Click to Sail is a pirate-themed autobattler with an excellent pixel art style, solid core gameplay loop, and a polished presentation that should please many fans of the genre.
I'll admit I'm not usually inherently drawn to autobattlers; usually the loss of direct control that forms the core of their gameplay mechanics grates on me in a way that I find rather unpleasant. Even so, I found a lot to like about Click to Sail, and if you find yourself skeptical of autobattlers as I am, you'll probably still find something to enjoy here.
The gameplay loop is as follows: you start off with nothing but three pirates, a simple ship, and a pocketful of gold. You perform your party management tasks while aboard your ship (primarily item usage and rearranging your party orientation), then you sail the open seas, engaging in random encounters, whether they be battles, shops, mysterious traders, or other randomized events. Then it's back to your ship so the loop can begin again.
At its core, it's pretty simple, and the bulk of the player's actions really revolve around the buying and using of items at the appropriate times. There's a solid variety of items here, though, which keeps things fresh; both active and passive items can be acquired, and using the active items at the right times during battles can really turn the tides (pun intended) in your favor.
The presentation really impressed me as well - the pixel art is expertly-done, the sound effects are great, and the digitized voices used by the NPCs really invoke a wonderful feeling of playing an old PC game from the early 90s.
Given the game is still in Early Access, I do have a few critiques that the developers may want to consider:
1. It'd be nice if the game had a proper title screen - while it's not really necessary for gameplay purposes, it would add an additional level of polish.
2. It would be nice if there was some form of meta gameplay progression; right now, it doesn't appear you preserve anything at all when you die, which can be fairly demoralizing. Preservation of some gold or maybe an item or two would go a long way towards mitigating this feeling.
3. More Steam achievements would be nice!
4. Gameplay options for game speed would be great - after becoming familiar with the gameplay loop, I definitely desired things to move along a bit more rapidly.
5. It's not clear to me how the Flee mechanic in battles works; some form of tutorial or simple explanation would be very helpful.
6. Even if you don't have the map/compass item, it would be nice to be able to see what "stage" you're on, even just for tracking your own progress across runs.
7. The difficulty curve in general could use some smoothing out; most times I failed a run, it's because I was dropped into a fight where I was clearly going to get annihilated with no hope of success.
8. Tweak keyboard controls a bit so you can close menus with the same key you used to open them - hit C to close the Crew menu after it's open, rather than having to hit Escape, etc.
Lastly - and this is a very personal gripe - the title "Click to Sail" could maybe use a rework. It sort of reeks of "cheap mobile game" vibes, and this game has enough polish and charm that it really deserves better. There's enough lore and story in the game to come up with something a bit more captivating, I think!
Overall, a great (first?) effort from developer EdFarage, and I look forward to seeing what comes with more development.
Find more reviews and recommendations on my Steam Curator page, Indie Infinitesimal:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41769714/
