Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

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

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
 

Aim1ess

Novice
Joined
Jun 6, 2018
Messages
75
Location
United States
So have they said anything about the "release" date for this game? I've already bought it but I don't playtest games for free; I try to wait for one patch after release.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


So have they said anything about the "release" date for this game? I've already bought it but I don't playtest games for free; I try to wait for one patch after release.

January 2019.
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
3,535
SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG

SUNLESS SKIES will be released on 31st January 2019. It will be available on Steam and GOG for PC, Mac and Linux.

“We’ve used the time in Early Access to fill the world with the most glorious stories, and to refine the play experience: improving combat, tweaking the skyfaring experience, and closing in on a dark and dread-soaked atmosphere.” says CEO Paul Arendt. “The next update, due on 10th October, will include a complete overhaul of the Reach region and extended mechanics for Terror, fuel, hunger and crew.”

To accompany SUNLESS SKIES, we’re releasing a free pen and paper RPG system set in the Fallen London Universe, available exclusively via digital download at tabletopgaming.co.uk.



SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG is a pen and paper RPG system by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor of Rowan, Rook and Decard, the minds behind Spire, Honey Heist, Goblin Quest, One Last Job and many other games. SKYFARER follows in the footsteps of their previous work with a focus on quick-form, rapid-fire play that leaves players wanting more.

“‘Why don’t you make an RPG set in the Fallen London universe?’ has been a regular request from players for – oo, going on nine years, now. Working with Grant and Chris on SKYFARER to bring one of our worlds to the tabletop has been hugely exciting. I can’t wait to hear what delicious and horrifying adventures people have with their friends,” says Narrative Director Chris Gardiner. “We’ve tried to make the game friendly to new and experienced roleplayers, and to provide evocative adventure seeds to get things moving in an appropriately Failbettery direction. The game is completely true to our universe: player will find mystery, adventure, bad decisions, improbable characters, nocturnal horrors, and tentacles.”

About SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG

While SUNLESS SKIES puts the player in the role of a Captain aboard a locomotive engine, cruising the skies looking for adventure and profit, SKYFARER gives players the opportunity to play the crew. Gunners, quartermasters, engineers, signallers – even mascots – are brought to the fore as the Captain is struck down by misfortune and the crew must band together to get out of, and probably into, trouble.

Using a simple dice-based system, SKYFARER allows players and gamemasters to easily tell stories set in the FALLEN LONDON universe with plenty of climactic moments, tense stand-offs, and grim decisions. As characters risk life and limb, they’ll accrue Peril – the more Peril they have, the greater the chance of them meeting a grisly and permanent end.

Luckily, things are made easier by spending Tenacity – a resource earned by acting in accordance with your character’s drives and beliefs. But how will those integrities change, now you’re out on the frontier of Victoria’s Empire?

Download your copy from tabletopgaming.co.uk, and please let us know how your games go!

Psst, as an extra bonus for being a friend of FBG, here are some additional story seeds written by our narrative director, Chris Gardiner:

Skyfarer_SkyStories_Supplement

http://www.failbettergames.com/skyfarer-a-sunless-skies-rpg/
 

Zakhad

Savant
Joined
Dec 10, 2012
Messages
284
Location
Gurtex
I've been playing this game a lot. I feel the writing is more consistent than the previous game? (Although I liked that too).
 

Agame

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
1,702
Location
I cum from a land down under
Insert Title Here
Probably the biggest thing going against Sunless Skies is that Sunless Seas didn't leave a great lasting impression. From my own experience, plus what I've seen here and on other forums over the years, Seas gave a great first impression but then you'd play it for a few days, your admiration for the atmosphere would wear off and you'd realize there wasn't much to it beyond a few interesting quest lines, and ultimately lose interest and forget it existed.

Pretty much this ^ "Style over substance."

I regret buying Sunless Sea, the gameplay is basically modeled on FB games, lots of waiting and timers and clicking through mini events. Sure it has an intriguing premise and I was interested to see where some of the quests went, but if the majority of gameplay is boring AF then, nope.

No way I will give these guys any more money unless it seems they have dramatically improved gameplay in the sequel.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
I gave them money despite hating Sunless Sea's gameplay with a passion, just because I'm an idiot and I really wanted to like Sunless Sea and I'm hoping Skies will be similar without wasting my goddamn time. Mostly the idiot part though. Plus IIRC it was a fairly cheap Kickstarter. Cultist Simulator is basically what I would want from something like Sunless Sea, there's still plenty of downtime but it manages to integrate the "Fuck around with stupid crap and learn how it works" aspects into the gameplay in a much more palatable way. I'd even be alright with combining that with some Pirates!/Privateer sandboxing provided the sandbox moved at a decent enough clip.
 

Agame

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
1,702
Location
I cum from a land down under
Insert Title Here
I gave them money despite hating Sunless Sea's gameplay with a passion, just because I'm an idiot and I really wanted to like Sunless Sea and I'm hoping Skies will be similar without wasting my goddamn time. Mostly the idiot part though. Plus IIRC it was a fairly cheap Kickstarter. Cultist Simulator is basically what I would want from something like Sunless Sea, there's still plenty of downtime but it manages to integrate the "Fuck around with stupid crap and learn how it works" aspects into the gameplay in a much more palatable way. I'd even be alright with combining that with some Pirates!/Privateer sandboxing provided the sandbox moved at a decent enough clip.

I am a sucker for nice 2D graphics, and I love exploration so SS seemed like a decent buy, and I like supporting indie devs in the hope they will iterate and improve their ideas. Cultist Simulator looks completely uninteresting to me but maybe thats more like the kind of game these guys should focus on? Cultist Simulator screams FB game, so you know exactly what you are getting into. Whereas with SS there was a lot of potential but it failed miserably in certain areas.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
I am a sucker for nice 2D graphics, and I love exploration so SS seemed like a decent buy, and I like supporting indie devs in the hope they will iterate and improve their ideas. Cultist Simulator looks completely uninteresting to me but maybe thats more like the kind of game these guys should focus on? Cultist Simulator screams FB game, so you know exactly what you are getting into. Whereas with SS there was a lot of potential but it failed miserably in certain areas.
The advantage of Cultist Simulator is that the game part of it is simpler and a bit quicker to tear through, so what are generally accepted as the best parts of Sunless Sea (The writing, setting, lore, etc) come at a more agreeable pace and even end up being worked into the gameplay a little more (Cultist Simulator being a pretty simple game overall where the main meat of it is learning how all the systems work yourself. Using a guide would pretty much ruin it, and "Learn yourself, losing is fun" is more acceptable when Cultist Sim games are quicker moving than Sunless Sea where you can spend 10-20 hours and shit the bed and even with your improved knowledge still have to take 10-20 hours to get back to where you were).

The disadvantage is similar to what I said above, there isn't all that much game to Cultist Sim. It's basically just exploring the mechanics and the combination of you, the player, learning the mechanics and you, the player character, learning the occult. I'd be hesitant to say it's the kind of game they should focus on because it'd be nice if the good aspects were worked into a better game, but the strength of Cultist Sim is that the gameplay doesn't feel like it's getting in the way of the good parts, whereas in Sunless Sea there was a lot of "Boy I'm having fun exploring but now I have an hour of shitty trade runs ahead of me to build up cash". There's even a little bit of that in Cultist Sim but once you know what you're doing it's easier to tear through it, whereas in Sunless Sea even if you know what you're doing you're still slowly chugging along by and large.
 

Zakhad

Savant
Joined
Dec 10, 2012
Messages
284
Location
Gurtex
the core gameplay loop in Sunless skies (so far) demands less patience than Sunless Seas. the vessels are faster, ports are closer, etc. Also, at present at least, you lose far less for dying: some plots remain resolved after death, and if it's a full retirement your next character can often retain your upgraded crew and most of the engine. This has benefits and drawbacks. In some ways the game is easier now, but it's also much easier to make money (which could be pretty dull in Seas) and you feel less direction-less in various stages of the game, which I like. I miss the atmosphere in Seas, but maybe that's just the same way you always feel most attached to the first game you play in a series.

But keep in mind I actually enjoyed Sunless Seas a lot, so if you didn't then these changes might not be enough to make the new game fun.
 

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
한양
Strap Yourselves In
The ambience of Sunless Sea was nice, but I don't know how far that's going to go for me in a sequel. As for the moment-to-moment gameplay, when I see this it just reminds me that I could go back and play Transcendence for another 50 hours.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Hello, delicious backer,

We have a surprise for you. As thanks for being one of our first Skyfarers, you can access the launch version of SUNLESS SKIES right now.

We’re incredibly grateful to you for your support, and your belief in SUNLESS SKIES. We’re so close to launch, and can only hope that we’ve made something which doesn’t disappoint. We can’t wait to know what you think!
That's pretty nice. I still have my doubts that it'll avoid the problems of Sunless Sea, but it's cool of them to do that regardless. Might dink around with it tonight.

:greatjob:
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Initial impression after about an hour: Sounds like it might be a bit less grindy than Sunless Sea. The combat's a bit more action-y now which isn't any great shakes but livens it up a little, and from what I can tell from the tutorial it sounds like trading should be streamlined and less obtuse so maybe it'll be less of a pain in the ass. Although that's just a wild guess of course. Map seems more windy than Sunless Sea too, less open space and more going through paths, which could potentially make for some more interesting terrain but it's also a little obnoxious when you get tasks sending you in certain directions and you're not sure if you go down THIS path as opposed to THAT path you'll be completely fucked even though they're both roughly the correct direction. I also don't know yet if the map's semi-randomized like Sea or if it's completely static now. If it's static then that obviously would make repeated plays far easier.

Music's not as catchy as Sunless Sea too. Minor complaint but the music was really fantastic in Sea, and though the music in Sky certainly isn't bad I haven't gotten into it nearly as much. And just because I'm rambling aimlessly and it came to mind, thus far it feels like there may be less obfuscating free to play time waster bullshit going on with quest tracking and items and shit. Fingers crossed since exchanging 3 ruckuses for 1 hootenanny so that I could combine a hootenanny and an ominous feeling to create a sense of unease I could use to finish a quest annoyed me more than it possibly should have.

Edit: Son of a bitch. Not one minute after I post that I alt-tab back into the game and start clicking through the loot on a pirate I shot up and now I've got 1x Tale of Terror. Where's my fucking gun.

:rpgcodex:
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Guess I'll triple post since I didn't feel like it last night and the edit window on posts is short enough I couldn't just add more to that post.

Around 3 hours played now and it does feel like making money's easier. Money's easier in a trickle at least because basically every minor port you go to will sell something at a slightly better price, and occasionally there are things listed as "Bargains" which are significantly better prices, then there are opportunities which typically want a certain number of a commodity and are paying out the nose for it, and if you deliver all of it they want you get an additional bonus on top. So trading's nothing amazingly profitable but it feels like there's a bit more progress being made rather than trying to find one of maybe 2-3 good trade routes in the game and subsisting entirely on port reports.
Navigation feels a fair bit harder due to less open space like I mentioned, and you can't spam your scout as much because each time you use the scout it uses some supplies (Not really sure the thought process behind that since that's just to give you some vague sense of direction and what's around you, but whatever) but it's nothing too horrible. The maps are randomized a bit like Sea, rather than "Generally spawns in the lower left" like with Sea, locations in skies spawn on the outer parts of the map, inner, or center. So you can get a vague idea of where shit will be with previous experience but then have to track it down yourself.
Music continues to be worse than Sunless Sea and it's actually bumming me out a bit. Even when I was getting pissed at Sunless Sea for wasting my time I at least had the excuse of enjoying the music as I sailed around, Skies has tolerable atmosphere but I've been noticing the lack of memorable music when nothing's going on.
Combat's basic but feels a little better than Sea now that I've played more of it. There's no waiting to line your guns up, you can just hammer LMB and fire straight ahead which lets you nail people at long range if you're good at eyeballing it. There's a heat meter to prevent gun-spam (Side-strafing dodges also bump up heat) but that's basically it. It's basic but since the combat in Sea was kinda shit the really basic combat in this seems fine, although I could see it annoying people who don't want twitch combat in their text-heavy game.
The nonsense items/statuses/whatever do seem a bit toned down. After getting my tale of terror there I've picked up a few more things but they have (Thus far) seemed to make a little more sense. It's highly likely I just haven't hit the really obnoxious stuff yet since I'm so early in the game.

Overall feels like it might be a smidge better than Sea gameplay-wise and I'm still unsure atmosphere/setting-wise. Sea had some really goofy shit in it (Rainbow bubble machine gun or whatever the hell it was, as an example) and I haven't run into anything in Skies yet that really jumps out and annoys me. Probably was a stupid idea for me to back it on Kickstarter but despite my bitching about Sea I still wanted to toss some money in for Skies since it's a cool idea at least and it's the kinda weird I can get behind. Same reason I ended up buying Cultist Sim. I just wish they made the gameplay faster paced and more like Sid Meier's Pirates! with more mutually exclusive quests/resolutions to quests to encourage replayability and enjoying the writing rather than making a 20-30+ hour run and still trying to make people want to replay it. Drop some minigames and stick in some text adventures and cannibalism.
 

Zakhad

Savant
Joined
Dec 10, 2012
Messages
284
Location
Gurtex
I like the music. Feels appropriately British Imperial, and I'm a sucker for British Imperial in general.

my thoughts, in no particular order:

I played a LOT of the game in early access, and have now played a fair few hours since release. Combat is indeed pretty basic but can be made more complicated by different weapon types and different enemy types. Just had my first death in about 40 hours of play thanks to getting swarmed from behind by chorister-bees (they seem to come in much bigger swarms now, and the tighter map makes them harder to escape if they catch you in a bad spot. On their own they're still just cheap XP, of course). Haven't tried mines or missiles yet, nor yet found any of the exotic weapons.

I've started a new lineage for the release version, so I haven't been outside the Reach so far. Will probably go to Albion shortly (because I want better equipment and some of the most interesting you can only get from the Royal Society there). Anyone been to the Blue Kingdom yet? Eleutheria was much tougher than the Reach in EA, I'm interested to see what the challenge level is for the Blue Kingdom. Prices of engines seems to have risen since when I last played in EA, at least at the top end.

Adding to what Multi-headed Cow said, trading is better than Sunless Sea. The prospects and bargains system means you can make a pretty big profit; fulfil the prospects (the requests) and more will become available. You can store any excess goods in the bank at the central ports, meaning you can build up a big supply of goods and then have them ready the moment a prospect comes up. As you get more affiliations (e.g. with criminals, with upper class) you get more and better bargains and prospects. There's also smuggling, but I haven't tried it yet. You can make some money killing enemies ("Guests" can yield a captivating treasure if you pass a check, and lots of others have lesser rewards, e.g. THE BEES). Some quests change the frequency of certain enemies on the map, as well as certain harvest-able resources, so that can add to your money-making opportunities (e.g. tipping the balance in the Winchester War).

I really quite like the levelling system, WAY more than Sunless Sea. Each level you pick a piece of back-story, which adds 5 to one stat and three to a secondary stat, as well as sometimes another bonus (which can be pretty good, like affiliations or rare qualities like moments of inspiration). The options you have available change based on what you've done, what past captains in your lineage have done, and what your chosen starting back-ground is, and then all of this can also change some events or reactions in the world, although at times just cosmetically or in small ways. Still, it's nice, makes levelling up a part of the story.

The only complaint I have is a few of the portraits of crew and NPCs are irritating or don't fit the others. Some are great, but some just look really out of place. This happened in Sunless Sea too, and I guess it's because of backer portraits used for some characters? Wish there was a way to edit them or import your own to replace them, but I can't be bothered looking for it.

Crew Stories I like: The rats, the princess, the aunt

Crew stories I thought were meh: the driver, the signalman, the devil. Also there was some guy on steam complaining that his character ended up having sex with the devil and he didn't choose it, because apparently he didn't know what "carnal" means, and clicked that option in one of the quest dialogues, lol

There are new crew in the release version but so far the only one I've found is the one who looks like he's in a K-pop boyband and I haven't advanced his story very far yet.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
People always tried to tell me that Sunless Sea wasn't Korean-tier grindy, but I actually calculated out exactly how many stat points it would take to actually succeed at anything, and barring wild and egregious save-scumming via file backup, and exploitation, the level of grinding was absolutely insane. You absolutely could not ironman the thing as intended unless you were either going to grind at Korean-level, or were exploiting.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Gonna touch on some stuff Zakhad mentioned since he summoned me and I've been playing a bit more.

I never even thought about using the bank to store excess goods for more readily dealing with prospects, that's a great idea. I probably should fit some more cargo space on my ship (Since 12 is really fucking tight right now) but that's fantastic. I'm somewhere around 1,600 groschen so I should be able to, though I might just save up and try to get the trading ship instead. I also wanna agree on making money in general being better. Most of this evening was spent sailing around cursing up a storm trying to find Lustrum, but in the process (And wasting a few expeditions because I managed to check to both sides of it before I went in the middle and found it) I found some weird-ass eggs I rightfully plundered and carried back to Winchester and sold for 300 a pop, which pretty easily funded my hull repairs/supplies/fuel for all my time spent fucking around exploring.

Also wanna agree on the leveling system being a massive upgrade over Sunless Sea. In Sea there was a lot of fiddliness involved (See: My previous rants about nonsense objects being used extensively) but like Zakhad mentioned in Skies your XP bar fills up and you can click to level up and get some interesting options. Speaking of fiddly things though, I really should try to find a use for deadly secrets or whatever they're called. Every once in a while I get hit with terror because of knowing them, and then I did some adventuring with devils and got 10 of the bastards in one big lump.

I must be doing good on the crew then since I've got the rats and the princess. K-pop boyband I think I might've seen, in fact he might've been in Lustrum, was he? He was first mate slot IIRC and I didn't hire him since I've got the princess. I forget his name since hiring him would've run me 100 groschen and as far as I know there's no reason to hire multiple people for the same job. Speaking of jobs I hired a ratronaut to be a scout, but I need 75 (!!!) fucking mirrors to use him, and my character that was focusing on mirrors pretty much exclusively now has something around... 40.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
People always tried to tell me that Sunless Sea wasn't Korean-tier grindy, but I actually calculated out exactly how many stat points it would take to actually succeed at anything, and barring wild and egregious save-scumming via file backup, and exploitation, the level of grinding was absolutely insane. You absolutely could not ironman the thing as intended unless you were either going to grind at Korean-level, or were exploiting.
Yeah, I'll second this. The more annoying thing to me was that you didn't just have to grind, you had to grind some special currencies, and to grind them, you had to grind something prior to it, usually going something like:

- Hi you've been artificially gated from content!
- Get 30 dildojunks
- But you can't get dildojunks directly!
- Get 450 guffinshits to exchange to 30 dildojunks!
- BUT YOU CAN'T GET GUFFINSHITS DIRECTLY
- CoLlEcT 5000 rAt AsSeS tO eXcHaNgE iNtO GUFFINSHITS
- Btw you can't transport 30 dildojunks in your cargo
- Buy 10 didlojunk transporter boxes
- BUT YOU CAN'T GET THESE NORMALLY LOL
- You need 300 mirrors to equip dildojunk transporter boxes

Good fucking grief. Is this game the same? I mean the atmosphere seemed nice but playing the game was just such a massive pain in the dick in the moment-to-moment (or hour-to-hour more like) interactions.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,983
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I ironmanned Sunless Sea and I had like 4 or 5 chances to 'win' that I passed up to keep exploring and fucking around. Never read any guides, didn't do any tedious trading, never exploited shit, and wasted a ton of resources experimenting with things. It was still slow as fuck, sure, but it wasn't repetitive.

In my experience things usually worked the other way around. You need 5000 rat asses for a quest. But you don't have rat asses. But you've got dildojunk lying around that you can convert into like 30 different lesser currencies in vast quantities. Most of the quests seemed to give up higher tier currencies rather than the lower ones, and they generally had multiple ways to finish them so no matter what your stats were like there was some sort of way to do things.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
In my experience things usually worked the other way around. You need 5000 rat asses for a quest. But you don't have rat asses. But you've got dildojunk lying around that you can convert into like 30 different lesser currencies in vast quantities. Most of the quests seemed to give up higher tier currencies rather than the lower ones, and they generally had multiple ways to finish them so no matter what your stats were like there was some sort of way to do things.

Hm, I suppose exchanging dildojunks into rats asses could've sped up the process, problem was, I never knew when I'd need that particular dildojunk (and the "Too good to use" syndrome?) and getting it in the first place was either random or through some kind of luck so I was like NOPE I AM HOARDING ALL THE DILDOJUNKS most of the time. Makes sense to do it the other way around (now that I know it wouldn't have bitten me in the ass), but well, what can ya do.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom