I just retired victorious after 74 hours of play (Father’s Bones Ambition). I somehow managed to never die in the final release (I played the beta for about 40 mins the day it came out and then decided to wait until the final release to fully play the game). I never found the game to be too grindy (although it was slow). I always had story objectives that I was working toward and only went on strictly echoes-making missions a few times toward the end.
I haven’t been following the forums very much, how long did it take others to beat the game? Is it unusual to basically not die at all before beating the game? I think that I was able to make it because I am a Fallen London player and very cautious and somewhat lucky (there were a few close calls).
Congratulations.
I’ve been playing since early access on steam and haven’t yet won a single game. I could have won the previous game, but I hadn’t unlocked the special shop in Fallen London yet. I don’t think that it’s impossible to avoid dying in Sunless Sea, but at certain times dying provides benefits that survival cannot offer. And you might just take a few too many wrong turns in a row and find yourself in an unsolvable pinch.
From my point of view it’s hard to say when you’ve beaten the game. You ‘win’ when you attain your ambition, but then another captain takes over from the previous one and in a way you’re still in the middle of your first game. One captain’s voyage ends, but the journey continues.
That sounds like an epic run! :D My first few (many) captains went down like lemmings because they had no story based goal to work towards, and so I did things like deliberately sail through Barnsworth gap (in the time before the map closed) until everyone mutinied. [li]