Hire a crew, take to the seas, collect bounties and save the world in Seablip, a freeform sailing adventure.
After a while of obsessively searching most people reach a point where they stop and suddenly realise that the search itself had become more important to them than what they actually set out to do; They stop, look around and realise that the world has completely changed and then either accept the world or reject it an continue their search to their death. The best literary example is Captain Ahab’s pride, while film often chalks it up to revenge or greed. I’ve spent so long looking for a replacement for the exact experience I had the first time I played Sid Meier’s Pirates! that games and experiences that have come relatively close to it have been judged a little harsher for it. The rub here is that the video game world HAS changed a lot in that time, in fact, my eight year old daughter hilariously declared “This Seablip game is a Stardew Valley rip off!” when she played it after I’d first installed it.
Of course, Seablip isn’t a Stardew Valley rip-off, it’s actually got very little in common with it. It’s pixelated, you customise your character at the start and there are tools to use for gathering resources. In this way it’s probably got more in common with Terraria, apart from the fact that… Why am I trying to give a history of games to my eight-year old? Judged as its own beast, Seablip is great, its an incredibly approachable open-world pirate adventure with a light RPG system that only really comes into play for the sea combat situations.
You start out your journey alone on an island you own. There’s not much there, some trees, an old collapsed fort, your house and a dock. After a very quick tutorial you’re off to the oceans, sailing a small three-berth ship to stop whalers. Before long you’ll be crafting upgrades using resources either procured on the high seas, gathered from various islands or quests, or generated back on your island. There’s a light crafting system here, but the real fun thing here is that you can build, mine, chop and plant stuff on your island — and do most of those on other islands too. Before long you’ll be smashing pots, fishing up treasure chests and chopping down other people’s trees. It’s all very quick, very familiar and very intuitive.
And then the plot moves forward a smidge.
Because there IS a plot here, soon you’re burying the tutorial, and shortly after that you’re (probably) introduced to two extra factions that are at play: A whale god of the dead, Whalgrim, and a group of undead, skeletal sailors who are claiming lost sailors and up to no good. Seablip then comes completely into its own and captures a feeling of against-the-odds adventure that few other games have managed. It’s not as freeform or vast feeling as, say, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, but it works perfectly because you start to get a nagging feeling that evil is afoot and closing in on the world.
Most of your time will be spent at sea, playing out bite sized ‘room-based’ real-time combat where you move your crew between rooms on your ship and target parts of the enemy ship. It plays out quickly, and it does make the underlying RPG mechanics feel well implemented. You might focus a crew member on gunning, or repairing, and you might upgrade your ship to have more weapons or a healing chamber should your squishier crew get clipped by a cannon. The latter is a great idea, and not wholly dissimilar to FTL’s medbay, because when your crew die, they’re out of action until you summon them (for the same price as hiring them) from the undead realms of Whalgrim.
When you’re not fighting at sea you’ll be peeling back the fog to visit islands around the map, that or exploring the islands in 2D platforming fashion. There’s plenty of loot to be gathered, as well as a functional (if light) trading and resource system which powers you upgrading your ship and home island. There’s a lot of character here, including islands with really distinct themes and the wanted criminals that hang around near them.
As it stands, even though its still in Early Access, Seablip has an amazing amount of content. I’m incredibly optimistic to see more of it, especially if the developers can continue to deliver the level of delicate care they’ve put into it so far.
Seablip is available now for PC, Mac and Linux
