Number of Reviews: 4
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Distracting puzzles, November 22, 2023The Ship is a hypertext puzzle game, following two interconnected stories of captains, each looking for a specific location. The game includes different kinds of puzzles, from visual ones to more fetch-quest like, and achievements. I completed 3 chapters out of 7.
I don't know why I had a hard time getting into the game, it has all the stuff I like: pirates, some sci-fi elements, some puzzles, some fun characters with interesting or funny backstories... Mixing genres is usually so much fun, and drawing parallels between storylines is usually intriguing (has me on the edge of my seat). But something just didn't click with this game.
I don't think there was one reason for why it didn't work (for me), but more of a combination of frictions with the story or the gameplay that resulted in not enjoying as much as I thought I would have. I could see where it was going with the tropes of the characters and the similar elements between the captains, so it felt a bit frustrating.
I ended up relating quite a bit with the first captain from the start of the game.
Though there were bits of humour, I found most of the prose a bit dull and dry (more so in the sci-fi section than the pirate one). The dialogues were more palatable, especially with the more cookie crew members (they had some funny bits, playing the tropes and such). The pace was a bit slow, and in conversations lore-dumpy with the long paragraphs.
Still, I pushed onward, discussed with the different fun characters on board, ran around the ship to get things rolling, tried to solve the puzzles and put stuff back into order... I followed what the game wanted from me, but it still didn't grab me. After reaching the navigation puzzle, I stopped. It's a neat puzzle, in itself, but too many to levels solve at once to continue the story.