NOTE: If you're reading this review a few months after its writing date, it's probably outdated. I intend to revisit the game once it's had a few bigger updates.

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A very promising and entertaining early access title. In short, think of a mix between Stardew Valley, Starbound, and the game Mutiny by Nitrome (an old browser game that like 6 people remember, but which I dearly love). Though, in the game's current state, think of it as an extended tech demo - it's l oozing with potential, and the developer (yes, there's only one!) has a lot of good ideas, but these things take time.

The exploration and naval combat are very fun. Sea battles are semi-autobattlers, for lack of a better description - you direct which weapons fire at which element of the enemy ship, and they fire on their own. There's a much stronger focus on micromanaging your crew instead, with you picking their targets, sending them to repair hull breaches or to pump water. There is a levelling system for crew members, where you can specialise them - though honestly, dumping most of your points into reload speed skill kinda trivialises the early game difficulty entirely.

Your ship has slots of certain size, and you basically slot in weapons and ship upgrades in them accordingly. The system isn't very complicated, but it does its job well.

On islands, you'll spend most of the time exploring and talking to characters. The only land 'combat' currently is rats, bats, and snakes. There's a couple of simple quests to go on currently, and the writing in them is funny and charming.

What I found particularly impressive was how the NPCs seem to live lives of their own - they have their own routines for each day of the week, not unlike the NPCs in Stardew Valley. You can't *do* much with them currently, but the developer is very clearly passionate about making the world feel immersive, and I suspect the portion of the game where you develop your own home island, once its made, will also have similarly immersive NPCs.

The home island and its base building features are currently very undercooked, but a lot seems to be planned - including recruiting villagers, building your own defences, and withstanding enemy raids against your base. As of current, your home base allows you to farm (broadly useless currently), recruit new crew (a new NPC appears every once in a while in a rotation), craft ship upgrades (weapons etc.), and trade with a wandering merchant kind of guy who sells unique ships.

The most rewarding element of islands is exploration and treasure-hunting. The dopamine scratches the brain just right when you find freestanding or buried treasure chests. You can dig for treasure on islands while exploring. Most of the time you'll get just stone, but sometimes you'll find artifacts, or locked chests. These usually contain money, valuables, and crafting materials. The lockpick minigame is a little obnoxious and could use better indicators - but again, there's potential in that.

Death feels fairly inconsequential currently. You get sent to a sort of 'Davy Jones Locker' kind of world where there's a big white whale who acts as the underworld keeper. He has his own collectibles quest related to fish, but you can't complete it at the moment due to lack of certain fishing functions, I think. Nevertheless - dying makes you lose nothing but money at the current stage. Past a certain gameplay stage, it becomes trivial. I've started using death as a fast travel method, because the more labyrinthine parts of the map are tricky (and sometimes annoying) to navigate, and dying is just a faster way of getting home.

Though, consequences might change in the future. I believe, based on the current crafting system prices, some stuff is in 'debug' mode - almost every ship craftable upgrade costs the same at home base regardless of power. A 1,000 gold cannon and a 25,000 gold cannon probably shouldn't require the exact same materials to craft...

Oh, there's also a bounty system in the game - think of these as bossfights, basically. They're neat little challenges that make you adapt your ship to different circumstances. There's 7 of them currently, each of them different in their own way. The coolest part is that at the end of your encounter, you can claim the bounty's ship as your own - they usually come with cool extra features, like an integrated cannon, or magic shield, or a hull that pumps water on its own without requiring crew.

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In total, it took me about 11 hours to experience about 95% of the content in the game's current state. Some quests seem bugged and/or unfinished, but thats reasonable given the game is in veeeery early access right now. There's a lot of rough edges as stands - but with some polish, and added features down the road (co-op multiplayer and multi-ship battles would be AMAZING in this - please!), this could easily become an all-time Hall of Fame game for me. Game is absolutely oozing with potential, and I can't wait to see what it looks like after a few major update cycles. Especially excited for the home island defence gameplay.

Support the developer if you like the project! It's all made by one guy! Having friends in gamedev myself, I can tell you it's very difficult to handle solo projects that have this much ambition.

NOTE: If you're reading this review a few months after its writing date, it's probably outdated. I intend to revisit the game once it's had a few bigger updates. --- A very promising and entertaining early access title. In short, think of a mix between Stardew Valley, Starbound, and the game Mutiny by Nitrome (an old browser game that like 6 people remember, but which I dearly love). Though, in the game's current state, think of it as an extended tech demo - it's l oozing with potential, and the developer (yes, there's only one!) has a lot of good ideas, but these things take time. The exploration and naval combat are very fun. Sea battles are semi-autobattlers, for lack of a better description - you direct which weapons fire at which element of the enemy ship, and they fire on their own. There's a much stronger focus on micromanaging your crew instead, with you picking their targets, sending them to repair hull breaches or to pump water. There is a levelling system for crew members, where you can specialise them - though honestly, dumping most of your points into reload speed skill kinda trivialises the early game difficulty entirely. Your ship has slots of certain size, and you basically slot in weapons and ship upgrades in them accordingly. The system isn't very complicated, but it does its job well. On islands, you'll spend most of the time exploring and talking to characters. The only land 'combat' currently is rats, bats, and snakes. There's a couple of simple quests to go on currently, and the writing in them is funny and charming. What I found particularly impressive was how the NPCs seem to live lives of their own - they have their own routines for each day of the week, not unlike the NPCs in Stardew Valley. You can't *do* much with them currently, but the developer is very clearly passionate about making the world feel immersive, and I suspect the portion of the game where you develop your own home island, once its made, will also have similarly immersive NPCs. The home island and its base building features are currently very undercooked, but a lot seems to be planned - including recruiting villagers, building your own defences, and withstanding enemy raids against your base. As of current, your home base allows you to farm (broadly useless currently), recruit new crew (a new NPC appears every once in a while in a rotation), craft ship upgrades (weapons etc.), and trade with a wandering merchant kind of guy who sells unique ships. The most rewarding element of islands is exploration and treasure-hunting. The dopamine scratches the brain just right when you find freestanding or buried treasure chests. You can dig for treasure on islands while exploring. Most of the time you'll get just stone, but sometimes you'll find artifacts, or locked chests. These usually contain money, valuables, and crafting materials. The lockpick minigame is a little obnoxious and could use better indicators - but again, there's potential in that. Death feels fairly inconsequential currently. You get sent to a sort of 'Davy Jones Locker' kind of world where there's a big white whale who acts as the underworld keeper. He has his own collectibles quest related to fish, but you can't complete it at the moment due to lack of certain fishing functions, I think. Nevertheless - dying makes you lose nothing but money at the current stage. Past a certain gameplay stage, it becomes trivial. I've started using death as a fast travel method, because the more labyrinthine parts of the map are tricky (and sometimes annoying) to navigate, and dying is just a faster way of getting home. Though, consequences might change in the future. I believe, based on the current crafting system prices, some stuff is in 'debug' mode - almost every ship craftable upgrade costs the same at home base regardless of power. A 1,000 gold cannon and a 25,000 gold cannon probably shouldn't require the exact same materials to craft... Oh, there's also a bounty system in the game - think of these as bossfights, basically. They're neat little challenges that make you adapt your ship to different circumstances. There's 7 of them currently, each of them different in their own way. The coolest part is that at the end of your encounter, you can claim the bounty's ship as your own - they usually come with cool extra features, like an integrated cannon, or magic shield, or a hull that pumps water on its own without requiring crew. --- In total, it took me about 11 hours to experience about 95% of the content in the game's current state. Some quests seem bugged and/or unfinished, but thats reasonable given the game is in veeeery early access right now. There's a lot of rough edges as stands - but with some polish, and added features down the road (co-op multiplayer and multi-ship battles would be AMAZING in this - please!), this could easily become an all-time Hall of Fame game for me. Game is absolutely oozing with potential, and I can't wait to see what it looks like after a few major update cycles. Especially excited for the home island defence gameplay. Support the developer if you like the project! It's all made by one guy! Having friends in gamedev myself, I can tell you it's very difficult to handle solo projects that have this much ambition.