The Inner Sea

An interesting game to say the least. Some parts infuriating, some parts hilarious. Aesthetically, it's downright beautiful. The epic catchy looping music, the beautifully designed map (literally a map) with all manner of objects scattered around. I step into The Inner Sea thinking I was going to be a Pirate like in Sid Meier's Pirates! An hour later, I became the most prominent walrus trader in the New World (made sooooo much money from their tusks). Bet you didn't see that coming. The game is simple, you sail around a randomly generated map, trading, exploring, and blowing up other guys ships. The combat is unforgiving and difficult but it has a lot in common with Windward. You travel from port to port, doing missions against very powerful foes. You upgrade your ships, get new ships and try to survive. Unfortunately, the combat is UNFORGIVING AS HELL and you will die a lot until you figure out which ships to not ♥♥♥♥ with. That's alright though, part of the challenge I suspect. Seriously, in about 5 minutes, I went from having a Caravel, to a lifeboat, to a Viking Longship and then back to a lifeboat. Twas hilarious but mildly annoying. It teaches you that maybe Piracy isn't the answer... and that life is better spent gathering Walrus Tusks as a career. Gameplay Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Acye9iOAE

The game has been abandoned by the devs.

The Inner Sea is a pretty good game but what is truly exceptional is the good natured help from the Dev and the community to a grumpy old man {yep, sad to say that's me! } who's pc was at fault not the game. Sorry guys.There was help all the way and feed back listened to by the Dev from those a lot more computer savy than me.So the support can only be described as outstanding.. Collectively I'm sure this will develop into a brilliant game with the input from the punters and from a dev who listens and cares about this game... .. Certainly the game looks nice right now,I like the music, controls are fine,all good.It's tough,you have to be pretty careful who you pick scraps with and no glitches or crashes.Support and game both are fine, I certainly do recommend The Inner Sea.....

Game is dead, developer abandoned. This should be removed from the Steam store.

Definately in BETA, but you knew that if you have early access. The graphics are good, and on par with current genre games. The music gets old, and needs some additional tracks. Gameplay is fun. Content - needs much more. The small map leaves alot to be desired. The resource generation is tiny, I've only found out how to gather fish and walrus Ivory. The ivory is OP as a resource, sells for a ton and you can easily exploit harbors near walrus resources to quickly max out cash. The game needs to have a the ability to create your own harbor/island. The seemingly randomness of blueprints needs to be clarified. I have collected what seems like all of them, as im just getting dupliates now. But there is no way to know for sure. And I can only seem to randomly be able to apply the blueprints, i guess its dependant on which ship you have? That information would be great to know. The random "skeleton" or "Tower" dont seem to do anything. It would be cool to capture these things and have them do something? The questing UI is horrible, and completely not worth your time. The EXP/Gold per quest is insignificant with the walrus farming, and ship battles. you can kill 5-7 ships in the time it takes to complete a mission, and atleast as far as my 2 ship fleet is concerned, killing other ships is 5-7x more exp generation. No known benefit for completing the missions. There needs to be a way to understand when other skills unlock. Im not sure if these areas are just not yet developed, or its a mystery. Overall tooltips need to be created to give the player an understanding of all the concepts of the game. Fun to kill 1hr. With more content added will be worth the $10

[i][b][h1]AVAST, YA SCURVY DOGS![/h1][/b][/i] [u][b][h1]Introduction[/h1][/b][/u] The Inner Sea is a beautiful game - it reminds me of playing with toy boats in the bathtub - with some naval battles and trading for good measure. I was struck at the menu screen with the beautiful music - through I did find it a bit repetitive after being in game for 20 minutes. You start out with one ship, blown into an archipelago. Though the game's blurb mentions that it is in the 17th century, I did not see a lot that reflect that, i.e. clothing style, etc. It did not look modern, just not historical enough to my eyes. Maybe dsquare will improve upon that - perhaps add in your captain that you can dress in different styles - like as your fleet gains more power you can make your captain and crew look more cool - more "piratey". What helps me to feel a "immersed" is to be able to connect with your characters. [u][b][h1]Gameplay[/h1][/b][/u] I played some time in the game and did not get to a bigger ship, just my little guy The Buccaneer, and we were handed some tasks from different governors on different islands. Since the first part of the game is mostly discovering the map, there needs to be a lot more to do - what is available now is fishing (which seems to be infinite - you can fish as much as you want - a bit cheaty) and getting ivory. My understanding is that there are sea monsters but I did not see any while I played. I would suggest perhaps caves to explore or treasure maps that you can find/steal, for example. I also noticed islands that were empty. It was unclear whether you could claim the island and build it up and become governor or not. A base-building aspect would be awesome! The naval battles were simple - you just steer your ship so that it is broadside to the enemy and it will automatically fire. But, and a big but here, the game automatically goes to slow/normal speed and will not allow you to change it back. This sucked because I ended up with some very, very slow naval chases while some big pirate ship chase my little ship out of it's waters. I could not speed up the game and was forced to just sit there. Hmph. The battles could be added onto with a lot of cool ideas, like taking prisoners or gathering other factions to your side to band together or even romancing the other captains! [u][b][h1]Pros[/h1][/b][/u] [list] [*]Beautiful artsylte [*]Lovely seafaring music [*]Lots of potential [*]Responsive dev team [/list] [u][b][h1]Cons[/h1][/b][/u] [list] [*]Battles are forced to normal speed [*]There needs to be a lot more music tracks [*]Freer camera control is needed, not just one direction, three zoom levels [/list] [u][b][h1]Final Thoughts[/h1][/b][/u] The Inner Sea has a LOT of promise. It could be the addictive, sandboxy, naval goodness I want - but for now, the game lacks more to DO, more to engage with in the early game. But, since I believe that dsquare is devoted to the project and actively listening to suggestion, I think your early-access purchase would be worth it - even though you may have to wait a bit for the full game experience you want. [quote]This review was submitted by [b][url=https://www.youtube.com/user/TheJessaChannel]The Jessa Channel[/url][/b], a YouTube channel that focuses on gaming Let's Plays served up with a soupçon of silly and a whole lot of story. Though dsquare provided a copy for review, all thoughts and opinions are entirely my own. If you would like to check out the game in action, here's a gameplay video to enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNnVERPaiIs [/quote]

This has the potential to be a really fun game and I hope that the developer continues along the same path as that which has led us to this point. However, there are a couple of irritations which, in my humble opinion, could be cured. The most irksome is that I want to rotate the map, yet it can't be done! We are fixed with a north-south, east-west movement but no rotation. I thought that holding down the RH mouse button would do it (like so many other games) but no. The other irritation right now is the repetitive music. Hopefully the music library will expand as the game grows. Definitely worth a look at the price being asked at the moment.

Les points positifs : - Des développeurs qui vous répondent :) - L'esthétisme du jeu :) - Une future version francophone ;) - L'ambiance du jeu :) - Un prix très raisonnable - Un gros potentiel - Tourne parfaitement sur ma config Les points négatifs : - Les touches pas configurables - Manque le brouillard de guerre (la carte s'affiche au fur et à mesure de l'exploration mais on ne sait pas ce qui a déjà été parcouru) - Manque de contenu pour le moment. - La caméra fixe ce qui est un peu dommage En bref : nous sommes au tout début de l'Early Access donc réservé à celles et ceux qui comme moi veulent un petit jeu avec une belle marge de progression. Un pari sur l'avenir ... en tout cas les débuts sont très prometteurs.

(temp review) Family Friendly Game!! 1 to 5 five being best Price 5 Value 5 Family Friendly 5 Fun factor 5 Graphics 3.5 (positive on this can be played on lower power machines) Artwork 4.5 Originality 5 game loads very fast - nice sound track - Extremely family friendly game and great for PARENTS AND KIDS TO PLAY TOGETHER - cute game with no gore or vulgarness My reviews are what I feel .. I do not candy coat my game experiences to placate to devs or fan boys. For more of my gaming info - swordandkeyboard.com feel free to twitter me @swordnkeyboard

Upon starting “The Inner Sea”, you’re shown a table with an old world map on it; or rather a parchment. No islands are shown yet, because the map is literally your playing-field and you haven’t discovered anything yet. After a short story you can choose your ship from three different factions: The Old Continent, Cathay and Arabia. This determines with which model ship you’ll be starting the game with. As far as I’ve noticed there is no special advantage (yet?) to choosing a different starting ship; such as Europeans having a larger hull, Middle-Eastern a higher speed or the Oriental ship more fire-power, but I may be wrong there. After having selected your ship you have a few options to give your sails a different colour, followed by choosing one of nine logos which will be shown on your main-sail (different factions mean different logos). You finish by choosing which person you’re working for; the King, the Merchants Guild or the Military Order, each giving you a different trait. This will be your main skill, meaning, for example, that if you choose to sail for the Merchants you will receive the Trading skill resulting in obtaining better prices in the ports when selling your goods. You will then find your ship – a bit beaten after a storm and with a few goods on board – somewhere at a random place on the edge of the procedurally-generated world map. A nice addition is that if you zoom out completely, you can see the whole world map lying on the table. Your tiny ship is easily controlled by clicking it and drawing a line – straight, curved or squiggly – and your ship will follow that line to the best of its abilities. The graphics are rather simple but do have a certain beauty about them which fits in nicely with the whole style of the game. It’s not completely the polygon-look, but it isn’t highly detailed, either; which is nice for those that are not in the possession of high-end “killer” PCs. You can scan the map using WASD; placing your cursor on either the left or right side of the screen makes you rotate the map; and the scroll wheel or E and Q can be used to zoom in and out. With F you open your ship’s information tabs (containing your crew and goods, quest log, skills, et cetera), and you can use your right- and left mouse-buttons to click on several Points of Interest that are scattered throughout the map. You obviously have to discover these places first, and here is where I do have a tiny complaint. Once you discover an island or POI, it will remain on the map, but a “fog of war” would be highly recommended for the game to hide the places you haven’t discovered yet. At this moment you’ll keep cruising by exactly the same points as there is no way on the map to see where your ship has or hasn’t been. Also ships (sometimes your target) are fairly quick to leave what is apparently your line of sight, which you cannot see either. This often results in quickly turning your ship around, dragging the travel-line in the direction where you saw your target last and then never ever finding it again because it seems to have disappeared into thin air like The Flying Dutchman. In my opinion it would be better to have an “explored” part of the world where it doesn’t matter if you’re nearby or not; you can still see the ships that pass through your explored areas, and disappearing into the fog of war when they enter places you haven’t explored yet. This will also make it less of a nuisance trying to discover something new. Following other ships around, either for a quest or just hoping to find a new location, showed me that most ships have certain trading routes, and if you keep close to a location to fill your hulls with fish and ivory, you will notice the same ships returning frequently to the harbour. As of yet real “trade routes” that you can follow have not been implemented in the game, but this would be an interesting addition to the game; showing the different trade routes of the different factions (once you’ve followed the trading ship, obviously). Anyway; enough ideas, still, for this Early Access game. On the state it is in now it runs smoothly, although there is definitely room for improvement and a lot more content to be added. The UI is easy to understand; the graphics simple but pretty; the music could use some more variation in my opinion but still fits in well with the game; and the concept of the game is very nice and dare I say: rather unique. The gameplay is calming – except for those moments that you finally find your target ship and you lose it again because the sailor in the crow’s nest is apparently wearing an eye-patch, limiting his line of sight to that of a mere few metres – so the game is great to play after a hard day’s work, too. Here’s hoping for more content to the game, as I think this game has a lot of potential; choosing an island Anno-style and being able to expand your city with upgrades would be another fantastic addition to this sea-roaming “board-game-like” game, but we’ll see what the future brings.