Sunless Sea: In which sailors are tasty and souls are trade goods

I’m totally, completely, utterly addicted to Sunless Sea. Which is–well, remember Fallen London? (If not, why haven’t you played it? Go! Go!) Remember how it teases you with talk about what lies over the sea, but you never get to go there? Well, in Sunless Sea, you get in your ship, sign on a crew of nameless and edible sailors, and go there. Everywhere. Polythreme. The Carnelian Port. Places you’ve never heard of, like Visage and Irem and Varchas. You get to find out what Touched by Fingerwork is, though there’s no Touched by Fingerwork stat because you actually get TOUCHED BY FINGERWORK GAAAAH GET IT OFF GET IT OFF oh there’s a cool story awesome let’s play it AUGH MY MIIIIND.

It’s designed to be roguelike. Each new captain can inherit something from the one before, and doing certain actions can allow even more benefits to pass to your next captains, but everything else–including the map–is wiped clean between runs. And it’s really, really easy to die.

Which is excruciating, because the storyline is long. There are ports you have to return to time after time in order to develop the port’s story, relationships you have to deepen, quests you have to finish. There are layers of plot that aren’t even hinted at until you get to layers of plot that aren’t even hinted at until you get to layers of plot that you can barely see in flickers from the starting gate. As far as I’ve seen, no shortcuts open up for your next captain if your current captain dies late in the game. That makes winning the game on rogue setting just about impossible.

Fortunately, you can switch to “forgiving” mode, which lets you save games. The game discourages you from doing it, but I highly recommend it, because otherwise you will cry. The game’s Disapproving Face is far less intimidating than the maelstrom of frustration and impotent rage you’ll feel when your high-ranking captain is sucked under by a jellyfish. Again.

But.

There I was, at least 12 barrels of fuel from home with only two barrels in the hold, sailing blind in the unknown reaches with no port in reach and no money to buy fuel even if I made port. Fuel ran low. We prayed to Salt. Nothing. We sacrificed sailors to Stone. Two miraculous barrels of fuel. Sailed on. Lights off to save fuel, terror rising, crew panicking. Land! Not friendly land, but land! Made port on fumes. Sold my soul for fuel. Sailed on. It wasn’t enough fuel. Lights still off. Cruising in the darkness. Mutiny. Overcame it. Still far, far from home. Wasted fuel fleeing pirates. Made another port, just barely. Made trades, got a tiny bit more gas. Sailed on. Not even trying to get home now–just seeing what was out in the darkness before the fuel gave out for good. Made landfall at a dead port brimming with light, filled our hold with food. Started sailing for home only because we were so far away that every direction took us toward home. Burnt food for fuel, chanced into a frozen port where squatters took pity on us and gave us a few drops, hid from pirates. When we found ports, I made stupid, risky choices because this was a throwaway game, we were never getting home. Got a tiny bit more fuel. Sailed on. Crew members died and died. The engines dropped to half speed because there wasn’t enough crew to run them. Still waiting, waiting for the fuel to give out for good and end the game.

Coasted into London with one barrel of fuel left and three pounds in my pocket.

Still playing that captain.

So.

My advice:

• Play at least the first couple of rounds on roguelike. Treat them as throwaways, and use them to learn the ropes. Make stupid mistakes, poke things you know you shouldn’t, steer into vortices to see what happens, try to make friends with the pretty blue birds.
• When one captain dies and you get another captain, you’ll have the option of keeping the old captain’s map. If you’re like me, this will be tempting, because knowing part of the geography makes everything infinitely easier. Don’t do it for more than two captains in a row, though, because as I found out with Lawrence–he who sold his soul to monkeys for fuel–it gets boring fast.
• Never go to sea broke. It’s tough to get supplies without cash, and almost impossible to get fuel. Stint on weaponry and lighting if you have to, just don’t leave London without at least a couple hundred pounds.
• Your first ship won’t be sturdy enough to fight in, so don’t even try. Learn to sneak and run.
• All good things come from townhouses. Townhouses cost 1000 pounds. You don’t have 1000 pounds. As soon as you’re at home enough in the game to start making money, your first goal should be to get 1000 pounds and buy yourself a townhouse, because:
  • Once you have a townhouse you can make an Ironclad Will (for 100 pounds), which passes the townhouse on to your next captain.
  • If you have a sweetheart in London and the sweetheart has/adopts/knocks you up with your child, you can’t get on with the business of raising the child until you have a townhouse to take them home to. Your sweetheart has standards.
  • Once you have your sweetheart and child installed in your townhouse, reducing Terror becomes much easier and cheaper. This is essential if you’re in the habit of selling your soul for fuel and eating your shipmates.
  • If you tell your child enough stories of your adventures and give them enough souvenirs, they’ll take to the sea and become your Scion. This means each of your ensuing captains can pick two Legacies, not one, at the start of the game. Once you have a Scion your following captains don’t need to do anything to maintain the line.
• So. Get a townhouse, make a will, carouse at Wolfstack Docks and keep making choices that deepen the relationship with your sweetheart until you get the letter informing you that a bundle of joy is on the way. Give your bundle trinkets and stories until they run away to sea. (And then come back and live in the nursery again. It’s very confusing.) Each time you get a new captain, make another Ironclad Will right away. Boom, set for many, many lives to come.
• Talk to your officers. They all have plots, which aren’t the short, annoying mini-questlets that usually get wedged into “talk to party member” slots. The quests are substantial, the personalities are intriguing, things in the overall plot can shift depending on what you do. It’s like carrying an eternal fount of quests with you wherever you go. You can take on as many officers as you like without affecting the space aboard ship or the amount of supplies eaten, and they don’t resent sitting around doing nothing if someone else is in their job slot.

Also, you can have affairs with them. Thus far I’ve only started an affair with the Tireless Mechanic (with a sweetheart and child at home. What? I eat people. After that, everything else is a mere peccadillo), but he’s hilarious and delightful and a man after my own heart.

So. Go, play, die a lot, flirt with squids, drink tea with devils, sell secrets to shady powers, learn to fear sunlight, open doors you shouldn’t. Then go home and give your child the fingerbone of a dead god to put on her toyshelf, so she’ll grow up to be strong and fearless and cannibalistic, just like you.