Indie publisher Merge Games has revealed that Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands is readying itself for adventure on Nintendo Switch this October.
Taking inspiration from the Harvest Moon series, The Legend of Zelda and also more recent games like My Time At Portia, Stranded Sails is said to bring its "own signature style of tilt-shift visuals, survival elements, exploration, and story-driven quests". Players will find themselves shipwrecked on a mysterious archipelago, and it’s up to you to survive, solve the island's mysteries, and find a way to escape.
Here's a list of key features to tell you a little more:
KEY FEATURES
- Experience an open-world adventure full of quests and discovery- Farm and cook to survive! Provide food for your crew and improve their level of happiness, whilst experimenting with different ingredients to discover new dishes
- Manage the creation and expansion of your crew’s camp and prove your skills as a shipbuilder
- Explore a diverse array of different islands by foot or boat on your travels to find a range of tools and treasure
- Fight against supernatural dangers and solve the secrets of the cursed islands
As we mentioned above, it'll be arriving on Switch and other platforms this October. You'll be able to pick it up either digitally or physically, and a collectable Signature Edition release is also in the works that will be available on launch day.
What do you think? One to keep an eye on? Share your early thoughts with us in the comments below.
Comments 28
Pirates and sim? I am in!
Looks cute.! Me need
There isn't a single thing I dislike in the description. My wish list is growing again
I can't help but consider open world adventure and farming sim to be at odds with each other.
Hard to lose yourself in exploration when there's crops to tend every day.
Do they make any games that don't "channel Zelda" these days?
@RazumikhinPG Only the ones that channel Dark Souls or Metroidvanias
Looks more like Oceanhorn than Zelda.
And yes, I know that Oceanhorn is described to be "Zelda-inspired."
Looks like it could be good.
made me want a Lost In Blue game on switch though.
This is by far the biggest Switch news of the day!
@JHDK You're hilarious, my friend.
Absolutely in my wheelhouse but without multiplayer it's a hard pass.
Looks a million times better than what passes for harvest moon of late.
@Yorumi Sure but the portable factor is a nice addition. I can't bring my PC everywhere I go.
Well, actually I can thanks to cloud computing but still.
@Yorumi True, but if I had $300 or so to spend on portable gaming, I'd take the Switch. Less maintenance and exclusive games. What do you think?
@Kalmaro @Yorumi PC / Switch are my preferred platforms as well, but as someone that owned (and sold) a GPD WIN 2, PCs in a similar form factor as the Switch are just not as polished and user friendly.They're really cool devices still, but for the cost of several hundred dollars, I decided I would rather just buy the games I wanted portable again for Switch, or make due with my Laptop/Desktop at home.
@roadrunner343 @Yorumi I guess it really just comes down to ease of portability then. I have an easier time just pulling out my Switch and playing on it...
Or I did until I got into cloud gaming. Now I have a cloud gaming rig and I can play on it off any computer I want! So now my games are portable again. Switch just lost a little of its appeal for me. Still, I'm a Nintendo/PC gamer so it's PC for most of my games and Nintendo for the exclusives.
This looks right up my street. Hopefully a physical copy will be easy to come by when it releases.
I don’t like his run animation. I hate it when characters look like their running but not actually moving fast especially in open world games like this. Looks like it will get annoying after a while.
It looks a little promising, even if the art style doesn't pop out at me.
Looks interesting.
From same publisher of Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles, i will keep my eyes peeled on it.
Another game saying that it was inspired by Zelda that is nothing like it. Maybe I'll start saying my dumps are inspired by Zelda and sell them.
Looks decent enough to give a chance
@SpacedDuck
This is feasible, if you follow Link's recipes from Breath Of The Wild, and eat them first. Distribution will be a hassle, though.
Finally a game that isn't that phone look with skinny figures and fat heads. Just from the description and 'boxart' it's going to be better then Link's Awakening and the appeal will last long. Link's Awakening will be exciting for the first hour then people will quickly snap out of it and realize they are just buying a 'slightly' upgraded game they may or may not own if not then can grab it for free on a No Intro set now at Internet Archive allowed by Congress.
Dad and I grew up with the Commodore on and to make a long story short that is why games were good in the 90s as most of the programmers at one point or another programmed on it as it was easy to use and you didn't need to spend gobs for a license code but artwork was unique! All in just 64KB of ram on top of ROM. Here's a video that explains how these graphics worked and with the Commodore 64 'bible' within a week you would be good to go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0k everything the 8 bit guy said is right there in the Commodore programming book. Including the Illustrations of how the 8 bit graphics work on the C64 and ways you can divide it.
It's all true and led to many interesting games and software that made it an actual computer not just a game machine. Jack Tramiel behind it didn't want the image of another game machine. He wanted a tool everyone could use at low cost but open.
Since the mid 2000s we have dumbed down in graphics to this phone sterile look. When lookin at graphics engines to redesign a 90s educational game back in 2010 we saw this one engine that started it but can't remember the name of it that now does most of the Switch games and Steam Indie titles. if you've notice most of these games look very similar though with individual shading/effects to not get in trouble with copyrights but it's all very basic details. It's on par with Hanna Barbara.
Hopefully this game brings some fresh air. Links' Awakening I cannot figure out why fans would want it except those who had seen it already as once the novelty wears off it's going to be like a "lame" 3DS title type of game. A Link Between Worlds was a rip off of A L ink To The Past essentially the same map but lied saying it was a new game.
If NIntendo could do something like the Commodore computers with the Switch it will last long after it's selling point. In Eastern Europe they used Commodore Amiga's even in the Bush II era before going over to pirated XP machines. Those cheap Optiplex machines on Amazon. They are arranged so you cannot change or configure anything. We got two of them to run legacy software and found out none of them have changeable parts so you can't max out the RAM or put a cheapo video card in. You get what you get though Dell does offer wonderful support when something does go wrong. I have a Dell I7 gaming machine but the power supply is chinsy and it isn't SSD. Up to 2011ish computers every 2 years were very different then it's predecessor. Now it's just expensive Alien ware machines for hack n slash at maximum graphics or cheapo computers that barely turn on and all you can do is CAD stuff for students at school or business at work to run as a server. My gaming Dell was actually VERY hard to get.
Nintendo actually had the best E3. The only Microsoft game inspiring is their reinvention of their Flight Simulator which they abandoned after Flight X or whatever it was called that was too taxing on computers at the time of release. The rest of E3 each game looked like they came from the same factory just only the weapons different. Though MS had this weird game with phone graphics that had a girl locked in a room trying to escape showing time going bye then it turns out there is a side door that somebody opened at the end of the trailer. I wonder if that's the way out. 3.
There is hardly any reaction topics to this year's E3. I wonder if everyone else thought it stunk to high heaven too. The threads I found are all from 2 to 3 years ago. I was looking at 90s E3 videos and GOD THERE WAS SO MUCH VARIETY and definitely a LOT of reaction.
Correction: Commodore 64 had awful graphics if a game or software was ported from Apple as the programmers didn't use the C64 Kernel. It showed.
Looks pretty interesting.
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