Void Sails PC Review

Void Sails felt like a wonderful extended demo or slice. I was left wanting for more of what I loved – and kind of annoyed or puzzled by the rest of it. I’m impressed by how much the 3 people who made and self-published this game achieved – their passion really shined through in the writing and art style. But I struggled with either friction or boredom in most of the gameplay, and my overall impression was that the developers will make a brilliant game next time.

I appreciated that Void Sails got me onboard straight away. After a few questions in a pseudo-RPG character creation bit, you are sent straight to the dock of your ship and learning how to sail. The initial experience is familiar – you are tasked by a mysterious stranger to search for your father who has gone missing in mysterious circumstances. The gist of the gameplay is using your ship to explore and battle in a 3-D world that seems to blend preindustrial revolution society with interstellar solar sailing. I think about half my time was spent in (repetitive) combat – and the other half in lovely exploration on a quest that is driven by mysterious characters who speak in riddles and have opaque motivations…sounds kind of trite when I summarise it, but the two-dimensional characters in this story are conveyed with strong three-dimensional feelings and I lament that I did not get to know them better.

I genuinely vibed with the style and hints of history in this world. I’m shocked that only 3 people made the assets in this game. The realms they have made feel fleshed out… even if the limits become obvious once you sail to the boundaries. Each biome feels unique in its palette, and whilst some angles are prettier than others, I appreciated it for its warmth. The other side of the coin is that I was acutely aware of what I was missing after the first 50 minutes or so. I wanted more islands, more life on the islands or opportunities to explore them; the longer I spent with the ship the more I missed Dredge and the opportunities to customise my vessel so that I wasn’t staring at ‘chestnut brown’ for a few hours.

I loved how the story was delivered in text with a ‘story book’ aesthetic. I would have appreciated more grit to the character art but that’s just my taste. I started the game genuinely concerned by the outcomes of my decisions, and the risk versus reward of skill checks… but all of this wore out its welcome. By the end of the game, I felt that I had missed out on my relationships with these characters or avoided consequences for decisions I made. I began to tire of looking for each purple interactable, because I knew that there was a chance that I would fail a skill-check and have a permanent loss to my stats. I’m still not sure if the limited-use items or story beats were worth it in hindsight.

I think my biggest criticism of Void Sails is the traversal system(s), and they impacted so much of my play time that my whole experience of the game has been injured. The node travel – think of FTL, or any other node branching overworld mechanic – seems very bare. As I mentioned above, the story elements in each encounter are realised in 2-D art and text… but the overworld itself felt under-realised. Maybe if the whole game had been node-travel with story beats, and some kind of top-down turn-based ship combat, I might not feel so strongly about this game…

But. The ship *sigh* I was so disappointed. In the beginning, I assumed that I sucked. Surely the only reason the ship feels slow and unwieldy is because I am unfamiliar with the controls, or I missed something in the upgrade tree? Nope – I get the impression it’s a deliberate design choice, I guess to make it feel like a ship? Except I didn’t feel like I was steering a ship – more like trying to direct a cardboard box down a gutter in the rain. Maybe I could have put aside my expectations and connected more with the game, demonstrated more patience… IF I could have flown my ship up or down. I felt hamstrung, exploring a 3-D world in a flying ship that cannot move in the Y-axis. I mentioned Dredge before – it’s hard not to compare the different decisions. If the ship is bound on a single plane, then am I only flying because it looks cool? (they are right, it does look cool – until it frustrates me). Is the commitment to the ‘realistic’ ship movement worth it, for how much I struggled to find the fun when I was exploring the world? For me, obviously the answer was no, and I would pick the way the ship in Dredge moves every time – especially given the combat element to this game. Maybe for some of you who are more patient or less anxious or more nautical than me, it’ll be a vibe…

Although I doubt many of you will still be vibing with the ship’s movement style after an hour of combat. I confess – I cheesed each combat encounter. I accepted that I was too unskilled, too impatient and the ship too unwieldy for me – so I started using the first few deaths in battle to learn the enemy’s habits, figure out the environment, and so forth. And then I would loop, relying on my upgraded shields that I would frantically activate as I chased each enemy’s rear with my solar cannon, with a few opportunistic cannon balls here and there. Thankfully the enemies were sufficiently repetitive and obvious that I suspect most people will figure out how to handle them.

I will leave my comments on the combat there, because the more I speak about it the more I am reminded of how it highlighted the movement as the vulnerability in my connection to Void Sails. It was my fatigue with the first few battles that made me hyper aware that I could not manually save, and instead had to keep repeating story beats (which in turn made me aware of how little agency I actually had on the outcome of each beat). My lack of good will after each combat encounter lingered through each progressive skill-check until I became resentful of every new opportunity for the game to steal some of my resolve or knowledge or perception stats. The more I played, the more I missed my first impression. The slow pace had not bothered me when I only exploring and just stepping into this world – but I began to resent the ship and its pace as a chore between necessary combat that simply slowed my pace through the game’s story.

Overall I am unlikely to recommend Void Sails… however at the time of writing Void Sails is discounted by 80%, and I think the world and the concepts on display are well worth it for less than $3 AUD. Anyone looking for a quick 4-5 hour journey in a novel world – and graced with a lot of patience – will probably appreciate Void Sails. Otherwise, I would suggest most people would be better served waiting for the developers next passion project (or diving in on the sale). Void Sails started its journey strong with lofty ambition and personality, but unfortunately the snail-slow sailing and under-realised concepts jarred me out of my connection with this game.

3/5 stars.