![]() ![]() There at a small booth surrounded by other indie games was Burly Men at Sea. I first experienced this indie game at a convention called Games Xpo, that is held not far from where I live. I have a feeling that Burly Men at Sea will be gracing my Switch, and my bookcase, for a long time to come. As you complete the game you’ll even have the option to have a physical version of your favorite adventure from the game printed and sent to you, giving you and yours a unique ownership over the experience. If you also have kids then you likely know that these two nights will not be the last, especially with my younger daughter. However, my children engaged with it in a way I didn’t expect, and for the last two nights it has become a staple in my household. In addition, if you don’t like these types of games, than my score applies little to you. Yes, the game is a brief experience, one of which you can see everything there is to see in as little as two and a half hours, faster if you read quickly. ![]() Of course, in these types of games the writing is everything, and the narrative is brisk with witty dialogue and outlandish characters that touch on Scandinavian lore. Every moment of the game is infused with an amazing amount of personality and charm from the minimalist art style to the playfully voiced sound effects of the game, I found myself constantly smiling at the love put into this experience. Is it a story worth experiencing?īurly Men at Sea isn’t as much a game as it is an interactive choose your own adventure story book that is filled with whimsy. Do not waste your time even looking at Burly Men at Sea.At its heart, Burly Men at Sea is an interactive story that you will share alongside three gloriously bearded men. They don't respect your time and it provides no fun nor even a hint of an engaging experience. They didn't care about anything in this product. They could have chosen literally any other sound effect to use and they did not. There was no reason for that to be there. Oh and there is a Chinese ethnic slur in it. It's dull, useless, and morally bankrupt. The endings, which are all the same, give you a code to go to their website to buy a book version of the crap you just played which is more expensive than the game itself. You spend more time waiting than playing or even reading. Its events have no wit, no charm, no humor. You can sort-of make choices, but they only have two outcomes and all lead to the same place within minutes. Small children and easily entertained adults might enjoy it's minimalist artstyle. It is total garbage and a complete and utter waste of humanity's time. ![]() For a game that costs much more on the Switch than it does on other platforms, that's a lack of respect for your buyers. The half-baked controls give me the suspicion that this game was converted in a hurry to jump on the Switch bandwagon, and the authors didn't even care to play through the conversion to test it with the different modes of control. There was one sequence in particular (the "green landmass" scene) where even after knowing what to do, I just couldn't make it work with the touch screen, which is supposed to be the main mode of interaction with the game. Combined with the limited interactivity, that makes for a very frustrating experience. In some scenes, the game just won't do what it's asked for. What convinced me to give it a very low score, however, are the terrible controls on the Switch. All of those shortcomings would make for a mediocre game. Worse of all, the text that accompanies the beautiful images is overwritten and dense with adverbs. The humour falls flat more often than not, and the branching story is just a series of disjointed encounters without a narrative arc. This lack of interactivity wouldn't be so damning if Burly Men worked as a piece of fiction–but for me, it doesn't. In some sequences, you're left wondering whether your commands are having any effect on the game at all. Burly Men is just barely interactive enough to call itself a "game". ![]() It has gorgeous, stylish graphics that I wouldn't mind hanging to my sitting room walls, a nice core idea, and beautifully quirky sound effects. In some sequences, you're left wondering whether your commands are Burly Men at Sea is a point-and-click choose-your-own-adventure game. Burly Men at Sea is a point-and-click choose-your-own-adventure game. ![]()
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