Trawl

Ein sehr kleines Spiel, aber mit viel Athmosphäre. Genau richtig um meditativ in sich selbst zu gehen und ein paar Minuten abzuschalten. Für ein paar Euro sicher ein netter Zeitvertreib für Regentage.

Dear Diary I have been at sea for so long that I have forgotten how land feel underneath my feet. The rocking of the boat at the start made me nauseous, has now become the hand that rocks my cradle. I have lost the sense of time and place, I am unsure how long I have been out here, out here looking, out here repenting. The mistakes that I have done haunt me, not only in my sleep, but also when I am awake, so I guess this is a fitting punishment that I am going through, searching, looking. Nothing can erase what I have done, nothing can turn back the hand of time, but I have to try, I have to make amends. If this letter is found before I return, or should I say if I return. I just want to say “I’m sorry”

***Full disclosure , Friends with one of the dev's (Dan) *** I was sent a key from danny asking if i would give his new game a bash. First thought were , WOW what a pretty looking game, visually the best thing i seen you you do so far. didn't take long before i was drawn in by the ambiance and was sat at the typewriter, i then found myself tapping away and throwing little short stories and nautical based poems into the sea. Final Thoughts "What a great 20 mins that was ............... WTF i was on for 1.5 hours :O" **CAUTION ** Time runs faster when you're in this game haha

Honestly pretty disappointed in this I know it's supposed to be a writing prompt thing and it's not like I was expecting a ton of gameplay but still. The way the screenshots look and the kinda vibe the store page gives off I was expecting kinda horror or at least creepy vibes. “trawl the sea to recover discover what secrets are hidden in its depths and record your findings on your typewriter. ” they say, and it's like, yeah ok I found an old boot. Cool. So the “game” such as it is, is you cast your net, use the radio to pinpoint a direction, and then when the bell starts ringing you bring up the net and check what you found. A straight razor or a broken pair of glasses or something like that, then you repeat this 3 times at which point your radio breaks. You can inspect the objects but there isn't any flavour text or anything to really notice on any of them. You can then take a note of what you've found along with anything else you wrote and chuck it in the sea which kicks you unceremoniously back to the main menu where you can start again. I wish they would have at least like varied the amount of objects per run but no it's always 3. again with the horror vibes when you get close to an object the radio starts giving off this cool almost air raid siren whine and it's pretty cool. But then it's like, nothing. I feel a bit bad giving a bad review to a little game like this but also it sucks and they're charging four dollars for it and writing prompts are online for free. Hard skip.

Interesting idea, poor execution. From the game description: [i] Most of our players enjoy returning to sea again and again to see what new secrets they'll uncover and then writing journal entries to share with their friends. [/i] Does sharing imply literally sharing my .txt file with my friends? It ruins the atmosphere and it wouldn't be that interesting without the context of the game. I would much rather prefer to share my experiences and communicate with other players through the game itself. Why can't we find other players' messages? Why can't we interact with the messages in any way? It seems like such an obvious feature. Adding some inetractivity or social element would make the experience much more compelling. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this game.

Pretty boring stuff.

If you are looking at this game expecting some element of discovery/overarching plot/investigative element to the game, you will be disappointed. If writing your thoughts on three random objects while ocean noises play in the background sounds fun, you will enjoy the game. (I wish steam had a neutral/not my cup of tea option for reviews.)

Al ver el juego en la tienda de Steam, pensé que valdría la pena, no podía estar más equivocado. El juego consiste en llevar un arrastrero (barco de pesca) por unas aguas por las que no se ve a un metro delante del barco siguiendo la señal de la radio. El caso es que solo puedes coger tres objetos por partida. Y cada partida dura como unos 3 minutos. Si almenos tubiese un modo campaña, sin duda no lo devolvería, pero al tratarse de un juego tan desaprovechado, no veo más remedio que hacerlo, pues hasta No Man's Sky tiene más horas de juego que este. Antes de comprarlo, te recomiendo que leas la descripción del juego, cometí un error al no hacerlo. De todas formas aún puedo devolverlo. Espero que sigan explotando esta idea, con más originalidad y sobretodo duración, porque en sí no está mal la idea. Pero es extremadamente corto para lo que cuesta.

Great game! It's true that not a lot "happens" and you can "complete" a single playthrough in a few minutes, but the same could be said about other indie walking sims like The Stanley Parable, and much like The Stanley Parable, you'll definitely want to replay Trawl multiple times to see every possible variation of what could have happened. This game excells at atmosphere, and offers a fascinating way of delivering emergent narrative, which the player has to meet halfway with their own imagination, trying to think of what sort of story all the clues might be pointing to. Personally, I loved the fact that you had to type out your "Captain's Log" yourself, and found it really helped me to get immersed. I'm amazed more RPGs don't use this mechanic, as I found that having to write from the perspective of the game character was incredibly effective at getting me into their shoes, roleplaying as them. I found myself writing, from my character's perspective, about how much he loved his boat (which he named the S.S. Waterf***er, FYI) and how he lamented the fact that his wife Doris back home was probably going to leave him, seeing as you never actually catch any fish in this game! Only someone with zero imagination could fail to enjoy this aspect of the game. Some of the negative reviews of this game seem to be complaining about how it falls short of what they wanted it to be, rather than assessing it for what it is ("I wish it was a survival game, where you could catch fish and sell them at ports", "I wish it had an upgrade system", and other such complaints.) Personally, I think they're missing the point. This is not a sprawling, fishing RPG or anything like that. It's an experimental, short, walking sim type game. Its chief selling points are its half-creepy, half-relaxing atmosphere, and its interesting emergent storytelling, based partly on the player's own imagination. I think if you go into it expecting that, and not expecting it to be anything more than that, you should enjoy it. I only have two small complaints. Firstly, it wasn't clear that the radio breaking marked the end of your ability to catch stuff, and hence effectively the end of a playthrough, so I ended up sailing around aimlessly after the radio broke, with nothing to do, feeling like there was something I missed. Secondly, I felt that the radio broke too soon; I could happily have sailed around catching items for much longer. All in all this is great game, and anyone who likes the experimental, indie, walking sim type genre should try it. I admittedly got the game discounted, but not for free, and I did not regret spending money on it. I suggest you do the same, if only to support an indie developer with some interesting new ideas.

A lot of the negative reviews for this game are from players that did not understand the concept. Trawl is essentially a solo journaling TTG turned into a video game. If you're already familiar with solo journaling TTGs you will probably enjoy this game, if you are someone that enjoys writing prompts, you will enjoy this game, as Trawl is essentially an immersive and wonderfulyl executed writing prompt. I love solo-journaling style TTGs and Trawl is a game that takes that concept and executes it beautifully into video game form. It's an enjoyable introspective game, that's an excellent warm up or practice session for writing. Every replay is slightly different and I love typing on the type writer, it's fun and adds another layer of ambiance to the game. The sound and environmental design are all on point. As someone who has worked on actual trawl and dredging boats (albeit to catch fish rather than following an ominous radio signal) this game is close to my heart when it come to all the small details that remind of my time spent on the water. I could gush about how much I love the sound and environmental design, because it really does make me feel like I'm back working a dredge on a boat again. Sitting below deck, listening to the water lap at the hull while crafting a narrative on the type writer is truly a joy. The only downside is length, each play through is relatively short and I wish there was an option to choose session length, or an endless mode to give the player more time to write and develop a narrative but other than that I highly recommend this game esp to anyone that enjoys creative writing or wants to stretch their creativity muscles.