30 years ago, London was stolen by bats and sent to the depths of the earth, to the shores of the hidden ocean known as the Unterzee. There he survived the invasion of hell, was sold to the lords of the Bazaar and in general lives a certainly peculiar existence, with parallel realms as neighbors, demonic influences and strange powers that play with their pawns using rules that nobody knows.
This unique scenario is the basis of one of the most important and well-known web games: Fallen London, a narrative story built from thousands of small pieces that allows us to put ourselves in the role of one of the inhabitants of the Victorian city, living worldly, magical, terrible or incredible stories, according to our decisions and who we cross along the way.
Failbetter, the small studio responsible for the project, went first to Kickstarter to expand Fallen London, and based on the success, decided to take a double jump and create a new game, one that will take us beyond the old British capital.
The result of that second Kickstarter It has materialized in the form of this Sunless Sea, which is committed to a different formula but in the same universe.
The idea is that, by avatars of fate, here we are one of the sailors who dares with the unfathomable mysteries of the Unterzee. London is not the only city underground, and a ship captain can make a fortune if he has the courage to navigate the dark waters of this inland ocean.
There are other reasons apart from the money to take to the sea, the excitement of exploring what nobody has explored before, the search for some inner goal, or the service to the government of the city, always waiting to receive information of what goes on beyond of its borders. In any case, the idea is still to take a boat, a crew and go to sea, with all the freedom,
Those who have had the chance to play Pirates!one of the classics of Microprose, will have an approximate idea of the base of the game. The perspective is aerial and our boat has a simple operation: several speeds for forward and backward, the possibility of turning in one direction or another, and little else. It also has a base weapon that will serve to defend us from
creatures and other potentially aggressive ships. The maritime combat has little complication, since it is based on positioning ourselves correctly according to the orientation of our weapons, and maintaining that position with respect to the enemy to prepare ourselves
until we can shoot them. Depending on the boat we can have more types of weapons and cover more angles or have more offensive and defensive options, but in general it is quite basic. It is also largely avoidable,
Combat is really only one of our last in the face of our survival. What will really condition our journeys will be more prosaic aspects such as food, fuel or terror.
If you do not calculate the distances well, if you do not have enough supplies, or if you spend too much time in the solitude of the terrible ocean, the effects can be more deadly than any monster.
If you run out of fuel in the middle of the trip, you can try to burn supplies to get a little more, but if you run out of supplies our men will die of hunger or we will have to resort to unwise measures such as cannibalism. If more than a third of the crew dies, our ship
can not reach maximum speed even if we have fuel, which in many cases condemns us to a slow and agonizing death while we try to return home, with less
chance of dodging enemies. Terror can also kill, create nightmares and even hallucinations, conditioned to events that may happen on our trips, or raised by circumstances such as navigating the deep sea without light.
