Universal Seabeard - (by Backflip Studios)

So right now I'd say I'm really digging Seabeard but I've got two main annoyances with it, which admittedly could change as I get deeper into the game but I'm at the point where I completed my first smuggling mission just to give you an idea of where I'm at-

First off, I don't mind the energy system, but feeling like you're wasting energy is incredibly irritating. I love the real time nature of the game, and how things just might not happen until later in the day or tomorrow, but it really sucks when you've got a quest that requires you to go somewhere or do something which requires dumping all or most of your energy to try... And it's not there.

This seems to happen way more often than I'd like it to. Two days ago I needed to do a smuggling mission, as part of the warrior dude's quest line. They suggest I go to Seadog Cove at night, so I do. There's no smuggling missions available that night, but getting to that island and off to do something else effectively wastes half my energy. I'm not sure how you balance this other than maybe shifting the energy system to focus on something like the number of quests you can do similar to the daily quest limit in World of Warcraft?

When the game tells you to go somewhere, and you do, but for whatever reason the random number generator didn't spawn the thing you need it doesn't feel like a fun gameplay or discovery element it just feels like you're being punished. Again, back to a World of Warcraft comparison, they recently added these tokens you can use in game to get extra loot from raid bosses. They're not difficult to get, but you can only get three a week. When you kill a boss, and you've got these tokens in your inventory, you have the option to burn one to roll for bonus loot. From there, you can either get another piece of loot or just a pretty decent chunk of gold.

The reason I bring this up is that the way Seabeard feels right now with the random rolls it does behind the scenes is similar to this mechanic, only there's no consolation prize. When you don't get bonus loot in WoW, you just shrug and say "Eh, whatever, gold is always good." This amps you up for the next boss you kill (assuming you've got tokens left) as there's still the possibility to get something. In Seabeard, you either get something or nothing- Worse yet, when you get nothing you often just have to stop playing.

Again, I don't mind games with energy systems or other factors that limit your progress. I've come to grips with the fact that it's a necessary evil of the way the App Store works, and I'm fine with that. The first game I remember enjoying with that sort of mechanic was Zynga's Frontierville (I know, I know) and the only time you ever used your energy was for actions that felt rewarding. Removing rocks, harvesting junk, killing critters invading your town, things like that. You never were able to do everything you could do in one play session and often ran out of energy when you still had a snake left rampaging around but that gave you real motivation to come back as the game had a clear cut energy in to reward out system. This amped you up to come back as you'd be like "Man I need to get that damn snake." Additionally, using energy sometimes straight up rewarded energy, so it felt really great when you got lucky and were able to play just a little longer.

Seabeard doesn't have that compulsion because using energy isn't rewarding, which seems troubling for the long term future of the game.

Another time this has happened is when the dude on Bullhorn Farm wants you to pick some wheat from the farm. You head over there, there's potentially no wheat to be found that day, and you're just left with nothing. Free to play games need to have you excited to come back, not left saying "Ugh, #### this" when your play session abruptly ends do to no fault of your own. Those are just two small examples, but it's indicative of a prevalent issue with the implementation of the energy system.

Secondly, the amount of time it takes to do simple things in game feels like a lot right now. In Hay Day, I can pop in, harvest my crops real quick, get some jam cooking, and whatever else. Setting up my timers takes a matter of seconds, and it keeps me coming back to the game way more often since I can essentially do it at a stop light. Seabeard feels like a commitment comparatively, where you need to make time to play game.

Here's two similar feeling tasks in Hay Day vs Seabeard- To make butter and cream in Hay Day, which is used for almost everything, you open up the app, swipe around your cows to harvest milk, tap on your barn, drag said milk down to the area of the screen to add it to the creation queue for that building, and you're done. If you've got another couple extra seconds you can go one layer deeper and harvest your corn then tap your cow feed machine and add that corn to its production queue to feed your cows next time.

In Seabeard, to make boards which are used for seemingly similar amounts of stuff, you need to load the game, potentially change islands burning energy to go instantly or taking time to play a mini game. Then you wander around beaches looking for scrap. You need three, and you probably won't get all three from one island, so back to your ship. Spend energy for another mini-game and a potential prize or burn energy to skip it. You arrive at another island with 50% energy left, hopefully get your last piece of scrap wood. Leave that island, head to Woodcutt Isle, run all the way to the woodcutter, queue up your single board, and you have enough energy left to do one more thing... But if you go anywhere else you'll need to burn energy to get back to Woodcutt Isle and then another energy point to get anywhere else more interesting.

Not only does just crafting this basic material take too long to just accomplish the simple tasks you need to do to get it building, the game again effectively feels like it's punishing you for not just closing the game entirely and coming back in 30 minutes, leaving your dude on Woodcutt Isle to just wait to pick up the board. It seems like the game eventually will open up to you having all of these shops and services on your own island, but in the early game it's particularly brutal. I get that building these basic materials out of things you find is part of the game, but it's lacking any kind of gameplay element behind it and instead just sort of feels like free to play busy work which isn't interesting, takes too long, and actively requires an entire play session worth of energy to do.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game world, and think it's a good 95% of the way there to being something truly special. The time/energy in to reward out just isn't there yet. Maybe I'm climbing a particularly brutal progression hump... But if I wasn't actively interested in this game and seeing what happens next from how much I've been looking forward to it I'm not sure if I'd still be so dedicated to playing every time the game lets me.

 

I'm not sure they even need to remove the energy system entirely as much as they just need to shift it to other activities. This could even be done in a way that makes sense inside the game world. For instance, say your four energy allows you to accept four quests. You're still limited in a meaningful way to provide the free to play carrot on a stick, but in doing something like that you're seeing a very clear cut "I spend energy on X which gets me Y." Quests seem to always reward something, and it'd be way easier to get excited after my dude "rested" or whatever and had more energy to keep questing as quests always feel interesting.

The game would still have all the free to play tricks, it just wouldn't feel like you need to power game your travel strategies to not hit hard stopping points to do basic things. I'd still be limited by the amount of quests I can do for level progression and limited by construction/reagent timers for island progression... It just wouldn't feel like being punished since the RNG of events and loot drops would be totally divorced from making you stop playing.

 

It's certainly running at a higher resolution and frame rate than any Zelda game. Debatable whether or not that makes it "better'.