Some impressions for Sunless Sea: (thanks again, you raffler you!)
The story: You play a captain of a small boat in an underground sea ("the Zee." or "the Unterzee") close to "Fallen London" (I assume a steampunky post-apocalyptic London.) The story unfolds as you do quests and read flavour texts. There's a hint of "Mass Effect" vibe as you take on crew members and do quests for them as well in order to make them better. I know I'm not making the story sound like much, but trust me, it's gripping. Mind you, since it has roguelike elements, and I'm only on my second game - I'm doing kinda sorta well so I've seen a lot of stuff - but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets less gripping as you die more often.
The gameplay: Explore. Trade. Do quests. Battle. Try not to die. Go back to London to sell your stuff and heal up. Repeat. Okay, I'm being simplistic. At the beginning, very little of the map is shown and you fill it out as you sail ("zail") around. You have to perform a delicate dance between fuel, supplies, money ("echoes,") and terror (how scared you're getting. Probably like the good ol' Call of Cthulhu san-checks.) Stick too close to London, and you won't make enough money to buy more fuel and supplies. Stray too far, and you could run out of fuel and supplies while out at sea, or have to spend more in price-gouging ports. You can save fuel by turning your prow-lamp off, but that makes your terror increase faster. If you really get desperate you can burn supplies for fuel, or if you really need supplies...well, use your imagination. Since it is a permadeath game, you really do feel the desperation.
Only once did I call bullshit, and that was because of a glitch - I went off the map and got penalized for it pretty severely, then got teleported to the nearest port...where it gave me the same punishment again (and I'm sure it shouldn't have done that.) So I had lost nearly everything and was at 100 terror - it gave me a chance to stave it off briefly twice - but I did manage to just barely slide into a port with cheap fuel and reasonable supplies. It's forgiving, but not TOO forgiving. There are plenty of times I've screwed up and got close to death, but pulled myself out of the fire, and knew it was on me.
Oh wait, one more thing I can call bullshit on. You can purchase a few different ships than the one you've got. If you're really strapped for money you can downgrade to basically a dinghy. So here I was thinking, okay, all the next ships up from the one I have are bigger...WRONG. The next ship up is smaller and worse in almost every way, but adds to your stealth and perception scores (big whoop.) I scrimped and saved to upgrade a second time just to get out of that garbage. Man, if I had only known I wouldn't have wasted my money.
The graphics and audio: The graphics are pretty simplistic - they look like late-era Flash or early-era Unity - with conflicting art styles for the portraits and some bad conveyance for faux-3D. I thought some gates were impassable when it turns out they were open and I could just sail through them. Still, there's a great use of cool and warm colours to show the interplay of the darkness of most places, and some places with (either natural or artificial) light. So it could have used improvement but it's still got style.
The audio at sea is mostly background sound effects. You only get music close to a major port. Makes being at sea even bleaker, which is a nice touch.
The length: No idea how long individual winning games are supposed to take, but let me just say this is a slow-paced game. This is Sid Meier's Pirates! on barbiturates.
The verdict: I'm really enjoying it, but at the same time I realize it won't be for everyone. If you don't have the time to get invested in this and/or do some slow thoughtful exploration, then you won't have fun with this. But if you are willing to put in the time and attention, I think you'll find this game is a "captivating treasure."
