into the game with this mindset, and had to slap myself after 30 or so hours, as I realized that the gameplay is becoming more and more of a chore. This is compounded by the fact that you can farm the best weapon in the game in Albion, get an Altani locomotive in Eleutheria, install all three resource modules, and the challenge just about evaporates there. At some point traveling between ports stops being exciting, and you realize that it takes quite a while to go from one place to another. Some items require a bit of grinding to gather, and the Blue Kingdom in general can fuck right off.

I've played my first captain as pro-establishment, Iron + Hearts chad, and there were quite a few quests that proved hard to complete (and I think my stats weren't high enough for some other to appear). It feels like I might want to come back to the game at some point - if I do, I'll go with a Veils + Hearts queenstabber.

Too Long Didn't Read

Sunless Skies was a fun game overall, if not horribly complicated. I think I've enjoyed Sea more than this all in all, but this is an interesting successor. I would honestly encourage Codex audience to start with Sea, and only move to Skies if you decide that its resource system is too annoying and that your teeth hurt from the moment-to-moment gameplay. I'm not a fan of a few bits and pieces of these games, but they are a unique kind of pleasure to go through.

TL;DR: solid stuff, 8/10.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

No way I'll read it but I've put 60 hours into my first failed playthrough last year, need to return! Love this weird world.

 

[Optimist]

No way I'll read it but I've put 60 hours into my first failed playthrough last year, need to return! Love this weird world.

60 hours? What did you in? I had to restart about five hours in (a Guest-infested dreadnought), and then when I got very close to another death after about 10 hours in another playthrough (overextended myself while trying to farm Wrath of Heaven) I was swearing that I'm going to bite my nostrils off if I lose again.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

No way I'll read it but I've put 60 hours into my first failed playthrough last year, need to return! Love this weird world.

60 hours? What did you in? I had to restart about five hours in (a Guest-infested dreadnought), and then when I got very close to another death after about 10 hours in another playthrough (overextended myself while trying to farm Wrath of Heaven) I was swearing that I'm going to bite my nostrils off if I lose again.

I got a bad autosave after teleporting to Eleutheria after completing the portal. Couple of minutes from death with no resources or a way to game it out.

 

[Lithium Flower]

In contrast, my impressions of SSkies' writing as outlined in my post on the previous page have held up. I very much prefer it to SSeas and still find a lot of mysteries and storytelling via I M P L I C A T I O N that is a trademark of the series, but there is far more context for you to root your understanding in, and unlike Optimist I found the narrative themes more focused. For instance, early officer stories will almost inevitably lead you to London, as does the introductory vignette, organically suggesting your next destination beyond Reach, while the first passenger you can pick up quickly provides basic information about the Hour economy and the functions of the Empire before your arrival to its capital.

SSeas' scattershot storytelling did not work for me, as it combined 1. incredibly vague information that was by its nature difficult to remember 2. drip-fed new knowledge at a glacial rate, with not-quite-revelations usually separated by hours of grinding. The jigsaw puzzle of that story was designed to be put together piece-by-piece, yet by the nature of its tiny fragments, the slow rate of their acquisition, and lack of proper framing, the assembly proved frustrating to me and I suspect most others who did not undergo the Stockholm Syndrome Conditioning Program known in some dubious corners of the internet as "Fallen London."

But that's just, like, my opinion man. /dab

 

[Sarathiour]

Time to get back to it, i sort of drop it after having explored most of the reach and london, was close to a fortune victory and ragequitted after teleporting to the blue kingdom and got instagibbed.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Time to get back to it, i sort of drop it after having explored most of the reach and london, was close to a fortune victory and ragequitted after teleporting to the blue kingdom and got instagibbed.

Haha same
There is also the fourth area whose name I forgot.

 

[Sarathiour]

Time to get back to it, i sort of drop it after having explored most of the reach and london, was close to a fortune victory and ragequitted after teleporting to the blue kingdom and got instagibbed.

Haha same
There is also the fourth area whose name I forgot.

That's Eleutheria, you just talked about it :

-Reach
-London
-Eleutheria
-Blue kingdom

 

[orcinator]

was close to a fortune victory

Fortune Victory shouldn't even be an option as the correct way to play this game is to immediately give yourself infinite money so you can minimize the time spent dealing with the garbage gameplay.

 

[Sarathiour]

Fortune Victory shouldn't even be an option as the correct way to play this game is to immediately give yourself infinite money so you can minimize the time spent dealing with the garbage gameplay.

I considered it the beginner victory, purpose being to understand the basic rule of the game.

 

[Optimist]

In contrast, my impressions of SSkies' writing as outlined in my post on the previous page have held up. I very much prefer it to SSeas and still find a lot of mysteries and storytelling via I M P L I C A T I O N that is a trademark of the series, but there is far more context for you to root your understanding in, and unlike Optimist I found the narrative themes more focused. For instance, early officer stories will almost inevitably lead you to London, as does the introductory vignette, organically suggesting your next destination beyond Reach, while the first passenger you can pick up quickly provides basic information about the Hour economy and the functions of the Empire before your arrival to its capital.

SSeas' scattershot storytelling did not work for me, as it combined 1. incredibly vague information that was by its nature difficult to remember 2. drip-fed new knowledge at a glacial rate, with not-quite-revelations usually separated by hours of grinding. The jigsaw puzzle of that story was designed to be put together piece-by-piece, yet by the nature of its tiny fragments, the slow rate of their acquisition, and lack of proper framing, the assembly proved frustrating to me and I suspect most others who did not undergo the Stockholm Syndrome Conditioning Program known in some dubious corners of the internet as "Fallen London."

But that's just, like, my opinion man. /dab

Took a trek to the previous page to read through your posts. I guess the easy comment here would be "well, I like being lied to and jumping from implication to implication and not really knowing what the fuck am I doing, as this reminds me of the wonders of childhood", but I'll try to do at least a bit better.

Sunless Skies is much more direct than Sea, that's for certain. It's a great thing when it comes to the improved quest design that I've mentioned - you do have goals, you roughly know where to go to, and this gives you much more drive. Completing goals always feels good.

I might have misphrased the parts regarding narrative themes. I do agree that the narrative gives you much more direction, but I do not agree that the themes are more focused. Sea was a bit of gothic horror, a bit of a slasher movie, and a bit of Jane Austen's comedy. Skies take all this and add some Wellsian SF, strong class war themes, a lot of nu-Lovecraftian incomprehensibleness to the mix while keeping all that its predecessor had and leaning much heavier on some of it (time fuckery, poLiTIcsS, man vs nature). The various ports take all of this and extrapolate some bits and pieces of it even further - which made it all feel somewhat disjointed for me.

The way the story progressed in Sea was not great - but it felt very zen to me. I do admit to having quite a few hours to spend back then, mostly lying feverish on a couch and chugging large amounts of grog, so I spent a lot of time in this hypnotic rhythm of traveling around and appreciating every new vignette I've encountered in a previously visited port. Meanwhile, after breaking the economy of Skies it turned into a go from point A to point B exercise - and even with the best engine traveling from one port to another could take quite a bit of time. So Seas "scattershot storytelling" vs Skies picaresque turned more into a "routine on knife's edge with occasional nice surprises" vs "progress gated by how fast I can make it to some other port". Sea's gameplay appealed to me, but then again, I sunk a lot of hours into Port Royal and Spells of Gold as a kid.

Your main point is not-entirely-true implications vs more straightforward explanations of Skies. I... don't have a good point to make here. I did enjoy this feeling of not being sure what means what and why does X do Y, as it felt kind of in line with the horrorness of Skies. I don't think I quite realized that the bats mentioned in the opening were the Masters until spending quite a bit of time with Sea/ FL, but this didn't annoy me. All I can say is that I respect your dabs.

 

[ItsChon]

In contrast, my impressions of SSkies' writing as outlined in my post on the previous page have held up. I very much prefer it to SSeas and still find a lot of mysteries and storytelling via I M P L I C A T I O N that is a trademark of the series, but there is far more context for you to root your understanding in, and unlike Optimist I found the narrative themes more focused. For instance, early officer stories will almost inevitably lead you to London, as does the introductory vignette, organically suggesting your next destination beyond Reach, while the first passenger you can pick up quickly provides basic information about the Hour economy and the functions of the Empire before your arrival to its capital.

SSeas' scattershot storytelling did not work for me, as it combined 1. incredibly vague information that was by its nature difficult to remember 2. drip-fed new knowledge at a glacial rate, with not-quite-revelations usually separated by hours of grinding. The jigsaw puzzle of that story was designed to be put together piece-by-piece, yet by the nature of its tiny fragments, the slow rate of their acquisition, and lack of proper framing, the assembly proved frustrating to me and I suspect most others who did not undergo the Stockholm Syndrome Conditioning Program known in some dubious corners of the internet as "Fallen London."

But that's just, like, my opinion man. /dab

The feeling of dissatisfaction with the writing that you describe is my precise problem with Sunless Sea. I thought the game was gorgeous, and I honestly enjoyed the slow paced gameplay, even if you did move very slowly at times. My issue with the game was that after spending many hours playing through the game, I did not have a cohesive understanding of the story or the world in anyway. The game is memorable and I remember plenty of the locations I visited, but I can't for the life of me put any of the shit I remember into context or link one place to another.

Part of that is my fault, as even though I read everything I have a tendency to speed read through something faster than my mind is able to properly process it, but I also feel that a big part of why I can't piece shit together is because the game hits you with the scattershot story telling without first nestling it in something more concrete. I've put tens of hours into the game and maybe I'm just retarded but I didn't even know London had been stolen and by who or what, and why anything in the world is the way it is. I'm able to keep track of a shit ton of different names and ideas and concepts no problem, and I generally do a good job in linking the bits that I know to other things that are revealed to me down the line even if it's much later into a story/game; and I personally love doing this, and I think it a story is better when it has a bit of this. But I need something to ground everything on.

Sunless Seas for me is like trying to solve a puzzle, but all the outer pieces that give it its quadrilateral shape are missing. It's likely going to be a very frustrating experience that I won't be able to make it through, because like seriously, who solves a puzzle by starting from the middle? But if you gave me the same puzzle with the outer rectangle ring solved, everything becomes much better and I'm able to actually see the damn thing through. So I guess the question I have is, does Sunless Skies do a better job of establishing a base level of setting understanding that I can fall back on when confused and build off of with the cryptic information that is given to me as I progress through the game?

And I guess the question I'd have for anyone in the thread would be, is there some sort of video or pamphlet I can read which establishes the basics of the Fallen London setting? I really enjoyed Sunless Seas and I want to finish it, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the fuck is going on.