Abandon Ship Reviews

It's fun because you're a pirate fighting a cult that can control krakens. It reminds me of Pirates Gold! in a way -- you sail around discovering the seas dangers and treasures, choosing to be a pirate or privateer, and the main campaign has a decently written plot. The battles are tense (I used the pause feature all the time to issue orders to my dudes). And the way you control your guys is something like FTL: There's a ship that they control and you move from from spot to spot for them to do the things that you want the ship to do (or fight other pirates in bording actions.) Main campaign has about 30 hours, there are some additional mini-campaigns and a Freeplay mode as well. After finishing the main campaign on Medium I switched to Hard on Freeplay and all the intensity I was enjoying from Medium was back now that I knew the systems better (and was starting as a new crew again).

difficulty of the game changes with the upgrades that you buy. there is no objective reality to this and chtulhu always wins. Dont waste your time.

FTL meets sunless sea? YES On concept alone, 12/10, more ideas like this should be made into games. Gameplay is mostly tight with some occasional jank and an item-limited save to revert if you get in an autosave deathloop Writing is good, but the writing-focused game genre has set a high bar and I found myself wanting a few times Early game is probably the best experience I had playing a game, barely surviving to the next port trying to fill out crew and upgrades in a desperate struggle to evade the Cult. Honeymoon ends after first boss fight, which is... pretty good. The first time. There is only one boss. You will be fighting it a lot of times. The fight never changes. Endgame is probably the weakest, lack of variety and progress cap sets in reminding me the importance of FTL's timer. You end up with nothing more to buy and much lower stakes. Maps are good. Area theming is good. Art design is good. If I could give notes on a sequel it would be more complexity in endgame combat and at least one useful all-purpose maneuver. I know I'm comparing to FTL wherein the pilot's only job is to stand there so the ship keeps moving, but this game has a maneuver bar that fills up and I wish I had some active defense/offense "leadership" or piloting abilities to make that bar matter to me. Anyway I'mma go replay on super duper hard mode now bc I'm still obsessed

Enjoyable narrative, especially if you like Lovecraftian storytelling. Combat was fun but got a bit repetitive. Glad I played it, doesn't have high replay value for me.

A fun game, but it overstays its welcome. The first 10-14 hours were quite enjoyable. The last six or so had me wondering when the campaign would ever end.