Разработчик: Abigail Corfman
Описание
There is an ocean beneath our world.
You can sail it on currents of emotion. Worlds hang in it like bubbles--ephemeral as thought, or indelible as memory.
You wake up at the bottom of this ocean.
Your shattered memories dot the sand around you.
Reclaim and compile your magic or drown in a sea of dreams.
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Open Sorcery: Sea++ is a text-based adventure-puzzle game about technology and magic.
Reminiscent of the old "Zork" and "Wishbringer" series (but with a more intuitive UI) it plays like an adventure game with a touch of resource management. Collect items and spells and use them cleverly to accrue power.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7
- Processor: 1 GHz
- Memory: 250 MB RAM
- Graphics: N/A
- Sound Card: N/A
Mac
- OS: Any
- Processor: 1 GHz
- Memory: 250 MB RAM
- Graphics: N/A
- Sound Card: N/A
Linux
- OS: Any
- Processor: 1 GHz
- Graphics: N/A
- Sound Card: N/A
Отзывы пользователей
As always we return... Emergent, and awakened
(minor spoilers ahead)
This was one of the most narratively interesting and emotionally compelling pieces of media I've engaged with in recent years, let alone in gaming specifically. Never before have I encounter a game that let me have a philosophical debate with an angel, play at being an investigator solving a crime where Everyone wants to be the culprit, and pilot a steam powered ship by playing video games, all wrapped up in one of the most fascinating settings I've ever read. I love everything about it. The mechanisms and interweaving of coding and spellcasting, the dedication to figures like Ada Lovelace. It's just fantastic, in every sense. With an emotional core that often left me feeling so deeply with the protagonist and the side characters, I cannot recommend this game enough. The innovation the developer has done with Twine is nothing short of remarkable as well.
I really don't have the words to explain clearly how much I like this one, but Sea++ is better than the original open sorcery, which was a very good storytelling game.
Best. Game. Ever.
The immersion inside this world is nothing short of profound. The prose is only beaten by the innovation of the most colourful and nuanced piece of hyperfiction I've ever played. It is beautiful, haunting, and so organic, that the interactions between yourself and the warped populous of merged spirit/digital/imagined entities feels personal and so powerful.
I'm 7 hours into the game, and hope to God that I'm playing slowly as I do not want to surface from this world, in spite of its treacherous depths and thin-skinned fragility of a character. This fragility is really well-balanced with emergent magic that you learn, experiment, use frivolously and lose, but always learn, and add to a rich tapestry of the narrative.
To aid exploration in the game I've been drawing a map on my tablet, that has spilled so far into the edges with details that it's become non-euclidean, which unintentionally feels at home within the lore of Open Sorcery.
Just like Open Sorcery, this is an interesting and unique implementation of magic as programming. I like it.
UPD: The way the author managed to mix funny, memetic and sarcastic elements with natural body and psychological horror in this unique is truly impressive.
I love this game. This is an absolutely enormous expansion and improvement on its already excellent predecessor, with puzzles that I really enjoyed sinking my teeth into. I got very invested in the characters, setting, and environments; the writing is top-notch.
This game is awe-inspiring in its scope, heart and creativity, featuring a protagonist whose story, struggles and sense of humor resonated deeply with me. The puzzles are genuinely challenging, fun and satisfying to solve, though some might be too obtuse for everyone's tastes. I absolutely loved this game. One of my new favorites of all time.
The writing, worldbuilding, and storylines are amazing, as per Open Sorcery. Every zone provides a new theme, challenges, and easter eggs and the world connects back on itself in a very interesting ways. The gameplay is wildly different from Open Sorcery but if your enjoyment came from the world I can thoroughly recommend this game. It's a classical text-based adventure game and one of my favourites at that.
The puzzles are challenging in places and the game doesn't always tell you where to go or what to do next. You gain access to a very useful "hint" spell that helps you progress the main story, but its usefulness is hindered in some of the more frustrating puzzles/areas. I highly recommend having a pen and paper next to you to draw maps and write down key details.
Overall, this is a great game. I enjoyed my time with it very much.
I don't have experience with old-style text adventure games, which is a thing I'm starting to regret now. This game feels to me like it may be similar to such games and I'm saying it as a complement.
It really does feel like an adventure. Unlike modern games, it forces player to think, make the right decision at the right time and manage resources. It's not unfair in that, though. Some riddles are hard but the solutions are logical and can be found without trial and error.
You won't get a perfect ending on the first run but you may get a pretty good one if you put your backbone into it. Regardless, you will have fun along the way.
After the initial run, the game transforms from an adventure into a puzzle.
You need to uncover all the secrets, map all the outcomes of your decision and plot a path that will allow you to achieve all the goals in a single run.
Honestly, it's a challenge even with help of community guides. (I'll get there eventually.)
As for graphics, well it a text-based game so don't expect photo-realism but backgrounds are good enough to immerse you in the world with a little help of imagination. For the most part it doesn't feel like just reading a text.
Music, on the other hand, is very good and very atmospheric. It brings locations to life and don't get annoying even after listening it on repeat a long time.
Obviously, there are some problems but they are not significant enough to change my opinion about the game.
So, do I recommend the game? If you've read the above and haven't gone to look for some shooter instead, then yes, you should definitely try it.
Should you play the first game before this one? Well... This entry is a definitive improvement over and expansion of the mechanics. However, I still did enjoy the first one and it does tie to the overarching plot of the series. I'd said you should probably play them in order but you still can start with this one if you're not sure if this is a genre for you and want to check out with the stronger entry. While some of the skills and knowledge acquired by playing the first game may be useful here, the second one does a good job of teaching a new player everything they need to know.
Very interesting text adventure that doesn't even feel like a game, more like an excursion into the author's mind. It's original, unconventional and clever. I have to say I really enjoyed it.
At first, I thought that the first underwater area would be pretty much it but the game has so much content, holy shit. There are several puzzles, riddles, word searches and everything seems to have more than one solution. And your choice of the solution does have some consequences. I never played the first game but now I feel I really should at some point.
The music is great and perfectly matched to respective areas. It's relaxing, smooth, does not disturb the reader, just perfect. I especially liked the electric guitar one in Hell location. Top notch.
Now for the negatives.
At some point I have encountered a character stuck in some cave. The game told me that if I want to save them, I should be properly prepared - I basically had only one chance from what I understood. So I went on with my business, gathered resources and spells and at one point, I felt ready. I went back to the cave only to find the character is no longer there... so that sucked. I probably missed a whole lot of content so thanks for that useless warning, game.
I also wouldn't mind having a map of some sort. Even though the locations are not that big, they are not small either. And there is one location where instead of the regular north/south/west/east you could also go up and down and the paths are mostly blocked, it's a mess and I got lost there several times.
I don't know if it's because of my original expectations of something short but the game goes on for way too long. It gets really repetitive near the end and starts to feel more like a chore. And at one point, I just got stuck and had to use a guide only to find out that I missed an entire location. I don't know if its existence was hinted somewhere and I was too tired reading all the text but it was not (and still isn't) clear to me how I was supposed to discover it. Maybe some less subtle hint would help.
At the end, it was very obvious that I was missing several things, I could not complete one of the final "rooms" because I did not have enough dreams and I had no idea where to get them. It was optional of course, you don't need to complete everything to finish the game, but it really felt like I was being punished for my choices and apparently a lack of exploration (even though I though I was very thorough). The ending left a bittersweet taste because of this.
Overall, it was a great adventure regardless. And even though I don't usually play text adventures at all, I have to say that this one was something else entirely.
I love this game. I cried many times, and I always felt better off for that.
At one point I found myself unable to hurt a dream of a character you only know through the thoughts and feelings of the player character. I cried at the idea of doing that to them, those small glimpses at this person through the memories of them, and feelings about them. They paint a much bigger picture, and like many things in this game it was one that rang as intensely true in my heart. This game has made me feel less alone. Although it is a game, there is still a truth in what it says that helps me feel I'm not the only one who has or is experiencing things i have experienced and have experienced which aren't talked about enough. And which are hard to talk about. Those words do very much come from people. I may not be able to talk to them, but they've been brave enough to talk to me and everyone else playing this game. Hoping someone hears them, I imagine.
One experience of mine in particular, has been hard to even understand. But I looked at the screen, and there were words that vocalised what I have gone through in a way I haven't figured out how to myself yet. And that's why I talk so much about emotions, they're the most important part of this for me. The game does have other parts I love though.
I love love love puzzles. some of these are very hard and sometimes i used a walkthrough, which i think if fully worth it for the experience. im sure this is also an amazing experience for people who love making notes, drawing maps, looking for clues outside of the game (I did googling for stuff like that a fair few times)
A lot of the more challenging stuff is only there if you're inclined to look for it and figure it out, how far you want to dive into this ocean. Even if I'm not the best swimmer I seemed to have gone quite deep so my perspective is from encountering that much higher difficulty. Every puzzle I came across impressed me, fascinated me. Even if I couldn't solve one I loved it. And things can fit together in lots of fun ways. Stuff that makes you smile and go "that works??!!". the way everything fits together and offers multiple questions and answers.
And as a huge dork for hypertext, interactive fiction and all that jazz; I cannot name a better example. Top tier "clicking on blue words to expand the ways of conveying meaning in the text medium". The way it plays with space, with conflicting feeling, with the multiple meanings that can be present. It enrichens the character of Pisces and knows how to tell a joke too. Its gorgeous and brilliant and inspiring. I love this game and its story and its everything.
I'm not sure what I expected - this is very much a text only game, with clicking on text and navigation "go north" style being pretty much the only gameplay. That's not a problem, though: visual novels have less gameplay and can be engaging.
I guess my issue is the writing. The setting is some strange Jungian collective consciousness style ocean that's operated by... code? The idea is very appealing, but the way it's presented is... not. It's a mixture of self-reflective poetry and programming. I should love this: I dabble in poetry and code for a living. Maybe it's because the writing feels very alien and self-focused. Arrogant, perhaps. The protagonist's train of thought doesn't fare too well on the tracks of my mind.
Shame. I'm not recommending this, but this is a very subjective opinion - based on the fact that me and the text of the game didn't really click. Maybe take a look? Who knows, maybe it'll click for you.
If you like text adventure games, Open Sorcery: Sea++ is an incredibly fun game to play. There are plenty of puzzles and choices to do in the game due to its flexible magic system. My favourite part of it is probably its respectful depiction of physical disability.
For anyone that is unsure of getting this, I can highly recommend the first Open Sorcery as both games are quite comparable in storytelling quality and the first game is much shorter - albeit less comprehensive.
I don't play a ton of text based games, but I loved the first game and this was basically everything I wanted from a sequel. This game has a lot of the same ideas but is a much bigger game with a new setting and characters.
I enjoyed the writing and there were some cool mechanics and puzzles. There's a lot of cool secret paths and usually multiple ways to solve a problem. The final traversal section was really fun and the music has been stuck in my head all day.
I felt it was a little too easy to make bad decisions early on that drained my available motes for the later game, but I was ultimately still able to finish the game without excessively reloading saves. I just locked myself out of some paths/areas that were optional. Basically a good reason to do another play through though.
This game is more polished and more comprehensive than Abigail's previous game (Open Sorcery).
Like their previous game what is unique about OS - Sea++ is the writer's creative fingerprint. The world of OS is hard to describe, it is our world in the current day overlaid with a complex world of computer magic. America operates giant magical corporations, time is in flux and mythical creatures exist but people nonetheless go about their lives as normal.
The world feels a little like Terry Pratchett's Discworld in that it doesn't take itself too seriously e.g. webships are steam powered, meaning that they are powered by the excitement and frustration derived from playing games.
In the story the player will be going from place to place in the Web, a place where humanity's dreams become reality. This setting lends the writing a lot of freedom allowing the tone to vary wildly from whimsical to deeply sad and then funny depending on where in the web the player is and what they are doing.
It is also clear that a lot of thought has gone into the nature of the world. For instance there are clear boundaries as to what magic is and what it can do.
For example Fairyland (I'll avoid specific spoilers) is governed by two godlike queens, one embodies chaos and light, they ensure that the land is filled with infinite possibility. The other embodies darkness and order, they ensure that the land is totally bound by law.
In Sea++ it feels as if this world has become more defined whereas in the previous game the worldbuilding felt more loose, like poetry.
I get a sense that the author is having fun and this lends the work a real energy and playfulness. The characters are well thought out and feel grounded in the world. In particular the story surrounding the 3 ghosts made me tear up.
There are still issues in the game, particularly in a slight bit of moon logic with certain puzzles and the tedious word puzzles. However these elements don't diminish the overall experience
This is a great game and shouldn't be missed. there is plenty of quality content for the £11 price point and I've gotten my money's worth.
I'd encourage people to pick up the game at full price.
If the game goes on sale I would strongly encourage anyone that likes good worldbuilding and storytelling to pick the game up its a hidden gem.
EDIT - Having completed the game I can confirm that the writing gets even better, some of my favourite parts of the game were in the late game. The game's only really big flaw is the lack of indication or instruction as to what the player should do to progress at times. As such I'd recommend that people play with the community guide available to fall back on when stuck.
A great game, in general.
If you have difficulty with the text-based nature of the game, just think of it as a point & click without pictures. The difference is minimal, you'll just have a lot more freedom of action (and the branching paths which come with it) than with traditional point & clicks.
Buying this game was a no-brainer for me since I loved the ideas introduced in the first Open Sorcery. I just wanted to see more of the world introduced to us in the first game. And Sea++ delivered.
If you have even surface knowledge of computer science, you will find a lot of creative puns to enjoy. And those who like fantasy will find a refreshing take on the genre.
Time-wise, this game has a lot of replayability thanks to the freedom of actions given to the players. The community has estimated an average of 30h of gameplay as of the date of this review.
As for the gameplay itself, while it strives to give as many options as possible, don't expect anything ground-breaking. The minigames, while simple, can be fun. Just remember that you can skip new puzzles of a type you have already solved. Also, this game heavily encourages you to take notes, or be very attentive at least : you can miss on a lot of the game if you don't look at everything. Also, did I mention you could play anywhere on the genocidal-pacifist scale ?
All in all, definitely a hidden indie gem.
The starting area (after acquiring the first spell) was a lot of swim north / south / east / west with basically empty descriptions in 90% of the grid. I was expecting more from the positive reviews. If I'm spending my time seeing the same text over and over as I swim from one direction to the next while I'm ferrying objects from one location to another, what that tells me is that the game has too much empty space between locations and it doesn't value my time.
The game's utterly enchanting. I don't normally have a lot of patience for puzzley text adventures, but this one's both extremely sharp and quite reasonable. Generally whenever I felt I was stuck or spinning my wheels, I would have an epiphany right after and feel like a genius.
Even with that, the game's real draw is the writing. There are 12 fully fleshed-out "levels" with their own quests, and a few smaller zones off to the side. The whole story's read through a stylish mythological-occult-computer science lens, but the zones are otherwise about as different as it gets, and the main story ties everything together splendidly. I don't think there was any quest that didn't hold my interest. It's all just extremely good.
Open Sorcery and its sequels are some of the most lovingly crafted text adventures out there today. The developer is passionate about showing us a world and the characters that live within it, and giving us reason to invest in those characters and places.
Some of the best writing I have had the pleasure of seeing in any game I've played recently, coupled with sound and visual design that greatly improve the....immersion of the game. The story and the characters—especially the protagonist—are compelling, and the puzzles are quite fun. I often find myself excited or intrigued by some new scrap of information or dialogue I find, and have to discuss it with my friends. The ties between this game and the previous one are subtle but wonderful—the links between the stories of the two games are absolutely fascinating to piece together. And the community is lovely.
All in all an excellent game.
I bought this game a day after the release, I am pleased by it even though it is in early access.
Allow me to give a brief Summary:
The Good:
The story so far is pretty good, its touching and funny and has a few references. The game doesn't hold your hand but steadily teaches you the mechanics you need to know to keep going without breaking immersion or flooding you with information. The game also gives you plenty of savefile slots so you can experiment all you want. The music is pretty relaxing too.
So far I only encountered one bug:
-When encountering the tutorial fish, and you use a search engine, if you decide you want to try something else the engine still counts as being used for the rest of the trip
So the game works well right now.
The Bad:
The minigames(especially the darkness collection ones) can be a pain in the butt and takes up a considerable amount of time, while the game make things easier for you later on, its still a little annoying at first.
The lack of a map or mini map can make finding things hard if you don't memorize everything, and the lack of a character notes section/system means you have to keep notes the old fashion way.
Conclusion:
Good game, good story, functional mechanics, if the last game(you don't have to play it to understand this one) was your cup of tea, this one should be too.
I will say thus far that I am enjoying myself in the story and how the gameplay has evolved from the previous game. While I was particularly fond of the previous entry and its cast of characters, I admire the bold leap away that the creator made in order to tell an interesting narrative. I have a few gripes here and there, particularly about the word searches, but overall nothing that impedes my progress or ruins my fun.
As of right now, I am about 3 hours in to my first run, and I do plan to engage with the game in different ways over the next few days. I do plan on making a large edit upon the completion of my first playthrough detailing my thoughts about the game and how I enjoyed it. Thus far, I am fairly satisfied and I do recommend anyone who played the first game to give this one a shot and let others know as well!
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Abigail Corfman |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 24.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 94% положительных (48) |