Bootleg Steamer

******** Recommended ******** Very interesting concept! Well priced indie game for the level of fun and replayability. Conclusion/TLDR at the bottom. *** PROS *** - Game play is fun! Much like when a cop is behind you whilst you're driving IRL, even when you don't have any contraband, you feel super guilty when the coast guard approach your ship. - The boat physics is great, I love the way they move and feel like they're actually on water. - The art style is interesting and I love the all the different ship designs. - There's wide range of ships, crew mates, and upgrades to customise your ship to your play style. Completionists will love this! - The boats on the map all feel like they have their own character. *** CONS *** - Very little tutorial experience. Not much is explained on what aspects of the UI mean, how the interaction with the party boats works, or even what buttons do what. - The escape/ESC key not backing out of menus is a big gripe. I feel like this is a critical thing every game should have. - No keybinding options and no explanation of controls. M&K users will be fine but a lack of keybind options will cause issues for those using accessibility devices. - No accessibility/colourblind options. *** CONCLUSION / TLDR *** User interface and experience could do with a bit of tweaking (good luck finding the exit game button!), and the lack of keybind options means I'd recommend only using the mouse to play it. It could do with a bit of polishing but overall it is a very fun and quirky game, with a unique and visually pleasing art style. Boats, booze, and running from the cops. I feel naughty!

This game could be fun and cute, and if they make some tweaks, I might change my recommendation. But as of right now, I literally cannot even open some menus to trade. I steer my ship into the box and the menu is then out of screen and I can't open it to sell or buy goods. It's incredibly frustrating and makes the game unplayable. Going to watch this space for a bit to see if there's any response but as of right now, I am considering returning it because it's not playable for me as it is.

The game itself is fun but the performance is atrocious. For whatever reason, the moment I load into the map my mouse starts to lag massively which isn't present in the main menu and it makes the game feel absolutely terrible to play especially since there aren't ANY hotkeys for ANYTHING. You can't open your map or town menus or do literally anything else involving a menu without using your mouse and when your mouse feels like it's always 4 steps behind where it SHOULD be it makes the game unbelievably tedious to play for more than 5 minutes. If it's a graphical issue then I guess I'll just go ♥♥♥♥ myself since you can't change the graphic settings at all, the options menu is super barebones and you can't change anything outside of volume and window size.

Quick video review https://youtu.be/eD_FwIhztJI The Good. - Gorgeous Art Style - Easy to learn - Good replayability - Tons of boats and maps The Bad. - Key binds should be available in any game. - Not much challenge

No, Definatly not at this time on SteamDeck. 7 fps, and the only in game options are....Sound?! Really? you cant even push Escape to quit or quit, unless you force quit. stick it back in the oven, cook a bit more...Refund time.

Mediocre gameplay that gets repetitive and boring extremely quickly. Also doesn't help that there's no introduction/tutorial and are thrown into a mess of UI with no indication of what to do. Once you do figure out what's going on you're just left with the feeling of "oh, that's it..."

Great concept, poor execution

The difficulty of the game steadily ramps up so as to introduce you to the game elements before unleashing the full operational coastguard on you. Does it keep its fun factor the more you play. Actually yes. The game is a souls-like on water. It’s punishing but rewarding.

I like boat. Very fun trading and chase mechanic prohibition game.

boat