Block of Rum Reviews

Issa game. More soul than quality, but dear lord does it have soul. 20/10 would spend an hour and 12 minutes on it again.

Really rough UI and confusing map screen where you can't even test drive your ship you just built. Needs work before it's ready.

I can't believe a 3 year old game is still this bare. I also can't believe I'm thumbing down a 10USD-ish game on discount. I thought I've set the bar low enough. But sails fail to work when placed in particular ways, and you repeatedly get ganked by 1800-block ships while you are in a 100 block "boat" and there's no escape because they are either faster than you or pushing you against land, and when you try to go to a port for quest, the attack button is triggered before you even see it. And what is the most annoying is the cut-in scene that interrupts whenever shells land close to either side. It's way longer than needed and is unskippable, and above all you can't expect when it will switch back to combat (and thus, when you need to prepare to get back to control). Fanboys may debate that due to the sandbox nature the scene is needed for the system to calculate damage, but it's not. Calculation can and should be done internally, so that the battle goes on smoothly without constant stutters like these. The idea is great, but the overall gameplay around the idea is just horrible.

WILL UPDATE:Released before features that make it playable missing. Really enjoy aesthetic and direction. as long as the updates keep up it will be good.

YIKES... looks like a fun game, but as soon as i leave ship editor i just get some error code box. this error code box is useless because text is invisible. i will change this review if the game gets fixed and i actually get to play it.. until then, not worth even downloading.

(!!!MAJOR REVIEW CHANGE!!!) So originally, I had said I would not recommend this game, however I also stated that I would change it if my problems with the game were fixed. So, I am happy to say that with the update 0.7.1 (which was the next update after my review) the following problems have been fixed to my satisfaction. 1: Inability to escape from battle (FIXED) 2: Lack of Warning about losing inventory (FIXED) 3: Quest tracking (FIXED) Sooo, since all my complaints are fixed to my acceptance, I am happy to change my review to RECOMMEND! I left my complaints so you can see what I was upset about. Hope this helps! ------ Original Review (!!!!EDIT!!!! SEE BOTTOM)I don't normally review or rate games, but this one I feel needs a review so that everyone knows what they're getting into: 1: Don't expect to play for long in your game. In the 3 hours I have played, I have had to restart over 15 times. There is NO option to flee from fights and ships will literally hunt you down and attack you, so you spend most of your time running around trying to avoid fights. And to make matters worse, the game doesn't care that your in a tiny 2 gun 40 block ship. It could send a 2k+ ship after you that will wipe you out in 1 round. Add to this, there is no save option, so when your ship is destroyed, no matter how much time you put into designing it, it's game over. 2: There is no inventory saving. If you don't use it on your ship don't expect to sell it at the next town. This includes blocks you take from other ships. The ONLY option you have, is attach an insane amount of parts from ships you manage to overpower (which by the way there's very few you're able to do that with), then after you have attached them all (and hopefully it still floats and sails) then you quickly head for a town. Once there, remove all the parts you don't want on your ship, and then quickly, before another ship attacks you, open the trade screen (WITHOUT MOVING YOUR SHIP CAUSE IF YOU DO YOU LOSE EVERYTHING) then you can sell all your unused parts. 3: Quests.... There's about 3 different kinds of quests: (1) Go out into the middle of the ocean, (which lowers morale because you're not near land) and find the X, sail over it and done. (2) Attack and defeat a ship plaguing the town (this could be a ship that's 10x your capabilities, so be prepared), & (3) Go to another city. Regardless of what quest you pick, each one is marked with a red X and you are supposed to know exactly where it is, because aside from that red X, there's no marker indicating which way you're supposed to go. Soooo.. be prepared to run around the map for 30 minutes dodging enemy ships and trying to find the X. 4: IIIIFFFFFFF you can get past all of the above, the game has a LOT of potential to be awesome if they are fixed. Sadly, I have tried hard to truly enjoy the game and, after 3 hours, I simply can't because of the above problems. However, I still plan to play it and see if the Dev will fix any of the problems, so don't be surprised if I edit this review as updates happen. ============== So, having now played for over 6 hours, I can now say the following... First: I have managed to figure out how to save my game. So for any who this was a game breaker, then it requires a little work but here's a workaround till this is added. 1: Navigate to your %appdata% folder, (for those who don't know how to do this, just put the "%appdata%" in the search box. Your computer will do the rest. 2: Next, open the folder "LOCAL" 3: Open the "Block of Rum" Folder 4: Copy, do not move, the PLAYER.ini AND the SAVE.ini files to a new location. 5: When the ships defeat you, or you make a mistake, then just replace these files with the ones you copied. (!!!!IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!! This will undo everything you have done up to making the copy. I am not responsible for you screwing up your game after kicking the arse of your first galleon if you don't save and back it up!!!!) Now, as to the aforementioned stuff. I posted my opinion in the discussion forum to which the dev stated he would try to work on them. So here's hoping!

This game is pretty worthless to be honest. - no rotation to be able to visibly place blocks underneath the ship - your grid system is terrible, it is complicated for the player to know where the actual x,y axis is, it's merely a guessing game to know where the blocks need to be placed -once the above is figured out, you expect to see your ship in all of it's lasting glory right? nope, it's just a little drawing, you may have spent an hour designing a nice ship, but you won't actually get to visibly enjoy the fruits of your labor - an extremely basic tutorial, the dev may know the controls, that's fine.. but show us where they are please make the game free to play, this is my advice, while it is a cheap game, there are better games on steam for two dollars.. you had a good idea, but a terrible execution.

Seems like there's a lot of bugs in the latest version. Can't attack cities, and all the ships on the map disappeared. It also takes forever to open the quest and trade menus.

I really got hooked on the construction mechanics, i would definetly play for hours building ships if there were more materials and color options for said materials. A few comments on the construction though, i would really like more available visibility while making designs (360° vision). Most of the UI needs fixing (better construction inventory, texts that fit), but i indeed liked where the game is going and the potential it has. I would love to help in the translation if you are planing to doing it also in spanish. counter or markers for needed sails or weight balance would be great. For now, I'll keep designing ships till i get the perfect one. Good luck and keep on the good work... Bugs: 180° rotation displaces ship if there isn´t any steering wheel on. ship gets stuck between certain strecthes of land. tesxt doest fit in the screen for guides and sailing ui (quest, trade, etc.)

Needs some polish, but for $2 it can be a lot of fun if you like making custom ship designs. My main problem right now is the game speed. The movement is too fast or too slow depending on what you doing. It's actually a very complex game when it comes to ship editor. You have to account for things like weight distribution, weapons, crew, buoyancy, and speed. Also, there are some untold building techniques. It might be a good idea to build your ship with reinforced walls so it does not collapse from a single shot. It took me about 10 designs to finally make a ship that is not a complete abomination. However, there are some preset designs if you can't build anything, and you can save your schematics. You don't actually get to control your ship, it uses a default skin when you have a world view. When in combat, the cannon balls will destroy parts of your design, disabling canons, killing the crew, and penetrating sails - reducing stats in the process. The map and cities are randomly generated. You can do side quests and buy materials to build a bigger ship. Ultimately the ship building is 90% of the fun here, don't buy it if you don't want to spend hours in the editor. [code]For more Hidden-Gems: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]