Sail The Pixelly Seas
HIGH Sending a flight of bomb-laden parrots against my opponent.
LOW Trying to figure out where to go next.
WTF This is more penguins than I thought I’d see in hell.
After the complete disaster that was Skull and Bones, I was absolutely desperate for a better pirate adventure. The baffling grindy slog of that title hadn’t dampened my passion for high seas swashbuckling in the least, so the prospect of an open world 2D adventure with a bit of FTL in the combat seemed like the perfect antidote to UbiSoft-caused malaise — and maybe someday it’ll offer that to players, but it’s not there yet.
Seablip lets players create a character, then drops them onto a rock in the middle of a deadly sea filled with pirates, beasts, and warring armies. A mysterious letter offered as a final message from a doomed loved one later, and it’s time to get started on a pirating adventure. Or it should be, if Seablip was interested in offering any direction to its player whatsoever.
There are bounties to hunt down and quests to complete, but they’re oddly difficult to engage with. With no guidance on hand, I was forced to sail from island to island, talking to everyone I came across, hoping that one of them would have a task that needed completing. Most didn’t.
Every now and then I’d find a crumb that led me in a certain direction, only to discover that I was going to have to wait a certain number of in-game days for an event — and that I wouldn’t be warned exactly where I was supposed to go or be informed when it was ready to be seen. I found myself trapped in a cycle of moving from one island to the next, checking in with the same people over and over again, hoping that something would have changed in the meantime. Eventually some quests would trigger and others would complete, but the process of looking for a plot quickly grew tiresome.
I then found myself wondering if the laid-back-to-the-point-of-inertness questlines were a side effect of Seablip‘s ill-conceived life sim elements. While I won’t argue the popularity of the Stardew Valleys and Harvest Moons of the world, I was baffled to find my activities carefully prescribed by an in-game clock.
Want to buy or sell some goods? Sorry, the store’s closed after dark.
Okay, I’ll come back.
Sorry, the store is closed on weekends.
Okay, I’ll come back.
Sorry, the store’s owner is hanging out in a bar, and uninterested in doing business.
At a certain point I had to pause and check exactly what kind of a game I was playing. Was this a pirate adventure about vengeance and magic, or a management sim about farming turnips and bringing them to market?
It’s a pity, because for the most part, I genuinely enjoyed Seablip‘s combat, even if it was a little awkward at times. When players encounter an enemy ship on the world map, they’re taken into a split-screen side view of the encounter with their ship on the left and the enemy on the right. Players assign crewmembers to man cannons, plug leaks, or pump out water, all the while aiming and firing at their opponents, trying to destroy components or kill crew members. The whole thing is thrilling and addictive — I was almost always happy to find myself pulled into battle.
However, I say almost because while the combat is solid, as the player starts coming up against more advanced ships, it feels as if the mechanics haven’t been thought through or balanced yet.
If an enemy boards my ship — no matter how many crew members I have available — only a single one can engage in combat with them. There’s no easy way to pause and unpause firing, so firing tactically based on when enemy defenses are lowered is a complex ordeal. It’s possible that there are shields that I can get to keep my entire crew from being wiped out in seconds when an enemy with three grapeshot cannons shows up, but if there are, Seablip is too coy about informing the player of them. In fact, a lack of information about basic mechanics bedevils Seablip at every turn.
I was told I needed iron ingots to build upgrades, but had only iron ore in my inventory. I figured out that I was supposed to build a smelter — not that Seablip mentioned any of these steps — and after an hour of going from island to island mining rocks and building one, I was faced with the realization that I had no idea how to actually operate the smelter in question. I was forced to go to the internet for answers, and if I have to leave a game to find out what I’m supposed to do in it, there’s a non-zero chance I won’t be coming back.
I wanted to enjoy Seablip — I’m absolutely here for pirate adventures, but the developers keep putting obstacles between me and the action I want to be engaging in, and I just can’t figure out why. I hope the final version of Seablip focuses more on its strengths, because I can already see the skeleton of a game I’d be happy to come back to.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Jardar Solli and published by Vibidi. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. The game has no multiplayer modes.
Parents: The game was not reviewed by the ESRB, but is roughly a T with its Alcohol Use and Cartoon Violence. It’s honestly pretty safe all around. No graphic violence, no monstrous foes. Even hell seems like a pretty chill place in this one.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no audio cues that will affect gameplay, I played largely without audio and had no trouble whatsoever. All story information is delivered via text. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.
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