Black Sails - The Ghost Ship

Black Sails - The Ghost Ship
N/A
Metacritic
66
Steam
53.545
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.99
Release date
17 September 2015
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
66 (175 votes)

Best played with the lights turned off and the volume turned up, Black Sails is a creepy and mysterious point-and-click adventure game.Two survivors of a shipwreck try to survive in the raging sea. Until another ship appears. Hoping for rescue, they are calling, but nobody answers. They manage to go on board. Will this be their rescue?

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Black Sails - The Ghost Ship system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows XP (SP3) / Vista (SP2) / Windows 7
  • Processor: Processor with at least 2 GhZ
  • Memory: 512 MB RAM
  • Graphics: Direct X9 Compatible Graphics Card with at least 128MB Ram
  • DirectX: Version 9.0

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
373240
Platforms
Windows PC
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CJ HUNTER
CJ HUNTER

You can't do anything during cutscenes. The exit button is inactive most of the time. Stay away from this trash with stupid design.

DANIIEL
DANIIEL

PUZZLE GAME / POINT-AND-CLICK, BE AWARE.

I wish there was a "whelmed" button. I don't recommend this, but I don't not recommend it, either. Graphically, it's fine, the sound is okay, but the gameplay is slow. ssssllllooooooooowwwwwww, with no way to skip cut scenes, no quick way to skip dialogue. Oh, and it's a bunch of "click this item with this item and hope that this is the esoteric function that the developers chose to let you solve the locked door" puzzle. Ugh. I ain't got the time nor patience for this crap, not in 2022. My time is valuable. The story may be good, though; I'll just YouTube it.

simon94
simon94

I already played this game in 2011. The German version is superb, great voice acting! I love the atmosphere and the story! Now I was thrilled to see how the English version is - and it's kinda disappointing. Where is Annas voice-over introduction in the intro sequence? Why isn't Anna reading the letters and notes out loud like in the German version? The font is just unreadable! Please fix this, dear developers. And without the intro-lines from Anna, English players don't know that the story takes place in 1884 - and that's kind of an important information to understand the background of the story and stuff. The voice-acting is ... not that good. Check out the German one, it's awesome!

Edit: I just read that you can read the font better when you change the screen solution from 1080p to 720p and lower. But that's not a permanent solution. The developers need to fix this.

Tec
Tec

Pretty short, (saying that i was stuck on puzzles for a LONG time).....really interesting story though with a twist. WIll gives props to voice actors and writers.

henosp
henosp

Looks a good game graphics 9/10 but already annoyed by the two people in the game,keep raising their arms and shaking their heads identically every time they talk...no one does that in real life everytime its getting very wearing

xXOlaf_Fucker_69Xx
xXOlaf_Fucker_69Xx

This game wasn't terrible, but not worth the $7.49 I've paid for it. I experienced many glitches from audio cutting out, corrupted saves, and falling through the floor. None of it was game breaking, but it was annoying. The scares aren't for anyone over 16 and the plot is okay. I am honestly willing to play again for a diffrent ending, but only cause i already put money into it. I'd give it a 6/10. Above average horror games, but not by much.

shimmyckus
shimmyckus

Must say its nice point and click adventure with good story and atmosphere.

Enjoed most of time except for the part where you open letters to read. Font is really terrible. I am not native English speaker and it was very hard and painful to read all these letters and notes.

bridgep0rt
bridgep0rt

fun, love the fact that the controls are responsive and when I mouse over things, there is actually an indicator... :)
graphics look good, I even like the voice acting. def worth the money. These types of games are hit or miss with me though I love the genre.

Verrusin
Verrusin

An enjoyable experience dispite the bugs and clunky movements. It was pretty short though, so I would wait till it's on sale to purchase (it didnt take me 6 hours to complete, about half that I was afk).

Mirage
Mirage

Lovely game, nice story, its short game but i could live with that.
The price is on the other hand a tiny bit over the top compared to the gameplay, but yeah if u like point and click adventures than its def worth a try.

Hanfra
Hanfra

It is a good and atmospheric game, though rather short: eventhough I had to redo one part (since the game glitched) and I still finished the game in 6 hours. I really liked that actions (well conversations anyway) had consequences though I haven't replayed it so I don't know how big a difference it makes.

nocheezgaming
nocheezgaming

Not a bad game, jump scares not that terrifying and characters kind of flat. I would give it a 5/10

sighnoceros
sighnoceros

Story was not great, voice acting and art pretty bad, game has bugs including one that crashed our game so save often. Puzzles are garbage with ridiculous solutions and require a lot of pixel hunting, trying to find tiny objects in big, dark rooms. Even the hint system (hold space) doesn't really help finding all the stuff you need.

In-game notes are written in a font that make them almost impossible to read.

The sea chart puzzle was especially stupid. Good luck with that if you make the unwise decision of playing this game.

Sayanne
Sayanne

Fun game, very good story.
Love the puzzles

Down side :
The games crashes a lot. Need to save often to make sure you don't loose everything if and when it decides to crash.

None the less I recommend this game!

joan4003
joan4003

Creepy, spooky, psychological horror mystery with some jump scares from Deck 13 Interactive the creators of the Ankh series. Originally released in German in 2010.

Storyline: Year 1884. Anna, a reporter, is on board a ship crossing the Atlantic on her way back to New York after completing an assignment. On the way, a huge storm brews and the ship she is on sinks. Clinging to a barrel, she and another passenger, Lex, manage to swim to another ship, a brigantine, that just happens to be sailing by. Once inside they discover what seems to be an abandoned ship. A cursed ship, the rather nefarious Lex calls it.

Gameplay: Interactive point and click mystery with psychological and atmospheric terror built in for free. According to the game how Anna interacts with Lex has an impact on the storyline. (Someday, some bright and sunny day, I might comeback to find out, especially the end game.) Without spoiling anything (or trying not to) the END has several different endings depending on how one interacts with Lex at the END and quite possibly even before the END.

Some of the items needed are quite well "hidden" but the the spacebar shows the available things that can be examined and interacted with. (However, even with this I missed a map piece and a key.) Reading the scattered notes, letters, pages, and logbooks fills in the history of the ship and crew. The brigantine ship has a creepy atmosphere with sinister undertones and once the visions start the story turns into a psychological horror mystery in an instance.

This is most likely a relatively short game 3 or 4 hours for expert players, so do not paid attention to my time. I spent a good deal of time meandering and wandering aimlessly back and forth looking for the clues/items I missed and trying to figure out what to do or to find the item(s) I needed to progress the game. What is needed for completing tasks is relatively logical, especially if one remembers the year is 1884, not present day, and cleverly uses the items found. However, finding said item(s) at times is relatively difficult. The entire game takes place in 11 different rooms and corridors, has six major obstacles/puzzles to overcome, and two vision scenerios (each a "puzzle" sequence in their own right).

All in all, a very good, spooky game with a creepy atmosphere that I really should have played exclusively during the day (since I had to wait for day break before I could go to sleep, fearing my over active imagination would give me nightmares if I did not.) The sound effects (creaks, groans, "breathing", "voices") though subtle can raise the hair on the back of your neck after awhile.

ShadowKenzie
ShadowKenzie

This game is amazing! The story is great, the games and puzzles are fun. Everything about it is a win!

puistonperankauhu
puistonperankauhu

Kept crashin' on my system constantly - roughly every 20min. Managed to play to the end.
Interesting story anyway. The UX of the game is a bit "not fun", I'd prefer more smooth interface.
If wouldn't crash, would have given positive review.

Lilia
Lilia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94tgbhscJfw
I recommend this game IF you love unique adventure games. This game is short-ish, took me around 7hours to complete, so I'd recommend getting it on sale. The english voice actors are the weak point, but if you can look past that the game is incredibly charming and spooky! I really enjoyed the story and the puzzles were fun. It's a little gem and I'm glad I found it! Happy adventuring!

TheCanuckJ
TheCanuckJ

Overview

Black Sails, a third-person adventure game, has a couple of things going for it. Its story is pretty decent, and while you will probably figure it out partway through, it still stands. The setting, despite being very small (a huge ship yet you’re restricted to a few rooms) evokes a sense of questioning, and there are two different endings you can get. Sadly, that’s about it, as it flounders on all its other aspects.

Pros

    • Good story, slightly predictable, but well worth playing through to see the conclusion
    • Two endings, adding a bit of replayability
    • Location is nice but underutilized

Cons

    • Not much horror or creepiness here, it’s pretty basic and will likely only scare those who have extremely weak constitutions
    • Stiff and jerky animations
    • Voice acting is atrocious. Not as bad as original PlayStation Resident Evil quality, but pretty close, and helps to ruin the immersion
    • The camera is very shoddy, especially when you need to walk across rooms to enter a new scene
    • Some items you need are very, very hard to spot (you can view all hotspots, though that detracts from the game)
    • Some items also require you to hover over the exact pixel (such as the ramrod in the later portion) to actually pick it up
    • Item combinations and puzzles are pretty easy, mainly due to the fact that Anna pretty much tells you what to use
    • Graphically weak
    • The font used in the notes and diary pages is extremely small and almost unreadable
    • Anna likes to inform you that there’s writing on a note, once you’ve picked it up; of course there’s writing, it wouldn’t be a note otherwise, would it?

Summary

Black Sails has a decent story, even though it’s been done countless times in other games and other mediums, and parts of the game harken back to the heyday of adventure titles, but there’s just too much working against it to recommend it. If you get this in a bundle, that’d be awesome, but in my opinion, it’s not worth its asking price on its own.

40GallonTophat
40GallonTophat

Good little game, and worth the small price-point.

Pros:
+ Great voice acting for the woman and the girl in the game, same can't be said for the male voice actors though
+ Decent length at just about 4.5 hours to beat
+ Multiple endings? (appears some last minute choices can change the ending)
+ Decent enough little twist at the end
+ A button that highlights interactive things! This saved me tons of time and headache
+ Streaming worked wonderfully

Cons:
- No real puzzles in the game
- Male voice actors are awful
- A few glitches here and there. Keep multiple saves as some will cause you to not be able to click anything anymore, and can be saved while in this state
- Main male character, Lex, is very lame, smoldering with generic rage throughout the game
- Semi-fixed camera can be troublesome as it likes to do it's own thing, but overall not too difficult to work with
- Journals and logs are damn near impossible to read. I had to really press my face against the screen and still struggled to parse the font

My Linux computer wouldn't stand a chance against this game, so I didn't try it with wine.

crikal
crikal

Frustrating. If you have a newer computer, you will need to change the game files, so that it actually starts (that info is in the forums). It crashes frequently so save often. The mechanics were frustrating, the voice acting annoying, and the puzzles were out there. The story was average, with little suspense and a not-so-twist ending.

Wraithweave
Wraithweave

Just finished this game.

It is a pleasant point & click, use & combine item adventure, those familiar with the old Monkey Island games know the style. Considering how small the team is that made the game, quality is good. Puzzles were sensible and didn't require internet help to get through. Not obviously easy either though, still got stuck in some places every now and then. I'd say well done on that part as well. Story was good and had an unexpected twist at the end (or multiple endings, I think your dialogue choices can alter it).

Negative things are not not that numerous. First one would be that it is quite a short game, without getting stuck at parts you'd probably finish it in one good evening session. Second one would be that the font used in both story-telling journals and in-game puzzles are near-illegible. I can understand this is to keep the tone of the game at the ye-olde time, but still. Last but not least is couple of crashes that seem to occur at random and always start with voice acting dissapearing first before black screen that comes 1-2mins after. Remember to save every now and then.

Overall I'd say it is a good game and for the people who like this type of games, well worth the price.

Dracula  (yersinia pestis)
Dracula (yers…

Very Good !! Maybe the best story I ever seen in an adventure game. Nice graphs and atmosphere !!!

rjazz2
rjazz2

Fun, although the male character has an annoying voice. The ending is a bit confusing :SPOILER: The boat is your long lost sister.

Mr. Hugh Mannity
Mr. Hugh Mannity

Black Sails makes an attempt at being an interesting horror themed adventure game, but poor plot, presentation and mechanics, as well as some technical issues like the font they used on the notes or the problem with the audio cutting, not to mention that one part where it's possible to crash through the floor into the Mess Hall BEFORE having picked up all the key items required to advance the game and forced you to reload previous save. make the experience really hard to recommend to anyone but the most diehard adventure game or ghost ship story fans out there. The plot is bare bones and is poorly executed, the visuals are generally passable at best and artistically poor at worst, the majority of the audio is adequate but unmemorable, and the voice work is mostly poor outside of the main character, who is only okay. The mechanics are easy to grasp and work with, but positioning your character can be a chore, finding the right click spot can be a headache, and the item puzzles themselves can often be way more obtuse than they should be. There’s also no replay value to speak of, as the dialogue choices offer no real variance to speak of, and between the almost wholly unreadable notes in the game and the crash bugs, this is just a game that’s simply hard to appreciate or recommend. Black Sails might be for you if you’re a diehard adventure game lover or just love ghost ship stories, but for literally everyone else, it’s going to be a tough experience.

Shjya
Shjya

Not a fan. Difficult to maneuver characters, not very scary. Storyline didn't grab me until the ending. This one just wasn't for me but I don't want to discourage anyone from trying themselves. It might be for you!

Devil R3dLady
Devil R3dLady

Before I finished it I thought its a decent game...But then it crashed. Again. On my old laptop game kept crashing and oh the fury that overwhelmed me when I realised that the game hadn't saved the game when I realy did and had to start from beginning over and over again. On my new pc game only crashed when I luckily had finished it.
-Also the camera angles annoyed me, was hard to see where my char. will go and the letters font was hard to read, but if you dont read the letters one misses out the story.
+/-Soundtrack was beautiful, so beautiful my characters often decided to lose their ability to speak. Was adorably creepy when the little girl killed the monster and all i could hear was fire burning and the girl crying.
+Thrilling, intresting ending
I won't say it was completly bad, just the game didnt like me.

hamster9
hamster9

Hi,

This is a very good atmospheric and enjoyable game and quite spooky! I enjoyed it a great deal but I felt it was better to do it along side a walkthrough which I did, because I don't feel I could ever love an adventure game enough to struggle through without one personally, and I felt that made it more enjoyable.

Nice graphics, nice puzzles, and very confusing and little disturbing twist at the end, psychological thriller style. Felt glad to get off the ship so I guess that means the atmosphere worked well on me! :)

anasissaito
anasissaito

The puzzles game me some challenge. The voice actors weren't terrible, just okay. I even enjoyed the twist ending. Despite that the story as a whole seems rushed, the character interaction didn't leave me caring for either characters fate. I was hoping for so much more I suppose, so maybe this review is unfail. However, even though you can "choose" your ending there isn't really much ending at all. Just the same brief cutscene plus or minus one element. Kind of a letdown.

kahlil
kahlil

This game is a good starter for some one who is interested in puzzle adventures. It is short and the puzzles are not to hard but enough to make you use your brain. The price was not to bad just get it when on sale. less than 7 bucks is good but no more. The story is worth that. Like most players say about 3 to 4 hours total play time. This I would say is a good way to find out if you like these kinds of games.

Moonshadow
Moonshadow

Old skool P&C, pure nostalgia.....

Bullwinkle
Bullwinkle

Black Sails is a Creepy and Mysterious Point & Click Adventure Game from the German Developer Deck 13. It's a story about 2 passengers who end up on a Ghost Ship. Like any Adventure Game, you search for items or clues in order to escape from the ship alive. If you like Adventure Games, this will be a very good addition to your collection. To maximize the game experience, turn down the lights and put on the headphones. The graphics and voice acting are great, but not always perfect. The puzzles are not too difficult until you get near the end. I suggest you save the game, think about it, then go back and play the game.
There are only a few problems with the game as I see it. The game is too short; you could probably finish it in a day. The other problem was that the game seems to crash often. Just Save the game often and you'll be OK. I see where someone commented about the voice acting, remember this is a Germain game. What you see is the characters speaking German, and what you you hear is English. I bought this game on sale for $4.99 and I'm quite happy with it, I got my money's worth out of it, so I am recommending this game for True Adventure Fans.

Jon Duke
Jon Duke

Great game for being a point and click game. THe ship has its own way of getting you worked up. Highly sugest plaing all the way through at one sitting late at night for best experience. Durring the adventure a picture of a ship is hown on the wall, chances are you will never take mental note of it untill the very end of the game and realize what the picture of that ship was. If no lookup the ship name on google images afterwards. I definatly recomend this game to anyone. Its a good creepy, pyscological horror.

Zombie Burger $2.99
Zombie Burger $2.99

Quite the hidden gem.

Bought it , started to play and finished it in one sitting.
Millage will vary from 4 to 6 hours or longer depending on your experience with adventure games point and click style.
Even though it's billed as a horror story, well, it's not.

8/10

Pros

    • Graphics
    • Dialog
    • Story
    • Music
    • Subtitles (more on that in the con section), the end sequence.

Con

    • The text font they use for notes and such are very hard to understand at times (Very fancy Handwritten Script)
    • The Dialog (spoken) in one puzzel section is wrong so make sure subtitles are enabled (See Spoiler Tag)
    • The Game Crashes a bit (save often)
    • No Autosave feature

Minor Spoiler Alert

The Puzzle in question has to do with co-ordinates and the English version says .75 whilst the text (correctly) says .25

DarkBeing
DarkBeing

Boring, somewhat convoluted point-and-click adventure game.
It has a good idea behind it, but the execution isn't worth your time. The admittedly intriguing story is told through really bad voice acting (at least in the English version), and it all leads to an ending with no closure whatsoever.

As a life-long fan of point-and-click adventure games, I cannot recommend this one.

Sparkbomber
Sparkbomber

Hmmm.... Difficult. This game is a definite mixed bag of good and bad, but I can't go into much detail on the story without spoiling things. Short though: Two survivors of a shipwreck clamber aboard a fog-shrouded ship and need to find a way out as their actions trigger a sequence of events that has dire consequences.

It was heralded as one of the best German games in 2010, but the 2015 English version leaves a lot to be desired. The graphics are mostly okay, though facial animations are a bit... weird to put it mildly. Voice-acting is bland at best and the ridiculous camera angles here and there really don't help with the pixelhunting.

All of this can be forgiven to an extent, but the game's good point is atmosphere and that isn't quite enough to cover the other issues with the game. Frankly, you occasionally get odd 09x0x8etc missing messages and during the ending dialogue the audio cut out. This issue has been reported before, but no action has been taken by the devs. Additionally... though this is a pet peeve, I find it rather annoying that most of the exposition takes place during the ending dialogue, which is.... ridiculously lengthy for what is supposed to be a situation where haste is needed. This is only one of the few dialogues you get in the game.

Ergh... I really hate to say it, but this version of Black Sails is just not worth it. Not at full price at least, though it might be worth picking up either during a massive discount sale or after devs get off their seats and fix the technical issues.

kaeso
kaeso

I bought this game a bit randoly and I am very happy about my choice! The story is quite entertaining! Some puzzles are a bit odd to figure out sometimes, but overall it's a good game. For once, the camera in this point-and-click game isn't a bother.

knight5357
knight5357

I wish somebody out there can tell me why the heck this game will not even start , much less run!! The cursor will not
move from the get go and the keyboard is useless also with one exception . I can press P which is for pause , instead I
at least get a picture inside the ship. Isn't there a patch somewhere? I have tried to contact steam, valve and the maker
this game with no replys or results. I never heard of a company the will not reply to emails or have a phone contact number.
And no , even if they did or do, I am not paying for support when it is there fault. All my other games play just fine and
are a lot more demanding than this one.

memi
memi

Decent point&click adventure game with a nice (if not predictable) story line. Every now and again the game crashes (mainly when entering another area that has to load) but if you save your game regularly (no limit to saves) you just start up again, continu and be able to finish the game. Camera angles are sometimes strange which makes selecting an certain area of object a real task to the point of being frustrating. Overall I enjoyed playing the game, however the end if very predictable, abrupt and unsatisfying.

Hellion
Hellion

What an annoying piece of carp.

The story is OK, but still kind-of interesting enough to grind and struggle through all the downsides and make it all the way through to the somewhat predictable end - that still managed to leave open ends and unanswered questions. The riddles are fairly logical and solvable, nothing too abstract or ridiculous, and no damn sliding puzzles. The graphics are somewhat 2007-ish, but still worth putting up with overall.

Everything else... boy... I really wish those programmers constant harm in the form of resistant genital infections.

It is NOT possible to exit the game normally. I'm in the main menu, no matter if I got there by ESC in-game, automatically after completing the game, or even directly after launching it. I click "leave" and it asks me "really leave the game", so I click "yes" because that's why I clicked the "leave" button in the first place... then my screen turns black and that's it.

No matter how long I wait, nothing happens. Dead machine. Totally unresponsive to keyboard input, I can press all the usual ALT-TAB, CTRL-ESC, CTRL-ALT-DEL, ALT-F4, etc. hotkeys - nothing. Black screen and f*ck me. The only way to exit this game is by completely rebooting my machine.

Or, and this is the second most annoying thing, by waiting for a crash. No hanging black screen after a crash. In the 3 hours it took me to complete the game, it crashed 5 times. Definitely too many crashes for one session.

The crashes usually occur after a voice sound dropout. Somewhere along the story, the voice playback cuts out, sometimes during cut scenes, but inconsistently at various places. After a drop-out, moving is still possible, doing or combining things is possible, background music is still audible. The game basically goes on normally - just without spoken monolog/dialog.

Assuming that something's wrong, I attempt to save the game and restart the application, but as soon as I press the ESC key - dingaling, chime sound, crash and back to Windows. Restart application, continue from last savegame. Yay. Such happy, many joy.

So: SAVE YOUR GAME EVERY 10 SECONDS! (or so)
If the voice audio drops out - it's too late already. Might as well spare yourself having to replay everything from now on and make it crash right away.

When trying to open a door or something once, I got an on-screen message instead of audio and subtitle, "resource missing" (or similar) with a hex code.

And, seriously, I really don't need to hear "hm, this doesn't look like a musket to me..." 200 times, if the thing you're trying to combine with something else WILL NOT EVER BE COMBINED WITH A MUSKET OVER THE COURSE OF THE ENTIRE SODDING GAME!

This feels like a late alpha or early beta version, not a final release, and definitely not like a game that's been released for years now. Was there ever an update, even a single attempt to deal with these issues? I don't think so, but the Steam Discussions for the game are flowing over with the same or similar complaints.

Really. Do NOT pick this game up at full price. Just don't.
But still, if you're looking for a story worth following, it's OK enough to not make you cringe.

jodipheonix.ttv
jodipheonix.ttv

Point and click. Not good for someone used to WASD for movement ..
The voice audio appears broken 3 hours into the game , just before it crashes and wants you to create a new game with no hopes of continuing where you left off.

Roughly when you go into the doctors office and start looking at things the audio dies.

Iksvomid
Iksvomid

Short and sweet, like sex with a midget hooker.

Pablo Diablo
Pablo Diablo

Graphics could be much better, otherwise pretty solid adventure game.

Althea
Althea

It's a very simple game when comparing to other, more complicated ones, but the story is quite capturing. I did get stuck quite a few times, but if you keep trying, you'll get there.

soozi
soozi

a short but enjoyable adventure - my only negative is THE FONT!!! ie. the hideous and hard to read font used in all the notes - spent much more time reading (more like deciphering) notes than anyone should have to - and even more tragic was the fact that they used the same font for the game credits - so i couldn't even see the names of the wonderful people behind this game - poetic justice perhaps? anyway, cred to the makers (whoever the hell they were - hehehe) - would recommend this game as good fun, if you can handle said sad font :) i feel i should also say at this point that i'm an ex-typesetter so font issues really get me going!

Bloodmage77
Bloodmage77

This games is interesting but it feel a bit short and rushed.

story a bit lacking but it overall a good mystery and not really scary, maybe for 8-13 year but the end was completely out of left field, and made me go WTF.
gameplay: very will done, old fashion point and click, puzzles are confusing and i needed a walkthrough to finish it.
graphics: old fashion 3D, decent but nothing to smile at.
sound: it very good and give creepy feeling, in my opinion.

overall decent and i can recommend it.

honeycat555
honeycat555

really liked this game, good point and click, unfortunately it did crash just before i remebered to save the past two hrs of play, but not a biggie

Miller
Miller

RALPH! This is exactly what I wanted to do within the first 10 minutes of playing. Since the game has no REAL story behind it, they use camera tricks to spin, elevate, lower, and swoop around to confuse so you don't realize there are only 8 or 10 places to go onboard. The voice acting was total crap, it sounded like two siblings bickering at each other. The text in the notes are so SMALL and CRAMPED that they are all but impossible to read, they are ALSO NEEDED to make ANY sense of what is going on in the "story". I wanted to give it a fair shake, so I played all the way through. Once. I Don't think I will do it again. Ever.

Moe
Moe

It's not a game for everyone, but I found it enjoyable for the most part.

+Several dialogue options to choose from (Friendly, neutral, antagonistic attitudes)
+Mostly logical and sensible puzzles
+Interesting setting and overarching plot
+A hotspot/hint system

-Horrendous and almost unreadable font for backstory and notes
-Unskippable dialogue/cutscenes during certain puzzles (The map one and boat lever especially)
-Occasional crashing

Conclusion:
It's a decent game taking place in only a few rooms. The 'multiple' endings do feel a bit tacked on, but I found the flashbacks and backstory interesting enough. I was frustrated with some puzzles here and there, but overall I enjoyed my time playing this.

philiplopezjr
philiplopezjr

Just finished game and I walk away satisfied. Interesting little story but there was one conversation where I was locked into a negative response and I wish I was not. Graphics were fine and background music forgettable but not intrussive. I liked the hint system which was nothing more than highlighting points of interest and actionable spots, but I don't think you will have to resort to it much if any. Puzzles were more on the simple side and I'm calling them simple because I had no difficulty with none of them except for one and that was becaue I had to be very percise where I used an item from my inventory. No pixel hunting involved, but lots of back-tracking though that did not slow down the game. There were notes scattered throughout the game and some had information needed to complete the game so be sure to read them cafefully, and this is where you will encounter a problem. The notes were in a somewhat cursive font which was hard to read at times. I read in discussions that someone change resolution so as to make these notes easier to read. I did not have to resort to that but I did have to put some effort in reading the notes. I wish that the game charactor read them as you looked at them but other than that I came across nothing that killed the game for me. I played this on a Windows 10 and the only problem I came across was in saving the game. Play this game on combatibility for Windows 8 and you should have no problem at all. There are more than one ending but I liked the good one so I did not reload last save point to see any others. That's it. Hope you had as much fun as I did.

Mystic Zinja
Mystic Zinja

Excellent Game. Really enjoyed the story line and the twist to it

SkyeStang
SkyeStang

Game breaking bugs cause this game to crash so much it is unplayable :( I tried so many times to go back but could never get much farter before OH DAMN SON HAHA NEVERMIND YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE WHOLE LAST HOUR AGAIN. I give up.

Big Sneeze
Big Sneeze

This is the game that taught me I don't like the point & click adventure genre unless it's comedy, because oh man, who cares, honestly?

omar
omar

Despite frequent crashes (remember to save frequently kids), unreadable notes, almost impossible to navigate corridors and many other issues I actually found the game some what enjoyable.
Although having to replay some sections again because of crashes and not being able to read the backstory contained in the notes didn't really help me with the immersion.

I was looking for a story-rich horror/sci-fi point'n'click adventure game and this game delivered what I was looking for... although the final product could have been a bit more polished.

Ra7en
Ra7en

In reverse reviewe.
OK, so you know how you make a bed and you "snap" the sheet in the air, and then it settles down into (almost) position. I think that best describes the ending. It is a quick SNAP! and then it's like - ahh, ohhh nice... very good twist. with a faint "I kinda sorta knew something like it, but not like THIS!" Not quite the Bioshock infinatae ending, but a distanace 3rd :-)

This gamae is more of a chin-pincher and few "uh-huh", a just a touch of a few "perk" scares, the kinds that make you perk up - get it? :-)

So is the game a keeper? meh, it lacks replay value, but over all - ya, I would say get it. And put aside about 5-8hrs of straight play. Otherwise you loose the momentum and "feel"

It wasn't that "scary" as I thought it would be, voice acting is awful, not so bad with Anna, but LEX! MY Gawd Man!! Over acting at it's finest - ok, not thata bad, but he was on my nerves a lot, and the graphic image of him, I could not help to think that he was an evil character.

Music was great though, I actually left it going after the credits while I looked for another game to play. Forget reading anything in the english version, that text is awful. Take some tips from Frictional Games, and at least let the player click it to get a readable version of the text. Kinda sux, as these types of stories you want to read as well.

Puzzles,. well some were annoying obscure - (Lockpick??) Even with the helper, some of them just did not make sense to try. (no spoiler but..) belt and leather strap?? really, why would I ever think that would work LOL, there were a couple others that did not fair as well either, however the rest were fine.

I would still give this a thumbs up. I have A.D.D. and it held my attention from the get go. so ya, thumbs up. Get it!

cartasvazias
cartasvazias

Nice game, your choices affect the ending and dialogues

Aldeveron
Aldeveron

Too cryptic for me. I dunno if I was missing something, but I couldn't find my way out of the first room. So I had to give up. Therefore, I didn't have much fun with this one. Some clues for dimbos like me would have been nice. ;-)

Dumle
Dumle

Short and charming adventure game.

Nothing in this game is amazing but the story and the locations have some charm to them and i enjoyed my time with the game. There are some technical problems though dragging the game down and the game is very short.

rawWwRrr
rawWwRrr

rawWwRrr's raTiNg: 🟩 🟩 🟩 ⬛ ⬛ = 👌

It's not completely horrible, but it's not all that great. Another time I wish Steam had a "Maybe" choice for recommendation. Wait for a sale if you're into horror pirate stories and need a time killer.

Save game, and save often. There's some kind of audio bug that crashes the game, so make sure you're saving your progress often so you don't have to replay a lot to get back to where it crashed. And get the resolution to a comfortable reading size. On my 4K screen, the font sizes are tiny. I've opted for 1080p. Camera angles are frustrating, dialog is cheesy. Some of the puzzles have such obscure hints that don't make a lot of sense sometimes. Maybe that's me?

I get where they were going with it but for a casual, point & click interactive story it's more of a chore than an adventure. I haven't finished, yet, as I encountered another audio bug crash. Maybe I'll get back to it and complete it. Dunno.

-- rawWwRrr

FantomRex
FantomRex

Has sound issues. First play fine, next time no sound. Apparently not a major defect in Australia. There are no responses by developer in discussions that resolve the issue. Refund refused.

TheManInTheAlley
TheManInTheAlley

Fun little point-and-click thriller set on board a ghost ship. Indeed, the ship is the only set piece you'll see, which is unusual for a game of this genre. The letters are hard to read, the game will probably require you to use a walkthrough at some points (there's some pixel hunting and obtuse puzzles, but they're infrequent) and worst of all, the game crashes after about an hour's play time. You'll know it's about to crash if the voice audio stops working. Save often.

But despite these faults, the storyline is interesting with a nice twist at the end, you're relationship with the male character is determined entirely by your dialogue choices, you get to choose the ending and when all was said and done, I found myself having enjoyed it enough that I did a second playthrough just for that last bit of information I wasn't able to unlock the first time around. (Two playthroughs are required to see all the notes in the game, depending on what you decide to do with a particular item.)

Yes, the game can be frustrating at times, and if I were rating this on a number scale, it'd be a 6/10. But we only have recommend or don't, and I lean towards recommend here. It's a neat game.

Detective
Detective

Well crafted little game with a lot of thought put into the story, dialogue and location. A pleasant little secret. The controls are a little wonky at times, but easily overcome.
Give it a try!

Powered By Decaf
Powered By Decaf

I'm a huge fan of point and click games and I got this game on a huge sale and finished it in one sitting. Here's my opinion.

Though it is fair to call it a horror point and click, I don't think it was scary at all. The whole game takes place on a small ship and the story is compelling and it really pulls you in. Overall, I found the end pretty disappointing and there was a pretty weak attempt at a plot twist that I pretty much saw coming a mile away. It's by no means a BAD story, just disappointing. That's not the main reason for the negative review, that one comes down to poor game design choices and bugs.

I had four crashes in four hours. Before each crash, the speech audio would completely cut out and the moment you pressed escape, it would crash. The letters in the game are written in horrible cursive handwriting. I'm sure that the developers probably thought it would add to the immersion, but I eventually gave up on the tedium of trying to read them. I can appreciate immersion and realism, but the moment it detracts from gameplay then you need to stop.

The camera angles were fine at best. In some rooms, the camera switches quite often and it can be somewhat jarring, but in addition to that, it really messes up the hotspot highlight function. Sometimes hotspots are highlighted when they aren't there, and sometimes hotspots aren't highlighted when they ARE there. The game is a real mess. I feel fortunate to have finished it without a gamebreaking bug.

All in all, if you don't mind bugs, crashes, bad hotspotting, and annoying rapid camera angle changes, then this game could fill an afternoon.

penny_girl
penny_girl

I would not recommend this game . After 3 hours playing, the game freezes up and cant continue the game. Up to the point before the freeze, I was enjoying the game, but alas I can't move forward

danthefarmer
danthefarmer

REVIEW IN PROGRESS...

In all honesty playing this game was an absolute chore. Sadly, the story didn't make up for it either.

PROS

- Interesting location.

CONS:

- Point and click aspect of the game is horribly implemented. At time items the player can interact with don't show an icon. Even using the games help system, will not show a prompt.
- Poor controls and animations. The characters have no weight to them and will often glitch through/over the environment. The floaty control just feel off, almost as if the character is floating over the environment rather than actually being part of it.
- Terrible voice acting and characters. I really don't give a rats arse about the character, which given the situation and tone of the game I think is important.
- The games big plot twist is painfully obvious. Also, the player is presented with a choice at the end, yet the story isn't fleshed out enough for you to make a meaningful decision.
- Game crashes constantly.
- Audio bugs.
- Unreadable text. I had to use a fan patch to fix.

art.vandelay
art.vandelay

A mediocre ghost tale aboard a ship filled with general puzzles and edgy characters.

Tomahawk412np
Tomahawk412np

When I saved and quit the game, my progress was deleted and I had to start a new game. This happened all three times I attempted to play. Having to play the entire game all the way through busted the experience. Also about half way through voices cut out. Game sound continued but the voices just stopped. I saved exited to restart the game to try and fix it, then all my progress was deleted. This experience was enough for me to not recommend.

*disclaimer for the rest of this review* This was the first point and click adventure game I've ever played, take this review with a grain of salt.

Sometimes you try something new and you love it. Other times, you try something new and you get black sails. I've never played a point and click adventure game. Because I never played this type of game in the past I was not prepared for the tedium and confusion that comes with the genre. I expected a horror experience, but I was so board of the constant trial and error required to progress that I had no fun with it.

heleanthia
heleanthia

I love adventure point and click games . I was looking forward to playing this but after 3 hours , my patience has worn thin.
I can deal with the strange movements of the characters(it isn't really a point and click) and odd ANGLES which I assume are to disorient one but when inventory keep disappearing , it's a bit much.
I reloaded about 4 times... but this didn't solve the problem as THEN a major item simply wasn't in the scene.
Maybe one day I'll try again.
so a day later, started again from the beginning but have realised that my inventory seems to vanish if it is mentioned?? weird ...by another character, in one example. I also have been saving like mad and have made it to a new part so fingers crossed. I won't update this again but think the game does deserve the second (or third or fourth chance...lol)

Samuvt 2 |  S> Levels /Games
Samuvt 2 | S&…

This game: Well it isnt good but it is not worst game that I know.

Is this game worth 10€: Nope
Is this game worth 1€ (sale price on steam): Not in my opinion.

If you are looking for weird indie games I guess you can buy this game then, but otherwise I cant recommend this.

Ducky-Слава Україні
Ducky-Слава Україні

I had doubt about how to vote Black sails. Decided to upvote because I do see that there is love and effort put into this game. It did not feel like a cash grab. I enjoyed playing through the story and was curious where it would lead me to. It is a typical point n click game and quite short. I would not pay full price for it, unless it is for reason to stimulate the devs to continue and improve. Having said that, I did like the story and the setup, atmosphere and music.

Unfortunately there are quite a few, issues I like to address. Some of them became very annoying.
- Biggest issue I had was with the gamma . brightness. It was really dark, and every time I added gamma, somehow it automatically reset every 5-10 minutes, which was horribly annoying. eventually I just adjusted my monitor brightness to keep it playable.
- And those notes!! Unreadable! so tiny and that font is not helping, even tho it looks cool. Could be easily solved by adding subtitles to that! Now I skipped them, because even when I took a picture on my phone and fully zoomed in to read it, it was not clear. I gave up on that!
- The conversations felt very awkward. Did not "flow" well, despite the ok voice acting.
- The way Lex communicated while needing Anna to get ahead himself, made no sense at all. If I were her, I would have left him after the first encounter. with his petty attitude.
- Had a runtime error and had to re-install the game. Being put way back in the story, since there is no auto save at all!
- There were many missing labels for items, resulting in showing an error code instead .

But these are all thing that can be improved and repaired. Time for a patch?

Artemur
Artemur

pros

+ intriguing story about a ghost ship
+ when you press to space, hotspots highlighted so no need to pixel hunting
+ enjoyable puzzles. they are not too easy or overly complicated. there are also inventory puzzles you can combine some items
+ spooky atmosphere
+ good soundtrack
+ two interesting characters
+ character models, cutscenes and graphics looks decent
+ game drops cards

cons

- horrible camera angles
- pixel hunting required even with the hotspot highlighter
- game is short
- voice acting hit and miss
- there are no steam achievements
- story concluded a predictable twist but some many points in story left unexplained. i mean Fiona's story not well developed.

to be honest i found this game quite average but that doesn't mean i bored while i was playing so i give thumbs up for this game.

Wicked_Truth0
Wicked_Truth0

Found this game glitchy - have had to restart twice, once it didn't save my progress and the second it wouldn't let me complete a task/puzzle, even though I have everything I needed. Otherwise, it's a decent game, although nothing groundbreaking or jaw dropping.

Nordic The Just
Nordic The Just

Sound: 8
Graphics: 7
Story: 8
Gameplay: 8
Commands: 7
Fun: 8
Time to load / lag: 9
Bugs / Problems: 5
Final (my score, my rules - these is not math, punk) - 7

ktstubble
ktstubble

fun, bit buggy but very much a nice short fun story

Prophet
Prophet

If you like abandoned ships this might scratch an itch but otherwise it's a short, spooky point n' click with a passable storyline and okay puzzles. Nothing spectacular and probably best bought on sale.

dave00dance
dave00dance

It's not a Not a bad adventure game but i can't give a favourable review for a broken product
if you plan to play have multiple saves

[examples]
pc makes the sound of usb device being disconnected then the game freezes around every 20 mins or randomly sometime much longer.
alt f4 and task manager don't work have to fully restart pc

i think picking up sextant before the note on map table removes the note icon [GAME BREAKER]

Lowering the cargo and using the item on the warped door causes character to walk through crates can no longer enter room
[GAME BREAKER]

Using the device to turn on the clock multiple times will increase the speed and ticking of the clock will be become faster and faster and the cookoo figurine will leave the clock and fly across the ship,
amusing at first but the fast ticking will continue even when you revert your save

the fancy writing is a bit too hard to read a plain text examine option would be nice seen in other games.

too many bugs devs must have known and released it in the state
regardless then abandoned it like a ghost ship

hassanyawar
hassanyawar

This is a simple point & click game which despite being tagged as horror is not a horror game. The sound effects and whole isolation in the ship can give off creepy feel but not enough for it to be labelled as horror.

Apart from that the game is pretty alright. For me the story starts off in a mediocre way then slowly starts to get interesting and by the end it really makes you think some things happened in the game all over.

Graphically the game shows its age so nothing fancy in this area.

I would suggest, buy this game on sale if you really enjoy this genre.

hagakuremoi
hagakuremoi

Not bad, nice game to kill time, 4 hours to complete.

Dutchman
Dutchman

I would recommend the game,
if one could actually SAVE IN WINDOWS 10!

Jules
Jules

Not even worth it on sale. There are so many better options out there.

I won't spoil the story but the laws of physics and chemistry jumped ship long before any ghosts showed up. Which is something that always ruins my immersion in a game.
Immersion is hard to come by in the first place cause you are hardly invested in the characters. You get better insights into off screen characters by reading their mail and diaries than you get into the main character. Which is probably deliberate to pull the out of nowhere twist ending but horrible storytelling regardless.
The story has 3 endings. Or rather it has 3 ending cut scenes with slight variations after multiple mostly identical dialogues and unskippable cut scenes. I opted for watching the other endings on youtube which was better entertainment than replaying that part of the game.
If you are still going to play this, do save frequently. Not only will the game crash but it will also occasionally stop playing dialogue sounds and need a restart. At which point you better already have a save cause the game might either crash at the slightest provocation (like trying to open the menu) or pretend to create a save point but not actually do so.