History VideoGame / SunlessSea

The game is available through Creator/HumbleBundle, Website/GOGDotCom and Steam, and became available for UsefulNotes/{{Playstation 4}} in 2018 and the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch and UsefulNotes/XboxOne in 2020. The ''Zubmariner'' expansion pack, featuring underwater exploration, was released on 11 October 2016. A sequel, ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'', came to Kickstarter on February 1st, 2017, and was fully funded within hours of it going live.

** There are five craftable items in your Study at your Townhouse/Mansion that increase an associated stat by seven points in exchange for seven Secrets and seven of a particular item (or just one, for Hearts and Mirrors). This also gives you an auxiliary equipment item that can be equipped to your ship for an additional seven points. If you wish, you can sell the item and then recraft it, which is the only way to boost stats past 150 (200 max), and one of the few reliable ways to boost the Pages stat as long as you can farm Outlandish Artifacts.

* FantasticDrug: Red Honey, a proscribed substance described as "too dangerous to be even properly illegal."[[note]]Because making it illegal would require the government acknowledging that it exists at all. And if they did that they would have to dedicate all of their resources to destroying it instead of protecting London.[[/note]] It is produced by lamplighter bees who feed on the nectar of a particular flower that drives them to madness. It causes them to enter the minds of humans and [[AbstractEater eat memories]], distilling them into the red-staining honey they produce. Every time the honey is tasted, the person it originated from suffers. Needless to say, the [[CulturePolice Ministry of Public Decency]] will wish to have some very sharp words with anyone attempting to smuggling it...which makes smuggling it potentially ''very'' profitable. The comparatively harmless and humane version, Prisoner's Honey, has the power to physically transport the imbiber into their own dreamworld.

** Irrigo: The most easily found of the Neathbow colours, and the most overtly dangerous. Irrigo steals away memories, causing severe memory loss and forgetfulness; exposure (for instance, to an Eyeless Skull) risks damaging your stats. It's also associated heavily with Flukes.

** If you successfully zail upstream of Adam's Way, your Crew and Hull are both reduced to one. Better find a way back to a shipyard without being hit once. [[spoiler:Having the Cladery Heart allows you to avoid the Hull damage]].

* LuckBasedMission: Several challenges are purely luck based, but fortunately they are never mandatory and the player has an idea of their odds when choosing to try them. More generally, surviving the EarlyGameHell requires a certain degree of luck in [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels the zee's alteration]], coupled with [[GuideDangIt some existing knowledge of the game]].

* NightmareFace: The Tides of Appetite are full of ''writhing, gnawing faces''; given that Polythreme is a place where everything is alive, it has quite a few as well. The island as a whole looks like a skull, and many of the districts have an uncomfortable resemblance to organs.

** Provided you have bought a townhouse or better, you can always retire your character in London and achieve a draw. This does not count as a game over, but does not count as an ending either.

* PuppetState: London can end up as this if Khanate Supremacy is maxed out. The Admiralty is disbanded, the [[SecretPolice White-and-Golds]] take over policing duties, and Parliament essentially cedes control to the Taimen outright.

* VillainProtagonist: The player, horrifically so, depending on their choices. You can potentially send unsuspecting ships to their doom to enrich pirate-salvagers, engage in human trafficking, sell trusting tourists as food to sorrow-spiders and destroy peaceful civilian ships. [[spoiler: And then there's the poor Sigil-Eaten Navigator.]]

* AlienGeometries: Neath's geography is...weird. [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels Alteration]] is an accepted feature, and then there's the fact that trying to go sufficiently north anywhere in the zee will get you to one of two places: Avid Horizon or Frostfound, and that the zee stretches to the east without end.

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Each time you die, you establish a Legacy to pass on to your next captain. You can pass on half of the accumulated points of a single stat (two with a Scion) and an associated benefit (half of your wealth on two stats, a piece equipment, an officer, or your discovered map). You can also write a will to pass on your lodgings and the heirlooms contained within. You could potentially devote one captain's entire life to buffing their successor.

* EarlyGameHell: In the beginning, just making enough Echoes to keep your ship consistently fuelled and provisioned can be a challenge, with a degree of luck required to find the opportunities to break out of that state. Furthermore, your starting equipment makes taking on or being attacked by anything other than [[TheGoomba bats, Jillyfleurs and Megalopses]] a death sentence, so be prepared to flee and hope your engine outruns the enemy or they give up the chase.

* EveryoneHasStandards: The pirates on Hearthstake Island in the Empire of hands were shipwrecked there long ago and turned to cannibalism. Not to survive, simply because they longed for the taste of meat. Even then, [[SacredHospitality they refuse to eat a guest]]. Nor will they ask you to take them home; they've all agreed that cannibalism is the MoralEventHorizon.

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Each time you die, you establish a Legacy to pass on to your next captain. You can pass on half of the accumulated points of a single stat (two with a Scion) and an associated benefit (some of your wealth, equipment, or your discovered map). You can also write a will to pass on your lodgings and the heirlooms contained within. You could potentially devote one captain's entire life to buffing their successor.

* {{Macrogame}}: When a game ends (either from death, victory, or retirement), the player can begin a new game with a Legacy based on their chosen relation to the previous captain. Depending on the Legacy chosen, the player gains 50% of the points previously earned for a single stat, as well as a secondary benefit based on that stat (one weapon, one officer, the revealed map, or half their Echoes on two different stats). If the player unlocks the Scion, two Legacies can be chosen. There are also a number of Legacy Qualities that provide permanent boosts to the player's starting stats when unlocked through certain in-game actions. Finally, Wealthy captains can write a will, allowing their house and some of their wealth (in the form of Heirlooms) to be passed on. The will has to be refreshed for every captain, however.

** The ''Eschatologue''-class Dreadnought, as the description reads. Tied for the heaviest and slowest ship in the game, and absolutely ''destroys'' your Veils score, since [[WithCatlikeTread trying to be sneaky with a ship that size is doing it wrong]]. In return, it boosts your Iron score (damage) tremendously, has all three gun mounts available, and the toughest hull of any ship.

* NewGamePlus: If your captain is killed or retires, the successor has a starting bonus based on the previous captain - 50% of one of the skills, plus material based on the chosen Legacy; having a Scion lets you select two Legacies and two stats to retain (plus material). A few unique items gained from completing certain {{Story Arc}}s will always be passed down once gained, giving the new captain an immediate +25 stat boost specific to each item and the ability to raise a stat to 65 or 85 (dependent on background.)

** There are secret endings that aren't part of your ambition that you can achieve. Unusually, these gives you items that will assist you in your future playthroughs. [[spoiler:These are going through the Avid Horizon with the Venturer, stealing the Emperor's Zeppelin and going East, or with ''Zubmariner'' installed summoning Lady Black and joining her]]. There are also some more traditional {{Nonstandard Game Over}}s, like [[spoiler:choosing to deliver the Monkey Emperor's Wrath (which is part of things you need to do to get the Zeppelin) then returning to London, getting stuck on the Surface due to lack of fuel, or [[PressXToDie eating your crew at Kingeater Castle]]]].

** If any Supremacy value except for London is raised to maximum the Dark-Spectacled Admiral, Voracious Diplomat, and Admiralty all become unavailable due to the Khanate/Anarchists/New Sequence hunting them down. This effectively locks you out of delivering Port Reports, gaining Strategic Commissions, or gaining Admiralty Favours.
** Once certain qualities hit a point, a number of islands start running down a clock until they become inaccessible. [[spoiler:In particular Mutton Island will become inaccessible after Time: the Healer hits 40, preventing you from fulfilling any storylets there; Hunter's Keep will also be rendered a charred shell after Sojourning With the Sisters hits a certain level, locking you out of any further interactions with them and possibly preventing you from getting the Scarred Sister]].
** Giving the Alarming Scholar [[ArcNumber seven]] Searing Enigmas at once will cause her (him?) to [[GoMadFromTheRevelation descend into babbling insanity]], preventing you from turning in curiosities for profit. At least you get a Dread Surmise from it.

* DarkIsEvil: The Neath's darkness, due to the way the 'verse works, is occasionally noted to be actively corrosive to reason and reality, and shining a light upon it restores reality and sanity to the world.
* DarknessEqualsDeath: In a similar system to ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'', extinguishing your ship's lights can help you hide from enemies and creep past zee-monsters without waking them, but the darkness prevents you from navigating or seeing foes clearly and drains your crew's SanityMeter.

* DeadHandShot: The portrait for all three "death" events is a hand (presumably the Captain's) underwater, reaching toward the surface as several bubbles rise past.

* FromASingleCell: {{Downplayed}} and {{Invoked}} during the assault on Nidah. The Prester and company ''can'' be killed, but they're so full of vital energies that your soldiers stop fighting like soldiers and start ''butchering'' them.

* UnstoppableMailman: The residents of Nuncio are bound and determined to sort through all the mail there, no matter how insurmountable the task.

* AbnormalAmmo: The Icarus in Black, which fires ''extremely angry & suicidal monster hunters''. The reason it's actually able to do this at all essentially amounts to [[AWizardDidIt "Made in Iron Republic"]]. It can kill pretty much any monster in the game in one shot -- bosses in two -- but each shot costs the rough equivalent of 1000 Echoes.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: You can't traverse the Cumaean Canal without at least 22 fuel, which is the bare minimum required to go from the Cumaean Canal to Naples and back without getting stranded.

* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: The [[DarkestAfrica Presbyterate]] is likely the most dangerous place in the Neath, and save for its coastal settlements is rightfully considered untouchable by the other major players. [[spoiler:Captains seeking immortality will raise an army, march right up to the walled city of Nidah and execute its ruling council.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: One of your father's possible fates in the Bones ambition. With his crew in great but unspecified trouble, he sacrificed his own life and flesh to [[ImAHumanitarian the Chapel of Lights' priests]] in exchange for them aiding his crew.]]

** Dying numerous times in a single Legacy will result in increasingly sarcastic comments when the Lineage: Captains Lost quality is called.

* MultipleEndings: If you don't die at zee, get stranded on the surface or get taken by Mr Sacks, depending on your Ambition, you might end the game either by [[spoiler:retiring from zee-faring to a life of luxury, becoming London's most venerated explorer, finding and burying your father's bones, taking over Nidah and gaining immortality, being rewarded with one of the kingdoms of the Presbyterate, founding your own kingdom at Aestival, or [[GoldenEnding sailing beyond the Zee out of the world to the Uttermost East]]]]. There are also secret endings with no Ambition objective associated with them: [[spoiler:You can accompany the Merchant Venturer and pass through the Avid Horizon to the High Wilderness, steal the Monkey Emperor's Zeppelin, or become the lover of Lady Black]].

* TownWithADarkSecret: Mutton Island, in two of the four endings. Either they're [[spoiler:secretly cannibals]] or they [[spoiler:commit mass suicide at a festival]].

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: One of the final options in the Immortality ambition explores an unexpected downside to immortality: [[spoiler:Everyone ''else'' will want it, and if claiming it means butchering you and ruining your entire empire in the process, they will try until they one day succeed. If immortality didn't beget envy, the Seven wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't be there with them, shelling Nidah to the ground. Your captain can realise this and opt to betray the Seven and side with the Presbyterate at the last second to get a long, leisurely but finite life instead]].
** [[spoiler:Of course, since the ''entire premise of the venture'' was to "democratize death", i.e. give immortality to ''everyone'' without restriction -- and there is absolutely no indication that that cannot be done or indeed is not what immediately happens -- this rings a little hollow.]]

* DescentIntoAddiction: Sunlight, in addition to being [[LightIsNotGood lethally dangerous]], also creates feelings of calm and wonder. This is represented by two mechanical effects: [[SanityMeter terror reduction]], and sunlight addiction. Each time you're exposed to sunlight or the Dawn Machine (in certain interactions), "Menaces: Yearning, Burning" will increase by a point or two, and up to seven if you fill Mirrorcatch Boxes at the Surface or Aestival. Once this number passes 100, a random event can compel your captain to open a Mirrorcatch Box, gaining a wound. As the number increases, so does the likelihood of the event. Your only choices are to hope you can get back to port and sell off the boxes before your captain kills themselves, or tossing the boxes overboard and losing out on the profit. At 200, attempting to travel to the Surface means [[PressXToDie instant death]]. This number can be reduced by either sleeping off the addiction at your home (defeating the purpose, as it costs as much if not more than the value of the boxes) or letting the Cladery Heir have a go at you (removing all of the addiction, but only once).

** You can also have a Dreadnought yourself in the form of the Eschatologue-class, which has the most HP of all the ships you can have and the largest Iron boost for extra damage, along with being the heaviest ship in the game (matching the enormous but poorly armed merchant vessel). It's impractically big in some regards, dropping your Veils stat significantly, but when you need to kill every damn pirate and monstrosity in the Unterzee, accept no substitutes.

* FictionalColour:
** [[ArcNumber Seven]] of them comprise the Neath's rainbow-equivalent, all of which have their own unusual effects:

** Finding examples of them all is the aim of a lengthy, but very rewarding quest in Venderbight.

** Auroral Megalops. Encountered near Fallen London and by far the easiest enemies in the game, with only 20 HP and dealing 2 damage per attack.
** Jillyfleurs guard the areas slightly outside the London area, being tougher and faster but not quite enough to be a death sentence.
** Bat swarms are frailer, but faster enemies that are usually found near Venderbight, which is very often one of the first ports you visit.
** Pirate Steam-Pinnaces are only a little tougher than bat swarms and the Megalopses and deal negligible damage, and frequently patrol the waters close to Fallen London.

** A remarkably literal example are the Lifebergs; although not true icebergs, they're still huge, mobile masses of ice and unknowable substances of the Neath that are actively hostile to ships, moving quite slowly but dishing out heavy ramming damage and boasting a remarkably high health point count.

** For Londoners, [[BlackMarketProduce foodstuffs produced from the surface]] such as rye bread, cheese, and fresh fruits and vegetables are considered to be absolute luxuries. If you resupply while in the surface port of Naples, your crew will all look hungrily at the surface food that you purchased. It's also the cheapest form of food, as farming is a lot easier on the surface.

* WeakenedByTheLight: Neath-dwellers are harmed by ThePowerOfTheSun, which makes any kind of extended trip to the surface risky. However, that same risk also makes it potentially very profitable.

** The Icarus in Black cannon. ''No'' ordinary zee-monster can endure a shot from it, and even the 'bosses' Mt Nomad and the ''Tree of Ages'' will fall in at most two hits. The catch is that this cannon does not fire normal ammunition, but rather Doomed Monster-Hunters, who can only be bought for a Captivating Treasure, Searing Enigma (which are both valuable trade goods costing 1000+ Echoes each) or Element of Dawn (which is even more exorbitantly expensive). Because of this, Icarus in Black is impractical for general usage, being limited to very specific situations. Unless, of course, you can afford 1000 Echoes ''per shot''.
** The Caminus Yards 'Compulsion' engine, the second most powerful in the game (after the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Fulgent Impeller]]). It increases your Engine Power by 3500... and comes with no bonus to fuel efficiency. Since stronger engines are less fuel-economic than weaker ones, this engine (which costs a considerable 5000 Echoes and can't be sold back once you have the Fulgent Impeller) will burn through fuel at an alarming rate to make it most of the time not worth the lowered Terror gain and supply consumption that come with speed. As a result it is usually better to stick to the Serpentine or one of the weaker engines before you can get the Fulgent Impeller (which has 50% fuel efficiency to compensate for its massive power).
** The ''Eschatologue''-class Dreadnought. While it boasts the same firepower and more Hull and Hold compared to the ''Maenad''-class Frigate, the ''Eschatologue'' is slower, has huge negatives to Veils, and has a massive Crew requirement (which means it will eat supplies like none other). In addition, the prohibitively expensive cost of the dreadnought (30000 Echoes) is better spent on adorning Your Lodgings with heirlooms or having a huge stockpile of money to pass to your scion. Realistically, the frigate has everything you need. On the other hand, the Dreadnought is extremely powerful in terms of combat, and if you feel the need to sail the oceanic equivalent of a Monster Truck, you may consider upgrading.
** The two story ships, the ''Leucothea''-class Steam-Yacht and the ''Cladery Heart'', can both only be obtained through lengthy sidequests which must be completed with each new captain (you cannot simply buy them with inherited money like all the other ships). They provide the absolute best stat bonuses in the game (the Yacht increases your total stats by 40 and the Heart by 50), but are otherwise JackOfAllStats ships lacking the cargo space of the merchant cruiser and the front-arc weaponry of the corvette and frigate, both of which you can easily earn in the time it takes to unlock either unique ship. The ''Heart'' also has [[HitboxDissonance a wider hitbox than the other ships]] and an enormous Crew requirement while also lacking a forward weapon slot, meaning it can't use the Icarus in Black or Memento Mori.

* FictionalColour: [[ArcNumber Seven]] of them comprise the Neath's rainbow-equivalent, all of which have their own unusual effects. Finding examples of them all is the aim of a lengthy, but very rewarding quest.

** What happens if you successfully zail southwards, upriver from Adam's Way. Better find a way back to a shipyard without being hit once. Having the Cladery Heart allows you to avoid the effect.
** Reaching the final chamber of Frostfound does the inverse to your SanityMeter, nearly maxing it out. Fortunately, the actions taken in the chamber usually restore some or all of it, and Frostfound's SAY options can slowly reduce it with time.

** [[spoiler: If you're both a Priest and Unaccountably Peckish while pursuing Your Father's Bones, it turns out that your father was a debased cannibal who served the Chapel of Lights.]]

* NewGamePlus: If your captain is killed, the successor has a starting bonus based on the previous captain. That is, 50% of one of the skills, plus material based on the chosen legacy.

** There are secret endings that aren't part of your ambition that you can achieve. Unusually, these gives you items that will assist you in your future playthroughs. [[spoiler:These are going through the Avid Horizon with the Venturer, stealing the Emperor's Zeppelin and going East, or with ''Zubmariner'' installed summoning Lady Black and joining her]]. There are also some more traditional {{Nonstandard Game Over}}s, like [[spoiler:choosing to deliver the Monkey Emperor's Wrath (which is part of things you need to do to get the Zeppelin), but chose to return to London instead when you were warned to not go back, getting stuck on the Surface, or [[PressXToDie eating your crew at Kingeater Castle]]]].

* DescentIntoAddiction: Sunlight, in addition to being [[LightIsNotGood lethally dangerous]], also creates feelings of calm and wonder. This is represented by two mechanical effects: [[SanityMeter terror reduction]], and sunlight addiction. Each time you're exposed to sunlight or the Dawn Machine (in certain interactions), "Menaces: Yearning, Burning" will increase by a point or two, and up to seven if you fill Mirrorcatch Boxes at the Surface or Aestival. Once this number passes 100, a random event can compel your captain to open a Mirrorcatch Box, gaining a wound. As the number increases, so does the likelihood of the event. Your only choices are to hope you can get back to port and sell off the boxes before your captain kills themselves, or tossing the boxes overboard and losing out on the profit. At 200, any exposure to sunlight will instantly end the game with your death. This number can be reduced by either sleeping off the addiction at your home (defeating the purpose, as it costs as much if not more than the value of the boxes) or letting the Cladery Heir have a go at you (removing all of the addiction, but only once).

* DevelopersForesight: Ordinarily, if your Terror hits 100, your crew will mutiny. However, if you've only got 1 Crew (meaning your captain is alone on the ship), you get a different event where the Drownies come for your captain.

** The Rosegate underwater cigar shop is run by an extremely eccentric tobacconist bent on creating an underwater cigar, which seems to require ''very'' unsavoury and unethical means and ingredients. Further underlined by the fact that actually going through with assisting him enough to complete his cigar nets you a Supremacy point with [[BombThrowingAnarchist the Anarchists]], his final destination being [[RageAgainstTheHeavens the Iron]] [[RealityIsOutToLunch Republic]] and cryptic warnings about his work risking "setting the zee aflame".

* HardModePerks: The Unter-Unterzee is dangerous even by Neath-standards, with new enemies hit like a ton of bricks, constant terror rise, the need to manage oxygen or die, and its habit of rearranging itself more often than the surface. However, as you are one of but a few zubmarine captains, it also holds lucrative trade routes, bounties of shipwrecks and long-dead beasts, and [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing has places you can go fishing.]]

* HPToOne: What happens if you successfully zail southwards, upriver from Adam's Way. Reaching the final chamber of Frostfound does the same to your SanityMeter. Fortunately, the actions taken in the chamber usually restore some or all of it.

* BullfightBoss: While every boss is capable of heavy ranged attacks, the Tree of Ages' particularly slow turning speed makes avoiding its devastating long-rage attacks by getting close, goading it to charge and continuously dodging it while [[DeathOfAThousandCuts chipping away at it with your deck gun]] the optimal strategy for defeating it. This also makes it the easiest boss to defeat, possible even with starting equipment.

** The Serpentine is the second-best engine and is relatively easy (though not guaranteed) to obtain, requiring you to [[spoiler:complete the Genial Magician's storyline without running afoul of the final quest's 30% fail chance.]] By contrast, the Fulgent Impeller is far better ''and'' guaranteed, but requires an extremely drawn-out and somewhat risky quest chain to get.

* {{Mundanger}}: The biggest, most consistent threats are simple - hunger and fear. Nothing will kill you faster than running out of supplies or letting fear destroy your crew's confidence in you.

* NotCompletelyUseless: The ''Lampad''-class Cutter is fast and doesn't require much crew, but its fragility, very small hold and the fact you still have to spend Echoes to buy it make it most of the time not worth the investment. Unless if [[spoiler:you're trying to get the Touch of the South, which reduces your Hull and Crew to 1, then the Cutter is the best ship: its fragility doesn't matter since you only have 1 Hull point anyway, and it only has a crew capacity of 5, which can be reduced to 2 with the WE ARE CLAY auxiliary item, meaning that you can still sail at full speed with 1 Crew and don't need to limp to London at half speed]].
** Alternately, the AwesomeButImpractical Cladery Heart lets you avoid the Veils check and the HPToOne aspects noted above. This still doesn't make the Cladery Heart any better of a ship, unfortunately.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Mutton Island, potentially. Either they're [[spoiler:secretly cannibals]] or they [[spoiler:commit mass suicide at a festival]].