Stranded Deep

[tedium]

So I forked out the $15 mainly because I have a paranoia about deep sea water and the stranded games before have always provided interesting survival situations. the first alpha release hasn't disappointed me at all. in all honesty, i've found it absurdly entertaining, but i know that's mostly because i've been scaring myself by jumping into that deep sea water. but that's kinda my proof of success. it really does trigger off all my deep sea fears. otherwise, there's not really much to the game as far as i can tell. flower childs mod would be called 'better than rocks' but otherwise there's not much to do so far. survival seems absurdly easy. and as i slowly overcome my fear of diving i'm finding you can fairly easily search ship wrecks, and travel between islands. sharks pose a threat only to the unprepared or unlucky. the biggest fear i have is losing my bearings and therefore my base because i'm out at sea during a whiteout. that's when the wind stops and the evaporating water turns into thick fog. the weather effects in this game are awesome so far. i'm gonna play it through an oculus rift soon, and i'm pretty excited about that idea :)

anyone else tried it out yet?

*edit: I also wanted to add... my computer truly sucks and yet i'm finding the engine holds up without flaw, while providing awesome visuals. like i'm running xp on a computer i build 7 years ago, and that pic is a screenshot :)

[DaveYanakov]

Back in my teens my father and I got lost out on a dinky little 30 kilometer lake when the fog rolled in. I wound up navigating well after sunset by compass, very rare glimpses of landmarks and dead reckoning and finding our way back to the launch at 2 am. Sounds like this would do a good job of recreating the experience.

Sharks really are only a danger to the unprepared so that part is realistic if not a good game play decision. It's on my wishlist to watch for sure

[tedium]

i'm getting close to 30 hours play time so i thought i'd provide an update. so far i'm still really enjoying the game. up's and down's as follows:

pro's:
- being in the ocean is awesome, and scary
- game looks really nice
- is very immersive in it's interface
- very scary sharks
- there's some flying glitches (yet no flying sharks)

con's:
- not a lot to do
- hardcore only, with only one game slot (so get to experimenting, and don't emotionally invest too heavily in your early playthroughs or else you'll be left wondering how deep you can swim, while hoarding a big stash of loot)
- most serious negative status effects require rare deep sea ship wreck loot to cure (and it's scary too deep sea dive for morphine to cure your broken arm)
- very scary sharks

so yeah, sharks still aren't too much of a threat to me, but i'm not sticking around in the water to test that theory. when they take interest in you, there's some tension music to let you know. a lot of the time, they won't attack you unless you put blood in the water (from spearfishing or something) and you can swim pretty damn fast, even with broken bones. in fact, negative status effects only seem to mess with hunger, thirst, and health lost. but i feel like i can jump out of the tallest tree, break both legs, then run across the rocks and dive into the ocean to battle sharks. of course, the sharks would sense my low health peril and enter feeding frenzy mode, but i guess at least that's realistic.

so far, i'm not entirely convinced, but i am impressed, and i am definitely enjoying challenging my fear of deep open water. i don't consider it a true alpha. they've been developing it for a while apparently... might even have some kickstarter style funding... either way they've got pre-release footage that is from an iteration clearly earlier than this release. that's not a good thing. indie wannabe wankers suck at making good games. so calling a release alpha 0.01 when it's clearly not the first version is just sad. imo. sorry please don't turn this thread into a discussion about that.

so far that's all i got... sorry it's late and i'm really really tired