Her Majesty's Ship Reviews

I wanted to like this game given the theme and the base game play concepts, but the sense of immersion simply isn't there - I think I get a sense of what the game design set out to do, but the tasks feel arbitrary and forced and the ship combat lacks any kind of real strategy beyond deciding how much cannon to commit. The whole thing doesn't quite come together - casual naval combat in the age of sail was done better by Sid Meier's Pirates, and having to move people around to do time bound tasks was better handled in Bomber Crew.

This game does an excellent job of making you feel like the captain of a man-o-war. It is mostly a resource management game, with more than a passing similarity to euro-style board games. The fast pace generates regular tension as you make difficult decisions about balancing resources and choosing where to engage your ship. Moreover as a fan of age of sail books, I love how it captures the feeling of all the different parts of a ship working together as one machine. The designer has focused on this aspect alone, so don't expect much in the way of tactical combat, tacking etc. It's a bit of a pity, but it doesn't spoil the fun. Personally I think it's a refreshing take on age of sail games. It is quite a short game and I doubt there is much replay value once you have beaten it (I haven't, but I'm getting closer). Nevertheless the experience is sufficiently unique and enjoyable that I recommend it. Strangely, when I first played it I thought it was awful. I agreed with most of the negative reviews. Yes, during the first hour it feels like a click-fest with no real decisions. It's only once the systems start to make sense that the game reveals itself, and it is deeper than it first looks. Don't listen to the negative reviews by people with less than an hour's play.

Fell asleep during the tutorial, its very boring, watching your men walk slowly down and out the ship to the market for no real reason. Map traversal is slow and nothing to really watch whilst its happening Combat is dull and the player feels very detached. Animations look wooden and sounds dont match up as they should 'Also released on Ipad' more like should have stayed on the Ipad...

I really want to like this game. I'm not going to refund it quite yet (only 30 mins so far so I can consider for a bit and maybe try it one more time or something). I may even just keep it in my library hoping that updates are made in the future, but there are some pretty serious flaws with the gameplay and graphics. The biggest gameplay issue I've found in my brief playtime is the nonsense combat. You just set how many cannons you want to fire, the ships line up and fire one volley, and some RNG based on a % chance to win tells you whether or not you've won, how much damage your ship took, and how many of your men were injured or killed. There is no skill, strategy, or fun involved in that type of "battle." In fact, it seems that there is no skill, or strategy involved in the game in it's current state (somehow not early access...), and the fun is questionable at best. The graphics drive me crazy. I set the graphics level to "beautiful," and the ocean when traveling still just looks like a bunch of random white squiggly lines writhing around. It's really the worst ocean graphics/texture I've ever seen in a game, and I have played hundreds of games. I bust out my old Sega Genesis every once in a while and play Enchanted Waters New Horizons from Koei games in 1994, and that has better water graphics. It is like the developer made a conscious choice to make the ocean look hideous, because just a flat blue color with no movement would be much better than what is used in this game. The ships look fine I suppose, but it's tough to get past how terrible the water looks since you're looking at it so much as you ever-so-slowly creep across the world map. I like the idea of the game, and was hoping for a sort-of Faster Than Light with ships and pirates, but this game is most definitely not even close to that level, unfortunately. Hopefully the developer plans to make tons of updates and improvements and just forgot to list it as an early access game, and I'll update my review if that is the case in the future, but in it's current state there is no way I could possibly recommend this game unless it was severely discounted (think $1.99) or free to play. I'm hopeful, but it's definitely a don't buy at this point.

Was following this game for a while. I hoped for a relaxing sim but instead it is a race against the AI to reach admiral status a playthrough is about 30 minutes. Really not very good. Edit: I want to thank the dev for actually reading reviews and responding to them. I own and love Every Single Soldier games Vietnam 65, Afghanistan 11, and Carrier Deck. I'm not refunding HMS I want it to get better. I think an endless mode would help. Basically as soon as I get into a groove with my ship and crew and multiple ships.... someone else hits admiral status and it's game over. A strategy on the forums is to take out your rivals' targets to stop them from advancing but that feels like a gimmick. I'm still learning all the icons and who I should be targeting but I thought that's what admiralty orders are for. It just feels like Early Access. I'm happy to update this review as the game improves.

I want to love it, but can't, After waiting and watching this release for months I am quite dissappointed. As a fan of bomber crew I expected click action, but hoped there would some strategy, pace and depth. No its just click here, click there and if you can click quicker than the Spanish rank up you win. Sounds, music and detail of the little sailors is great. Concept is great. Just released wayyyy too early. Ports are only half done detail wise as is the sea. No real sense of independence, your forced to follow the formula of click mission, click to complete, click tasks, click into port, refill and click again. Improvement suggestions: look at Bomber Crew to start - upgrades for the ship you can buy, upgrades for your sailors (create some character development (traits, name, uniforms accessories etc). Slow down... everything. Space out missions and allow free roam to fight other ships, explore wrecks. Combat which is important needs total overhaul from a dice roll game. Aimable cannons, based on crew expertise, different type of shot etc.... It has the framework of a great game, but no meat. I refunded quickly and will happily pay again (and more) once its fully developed. Right now, unfortunately, its just not enjoyable and theres not enough atmosphere to keep he waiting for updates...

Just time limit city here. Every single task has a time limit, even the most basic stuff. There's no kind of strategic feel whatsoever - you're just clicking areas of the ship and hoping things get finished before the very constricted time limit runs out. Also, there are something like 15 different areas on the ship, which maybe isn't a problem if you spend a few hours with this game but at the beginning at least it is confusing as hell. You're in a gun battle and the guns are blinking on and off. OK, so I click them. "Arr Captain, the guns have no gunpowder!" Wait, where the hell is the gunpowder? What... Too bad, out of time. To be completely open, I also think Bomber Crew is stupid so if you like Bomber Crew, maybe this will be the game for you. Although I think this has even less real decision making than Bomber Crew does. Me, I'm hoping that one day, a dev will take one of these crew management games seriously. Give one of these games some depth and make it more open world with less fast clicking, and we'll have a strategic, historical masterpiece on our hands. But after playing 2 or 3 Bomber Crew clones like this, I'm starting to think that day is never going to come.

Her Majesty's Board! How to turn a pretty neat idea in to a boring click fest where you actually have very little to do except click, click, and click some more. A free mobile game this should be :(

Not what I was expecting. Expected a management game, more on the strategy side of things. Game seems to be more on the side of being a hectic clicker.

Feels like a mobile game. You have no decisions on your own, there is a timelimit for every task. And I mean EVERY task. My hope for this game was much more micromanagement and starting a task (like dicipline a crewmate, repair the hull, cannon drills...) when its needed or I decide to do it. And the worst thing of all: There is no free play. There is a timelimit even für winning. Too bad, it could be such a good game.