Nantucket
Board your ship, hunt whales and expand your crew - to find and slay Moby Dick!
I must say - when I saw the idea, I was really interested. The theme around it, boarding your ship for work (but also adventures), managing and planning your every trip for resources - it all look very good. But also - somewhat detailed and complicated. A lot of stats, things to manage, doing most cost-effective stuff… I’m not scared of this in general, but I don’t like it being tedious.
Well, when I saw a bit of gameplay (thanks Combat Bunnee!) I was convinced to try it.
There is quite some things to understand and read through, to know how to game works and how to play it. Of course, there will be some repetitive things in it. But I never felt bored or that I’m just grinding through. I think in this aspect the game is fairly balanced and gives fun. But ok, more about the game. You have a ship, you hire a crew, you hunt whales and do some small missions, you sell your stuff and sail again. Your crew is growing, getting more experiences, you improve your ship (and buying bigger and better ones) - all bringing you closer to hunt the legendary Moby Dick. It is doing a great job of being a management/strategy game, with some small RPG elements of your crew and you, but that’s not the only side of the game - there are also battles.
Battles are turn (and “team”) based, where you roll dice, where each die is a different ability for each crew member (depending on their class, level and even items), and then you choose 1 action for each boat you have (you get more of them with bigger and better ships). But each of your enemies is acting separately each turn, which makes it more difficult. Dice are giving quite some randomness here, but the balance here is also fairly good (maybe not counting the Moby Dick which is quite ridiculous..). You get a feeling of the battles soon, composing your perfect crew (there are a lot of good combinations that you can create) and going through them faster. But you won’t get bored - there are quite a lot enemy types, with different abilities and counter-abilities needed from your side.
The game is designed to play it as roguelike - if your crew member dies, he dies. If you die - your game is over. It doesn’t force you for the permadeath very much (meaning, you can save the game) and if you decide to play it that way - you probably won’t finish it on the first playthrough.
I had a really good time playing it, getting some sense of calm while traversing the seas, and adventure when hunting whales (and they can be quite deadly!). I totally recommend it for every one interested in strategy and management games.
My rating: 8/10
Playtime: ~9h
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Nantucket on Steam