Das Geisterschiff / The Ghost Ship

P. fun.

Thumbs up

[b]Deceptively short dungeon-crawling robot survival.[/b] As a dungeon-crawler, it's extremely brutal if just because there aren't any convenient features included, and I'm not actually sure how much of the lack of convenient features is intentional. The game lacks a proper map and automapping stuff, so you'll either have to have a really good memory or chart your own manually. The game doesn't keep track of notes, so you'll have to write your own or, again, have a really good memory. There's absolutely no mouse controls in this game, so everything is done on the keyboard. Most item pick-ups aren't visible until you actually step on its tile, encouraging you to step on every safe-looking tile in the entire game if you really want things like upgrades and random lore. The game is supposed to have a limited amount of saves, and file-loading even, but the playtime is ridiculously shorter than it seems to the point that it's kind of a wonder why saves are limited in the first place. I apparently ended up beating the game without manually saving once as soon as I understood what the game actually wanted out of me. You're only really going through 3 - 4 dungeons, only 2 of which are actually any big while the other 2 are just the prologue of sorts and the final gimmicky one. They did at least mention its short-length in the little trailer, if just barely. Mechas and resource-management survival aren't two genres that normally go together, but it works pretty alright here, even if it can get awkward sometimes. Like, the game wants you to go so hard on saving resources, that it's better to awkwardly circle a pillar until an enemy leaves, than to actually fight it unless you think it's the absolute best solution to the current enemy encounter. Random encounters are not too common by themselves, so weird things like that don't actually happen too often. The game is a tile-based dungeon crawler with turn based combat, and random, wild encounters like a JRPG, so there aren't any set enemy spawns aside from very unique enemies. All that said, it does make the little random enemy encounters pretty engaging, as just about every decision you make in a fight matters thanks to how extremely limited your ammo and health are for each dungeon. There's also the matter of the game's overall aesthetics. It can be surprisingly immersive if you can get into looking through the eyes of an old-school style robot the entire game with red being the only real color the entire time. It's a pretty nice, difficult, survival dungeon-crawler. Maybe get it for cheaper than the base price though, because this is way too short for its genre. There's also a demo for it.

NOTE: I am not very good at this game currently so I didn't anywhere near finish it, however I still want to throw a recommendation at it This is a dungeon crawler with punishing combat that borders on, and might even wholly leap into, survival horror. You have very limited ammunition and even more limited health, with the only method of recovery coming from rare workbenches that consume raw materials. The dungeons are complex and sprawling but are laid out in sensible arrangements for their contexts. While the first thing that stands out about the game is definitely the visual style, the part of the presentation that is truly sublime is the music. I don't know how I would describe it but it is so captivating while perfectly setting the tone for the post-apocalyptic settings you will be delving into. Most of the time soundtracks just wash through me but it's been on my mind consistently from the first time I tried it early last year. Oh yeah you are in a cool mecha as well, which is always bonus points Preliminary rating of a 4/5

This game is really cool, but I can't get past the 1 color palette. It makes it really hard to navigate through the game- even if there was 1 more color to even things out, it would really make the game more playable. I really really want to like this game

i love this game's aesthetic. i love the vector art virtual HUD look. i love the hardcore resource management, and the matter-of-fact corporate dystopian horror writing. the only thing i don't love is the design of the 3d models of the humanoid mecha, the rest of the game looks practical and oppressively utilitarian, while the mecha look like gundams, with large pointy shoulder pads. that would be fine, except all the humanoid mecha models also look way too flat from the sides, they have no depth to them at all, no backpacks or anything, they look like blocky flattened gingerbread mecha. to the dev's credit, you really only get like one opportunity in the game to see the models from the side, in the security RCS lockers aboard the ship level, but i was disappointed nonetheless. especially given the scale of the setting and the mechs, i would have gone with a much bulkier, deeper, boxier design for the mechs, something closer to Maschinen Krieger. i have to wonder how the pilots even fit inside the mechs in this game, the torsos look so thin from the front and so narrow from the sides, but they also don't seem to make sense as power armor suits, the limb placement doesnt match up. maybe the pilot is standing in the torso with arms crossed like a mummy, kinda like in daemon x machina, but that seems not comfortable and not as cool as a tank or helicopter style cockpit or bulky power armor imo, bizarrely anime for the industrial dystopian writing of this game. other than the humanoid mechs i think all the other models and levels look great, its clearly not an issue of skill. i'm looking forward to finally getting to the next games now that i've finally beaten this game.

neato game, I love mecha games and dungeon crawls and the music was a vibe only other mecha dungeon crawler I could find before this was Starfire for the PC-98 looking forward to playing the rest of these

it's gud

A nice entry into the dungeon crawler genre, it has an interesting aesthetic and pacing to it. It took some time and a few restarts to get into the right mindset for it, but once I did I beat it in two sittings. I would say it could do better to introduce concepts, but as the first of a small series it starts off on good foundations. It's not overly long, took me 8 hours or so, and that seems about right.

It's a quite neat scaled-back mecha crawler. I like the tense survival aspect as well as the interesting map obstacles such as jammers (needing to locate them by their buzz). The 100 points for saving system is a misstep but I was able to complete the game fully (both endings) with about 40 points left.