Dread Nautical

Performance issues could be (at least, partially) ironed over with likeable, interesting characters and a compelling mystery, but Dread Nautical just doesn't deliver one.

Dread Nautical is an interesting title that is unique in its core concept. It doesn’t ham up its sense of foreboding, nor does it hammer you with difficulty in the lowest setting. Its user friendly approach wants you to enjoy everything it has to offer before you move on. Team and resource management are 2 key elements that keep you playing. Who do you save, and who fends for themselves? You have limited food, who eats, and who starves? It’s tough, but as the group leader you must decide! Do I recommend it? Absolutely! A copy can be purchased here! Search, gather, help, fight, and sound that horn. This is your life until you solve the mystery surrounding your presence on the good ship “The Hope”.

There will be games that make you feel like you don’t want to play them because they are so bad. Dread Nautical is that game for me. This game has many things that made me not like playing it, and I will be honest in that I have not beaten this game. I’ve had this game for a bit now, and whenever I start doing a session, I need to stop playing it 5-10 minutes at each time and at this point, I have grown tired. So why do I not like this game? Let’s find out.

Dread Nautical is an example of how a great concept can turn into an equally brilliant disappointment. The game boils down to collecting items, searching for survivors, destroying a boss or a cluster of opponents, and repeating the same thing. Add to this a crooked camera, average graphics, poor balance of characters and ammunition, completely non-scary world where there is a collection of Necronomicon pages, but there is no place for the sticky horror of Lovecraft, and you get a mediocre product that you dont need to play.

That said, if you don't have turn based games under your microscope, and like the look of Dread Nautical--this might be a good start for you. It's a good one to enjoy without the jaded lens that I seem to bear, and I even gave it to my ten year old to enjoy...which I'm happy to report they did (and learned it pretty quickly without any help). So, proceed with caution, get a few different viewpoints under your belt and best of luck to you sailor!

Dread Nautical has a Lovecraftian horror theme, though it’s subtle it’s there. There certainly wasn’t anything in the game that I found to be scary as such, maybe a little bit more horror added to it would help in this area. The core gameplay goes round in a loop, start the day, roam the decks, find resources, and try to survive. After a few runs I found this got boring pretty quickly, there isn’t much variety in the style of the decks on the ship and after a while they all feel much the same. The tactical combat is nothing unusual that hasn’t been seen before and I recommend looking else where if that is the genre you’re looking to play.

Dread Nautical is a roguelike game that wants to do a lot of things, but it can’t do that so well as we expected. The gameplay is confusing and it seems unpolished, but we loved the minimalist art style.

GOOD - Dread Nautical is a tactical turn-based RPG with some roguelike elements. Mixing these elements with a compelling story, interesting characters, and the classic risk and reward systems works well. Ultimately it reminded me of the board game Clue come to life mixed with a little bit of XCOM. The repetitive layout of the ship and enemies put a damper on what otherwise is a great concept for a game.

All in all, Dread Nautical is a reasonably unremarkable game. It does well with the foundational ideas of the genres that it utilises and meets its objectives with a suitable story. However, it is more of a novelty than an advancement.

Dread Nautical is chock-full of charm and finds the perfect balance of difficulty to be accessible to someone who’s more interested in story than advanced tactics while still having appeal for genre veterans at harder settings.