{"id":34749,"date":"2015-03-05T09:29:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T17:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=34749"},"modified":"2015-03-05T09:51:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T17:51:27","slug":"why-the-ships-in-sunless-sea-go-so-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2015\/03\/05\/why-the-ships-in-sunless-sea-go-so-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the ships in Sunless Sea go so slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Failbetter’s Alexis Kennedy has a great post-mortem of Sunless Sea here<\/a>. I particularly appreciate how he explains that some of his design decisions might not have resonated with a wider range of people, because he was staying true to a specific creative focus:<\/p>\n

Ship speed is a good example. Sunless Sea is a stately game. You could reasonably call it a slow game. But we’ve resisted speeding up the ship, because it would reduce the tension, the sense of space and distance, and the menace of the dark. I think it’s quite possible that if the ship was 50% faster, the game would be more fun and less grindy – but I also think there’s an invisible line we’d cross, somewhere before that 50%, where the atmosphere was diminished without anyone quite knowing why. If we hadn’t had that iron creative focus from the beginning, I don’t think we’d have held our nerve, and Sunless Sea would have ended up a zippier, slighter experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amen, brother. Some people have edited files to make the ship faster, which would be like fast-forwarding through the slow parts of a Stanley Kubrick movie. Sure, you could do it, but then you’re a philistine. I love how Kennedy tacitly concedes that game design doesn’t always have to worship at the altar of “fun”. If I want to have fun, I’d go outside and play tetherball. If I want a uniquely moving experience of exploring the unknown, I’ll play Sunless Sea.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the post-mortem for Kennedy’s confession that Sunless Sea is confused about it’s identity as a CRPG or a roguelike, how veteran players nearly ruined the early parts of the game, how early access saved us all from a terrible combat system (seriously, their first iteration at combat sounds godawful!), and how many bat skeletons Failbetter keeps in the office.<\/p>\n

(You can read my review here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Failbetter’s Alexis Kennedy has a great post-mortem of Sunless Sea here. I particularly appreciate how he explains that some of his design decisions might not have resonated with a wider range of people, because he was staying true to a specific creative focus: Ship speed is a good example. Sunless Sea is a stately game. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the ships in Sunless Sea go so slow - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2015\/03\/05\/why-the-ships-in-sunless-sea-go-so-slow\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the ships in Sunless Sea go so slow - Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Failbetter’s Alexis Kennedy has a great post-mortem of Sunless Sea here. 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