Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Adventure, Indie
Sunless Sea
Zubmariner Achievements and November Update!
Thanks for supporting Zubmariner in the last few weeks. It’s been really exciting to see people’s reactions - sometimes live in Twitch streams, which we will never get tired of! Your ratings and reviews mean so much to us, so an extra thank you if you’ve managed to leave one.
Originally produced for Kickstarter backers, this is the third and FINAL edition of Navigational Charts of the Known Unterzee. We won’t be making any more.
Place your order by noon GMT on 28 November to receive a high quality Sunless Sea map print by Christmas!
ZUBMARINER IS OUT NOW!
LOSE YOUR MIND. EAT YOUR CREW. DIVE.
Take the helm of your zubmarine and set sail for the unknown! Zubmariner is the first expansion to Sunless Sea: deeper, darker, and more marvellous than anything you’ve seen before.
All the powers of the Neath agree: there is Nothing of Consequence beneath the Zee. They are lying. You've heard there are fortunes to be made by those brave enough - or hungry enough - to dare the deeps.
Disturb the aberrant societies that flourish in the dark. Defy wreckers. Seduce a Drownie. Embrace or condemn the distinctly un-British customs of these cold, fathomless places.
You will definitely die. Will your next captain dive?
If you bought Sunless Sea in Early Access, you'll find Zubmariner has been automatically added to your game. Thank you for supporting us when we hadn't found our zee-legs.
Key features
More of the deep, compelling world of Sunless Sea and Fallen London, packed with stories and secrets. Dive into unplumbed abysses and claim their eerie blessings.
More beautiful, hand drawn art. Let your curiosity take you to what lies beneath the Sea of Statues, Mount Palmerston, and the dread Dawn Machine.
Convert your ship into a Zubmarine and dive anywhere in open water to discover new cities, zee-beasts and environments to terrify your crew and slake your hungers.
11 new underzee ports, each with their own tales and opportunities for the enterprising Trespasser. Visit Dahut, the city of drowned delights. Brave Wrack, where a Fair King rules the unforgivable. Explore Anthe, and sharpen your tongue, your liver, and your spleen.
Seek immortality in a new ambition! Track down the Seven Against Nidah, who once came within reach of eternal life. Can you succeed where they failed?
New enemies to face, from the cunning Wreckship to the inexorable Constant Companion.
Discover the treasures the zee has claimed. Explore ancient wrecks, avoid hostile witherweed, discover the unexploded Unclear Bomb.
Sanity is scarcer. Death is closer. We warned you, Trespasser. You should not have come.
Zubmariner launches in 6 hours! | NEW, FREE content in Sunless Sea
We’re beginning the launch day celebrations for Zubmariner with a delicious piece of news for all owners of Sunless Sea: we’ve given you some chunky new quests in the base game! You don’t need to buy Zubmariner to enjoy them (though some will give you a little taste of what’s in store, down below).
New faces in London
Each time you create a captain, you’ll meet a passenger who wants to recruit you in London, and begin a unique quest. There are a total of four new passengers to meet, and all of these quests contain foreshadowing regarding Zubmariner.
Your old friend, the Blind Bruiser
When the Blind Bruiser asks you to carry cargo, you can now ask if there’s another task he’d like you to do instead. There are two different, new quests to discover, both to do with the Cheery Man…
Mutton Island: Apocalypses
After you’ve made a few trips to London, strange events will start happening on Mutton Island.
Rose Market, Revamped
Opportunities at the Rose Market are no longer randomly determined every time you visit London. Instead, they’ll stick around until you fulfill one, or until you ask for them to change. This means that Rose Market requests acts as mini-quests, and you can set zail knowing what items will fetch a good price.
What bounty! If all this whets your appetite for Zubmariner, you don’t have long to wait. Release is at 6pm BST / 10am PDT today.
Zubmariner launch trailer | Our next game revealed!
Now, if you caught our live panel from EGX, you will have heard the exciting news:
Our next game, the sequel to Sunless Sea, will be called Sunless Skies, and we’re doing a Kickstarter for it in February next year!
There’s very little we can say at this early stage, but to whet your appetites:
7 Facts about Sunless Skies
As with Sunless Sea, it’ll be rich with stories. The Victorian Empire in space – the High Wilderness – a “blistering, wonderful night” among the thrones and domains of the stars. The Empress has abandoned London and led an exodus to the High Wilderness, to carve out a new British Empire. With the Empire being increasingly authoritarian, bohemians, revolutionaries and outcasts – like you – are trying to make a life for themselves on its fringes.
It will elaborate on Sunless Sea. We’re enhancing the stuff we liked, and refining the experience. It will be a punishing game, but respectful of your time.
At full release, it will be available on the same platforms which Sunless Sea is available on now: Windows, Mac and Linux.
We will use Early Access again, taking on board all of the lessons we learned from Sunless Sea.
Why the name? The stars are dying. The stars are the Judgements: the inventors, arbiters and enforcers of the universe’s laws – but a revolution has begun, and the stars are being murdered.
Our influences include: the science fiction of H G Wells and C S Lewis, the planetary romances of Leigh Brackett, Art Nouveau, Event Horizon, trains.
We are running a Kickstarter for it in February! Stop the clocks, mark your diaries, save your pennies!
At the moment we are in pre-production: art concepts, topline story, weekly seminars looking at different aspects of Sunless Sea that we want to renew or update.
Hopefully you're as excited about it as we are!
Zubmariner comes out in 18 days! | Sunless Sea text and UI resizing now available
It’s only 18 days until Zubmariner comes out! That’s not long at all.
Between now and then we’ll be releasing the zee-plumbing, heart-pounding launch trailer, and discussing Zubmariner live from EGX. You can watch live on their twitch stream at 4pm BST on Saturday 24th September: www.twitch.tv/egx
(We’ll also be announcing our next game! We’re slightly beside ourselves even thinking about that!)
UI and Text Resizing
Sunless Sea was made in Unity 4, which had some limitations particularly around the way it handled text. As a pretty text-heavy game, we ended up with many players finding the game unplayable due to their screen resolution. Text was tiny or fuzzy. Not ideal!
Happily, in Unity 5 we’ve been able to do a lot more with the user interface, and have fixed the fuzzy/tiny text problems (with the help of everyone who opted into the Unity 5 beta - thanks!). Please enjoy fiddling with the size of your text and the gazetteer to your heart’s content.
Sunless Sea: Unity 5 beta!
What does this mean?
Sunless Sea was made in Unity 4, which had some limitations particularly around the way it handled text. As a pretty text-heavy game, we ended up with many users finding the game unplayable due to their screen resolution. Text was tiny or fuzzy. Not ideal!
Happily, in Unity 5 we’ve been able to do a lot more with the user interface, and have fixed the fuzzy/tiny text problems.
How can I get the Unity 5 version?
Today we’ve launched an open Unity 5 beta branch that you can opt in to:
Right click Sunless Sea in your library
Select Properties
Go to the Betas tab
Select ‘Unity 5’
Close the pop-up and Sunless Sea will update to the Unity 5 version
Note: It’s a beta, so you may experience trouble with your game if you opt in. We recommend backing up any saves you are fond of in a separate folder.
In the beta branch you’ll find that you’re able to resize the gazetteer, and the game font, independently.
Where do I send Unity 5 beta reports?
We hope you’ll have a good play with it! Let us know via email if anything seems strange: sunlesssea@failbettergames.com. Please include an output log: https://www.failbettergames.com/output-log/
Thanks everyone!
Oh and PS, a reminder: Zubmariner comes out in a month. Come 11 October, you’ll be called beneath the Zee.
Zubmariner brings an entire second layer to Sunless Sea, including new cities and ports to explore, packed with our trademark: agonising choices presented in beautiful prose.
“Beneath the Unterzee it’s dark, hostile, littered with plunderable wrecks and haunted by the worst horrors of the Neath,” says Narrative Director Chris Gardiner. “You aren't meant to be down there. You're a trespasser. But that makes you both sacred and profane to those who dwell below.
“The ports on the zee bed are a level weirder than those on the surface, and their inhabitants have been changed by the deeps. Some are hiding, some are hateful, some are mad. Some are all three, and have very big ambitions. Players may have something to say about that."
Zubmariner also brings new zee-beasts, shipwrecks and flora to discover.
Art Director and Failbetter CEO Paul Arendt says, “Below the water, you’re limited by oxygen and the reach of your sonar. You can use sonar to highlight items of interest around you, but they may not be friendly. The zee-beasts you’re used to on the surface have little on the horrors of their underwater friends, including at least one new enemy who is as powerful as Mt Nomad.”
Director of Development Liam Welton adds, “This is an expansion in the truest sense: we've created the entire zee-floor, using a combination of procedural generation and hand drawn art. The ability to dive changes the whole flow of the game, bringing more flavour to long zee-journeys without compromising the loneliness and nail-biting close escapes which people enjoyed so much in Sunless Sea.”
Zubmariner will be available for $10.99 (or £7.99 in the UK), on Humble, GoG and Steam. It is free to anyone who bought Sunless Sea in Early Access.
EGX and Twitchcon
To see the finished version of Zubmariner first, come and see us at EGX in Birmingham, UK! Paul, Chris and Liam will be interviewed about the expansion at 4pm GMT on Saturday 24 Sept, and there will definitely be a live stream for those of you who aren't able to make it.
We’ll also be teasing the very first details of our NEXT GAME. Which is obviously tremendously exciting.
We’re also going to Twitchcon in San Diego, where Hannah and Kyra will be showing Zubmariner in the Expo floor indie area, hanging out and giving out goodies! Look out for live streams from the indie area too - we’ll share a link when we have it.
Zailors, our fan art competition last year was absolutely delightful, so we would like to hold another!
This year, we’re celebrating the upcoming release of Zubmariner: the first expansion to our PC/Mac/Linux game, Sunless Sea (we'll have a release date for you next week, by the way).
In Zubmariner, your zee-captain will have to make tougher decisions and face more terrible zee-beasts than ever before. Death is closer, beneath the Unterzee.
How to Enter
Create art in your chosen style on the following theme: The Zee!
Interpret this in any way you see fit, as long as the image obviously relates back to the theme. Winning entries will be judged by their use of the theme, rather than artistic ability.
Send your submission to competitions@failbettergames.com by 19 September 2016. We will make sure to share all submissions on our Tumblr so everyone can see!
We will review all the entries and repost a gallery of our top 10. The top 10 will be up for community vote until 26 September, and all 10 will receive a copy of Sunless Sea and its soundtrack, along with the upcoming Zubmariner DLC! In addition, the top 3 will receive:
Exclusive Fallen London jewellery Our brand new, carefully crafted Dawn Machine jewellery (either black or gold, and a choice of necklace, brooch, or keyring)! These very limited edition pieces are hand-made by us from laser-cut acrylic.
100 Fate and 3 months of Exceptional Friendship in Fallen London Fallen London is the game that originated Sunless Sea's universe: a massive online text adventure with 1.5 million words of stories.
This means 3 months of membership, 3 brand-new stories, and enough in-game currency to sample some Fate-locked stories (or just refresh actions furiously).
More prizes to be announced!
Competition Guidelines
<*>The piece must fit the theme of the Zee. It doesn’t have to be a new piece, but pieces which clearly don’t fit the theme will not be taken into account.
<*>Please, nothing NSFW. We’ve got interns; their minds are still so very fresh.
<*>JPGS, GIFS and PNGs will be accepted. See Tumblr’s image guidelines to make sure your image will look its best.
<*>The competition is open internationally. The piece must be made by you, and submitted by you.
<*>Your ask must be open, or you must include alternate contact details when posting your piece. If we can’t contact you within a week of voting closing, we’ll move on to the person with the next highest number of votes.
<*>Any attempt to manipulate voting will be cause for disqualification. We trust you not to do anything like this, and to know when ‘trying to drum up support’ turns into spamming or manipulating either the system or other people.
<*>Full terms and conditions.
Best of luck, zailors! If you have any questions, drop us a line and we’ll try to help.
Sunless Sea update for July
Zubmariner Beta Update
Experienced zailors will know that Zubmariner is the first expansion to Sunless Sea, due out this Autumn. For newcomers: Zubmariner will allow you to add a zubmarine shell to your vessel, in order to make risky dives below the Unterzee. Stories, loot, zee-beasts and surprises will be there to discover - but the risks will be even higher than surface journeys.
Work continues apace on this new and more intense layer to the game! Beasties, animations and new ports are being added to the beta. Your correspondent met with the director of development yesterday and could hardly keep from squealing with delight at the terrible, wonderful stories you’re going to experience down there.
In which we discover a Triskelegant. If you manage to defeat one, you can risk dragging it aboard. They’ll pay double in London for anything that’s ‘pole-and-line caught’.
Reminder: we’re coming to Twitchcon!
We’re really excited to be doing our first ever event in the US!
Twitchcon is from 30 September to 2 October. Team FBG will be there, showing Zubmariner and giving out goodies (including special gifts for people in costume or who bring us fan art to decorate our office, which otherwise looks very much like a plain Victorian chapel, because that’s what it is).
Zubmariner News for June: We're in beta!
Sunless Sea is in the Steam Summer Sale!
Welcome to those of you who’ve joined us in the sale. You’ve made a wise decision to avoid all of that dreadful sunlight outside in favour of long and lonely journeys on a dark and unforgiving sea, dying repeatedly in the pursuit of (for example) a crate of human souls.
ZUBMARINER IS IN BETA!
Hooray! The first expansion for Sunless Sea, Zubmariner, is now in beta. Thank you to the hundreds of you who signed up to test! We’ll re-open signups further down the line, quite likely - watch here and in the Steam discussion forums for news.
Zubmariner is an expansion to the base game which will enable you to travel beneath the zee in a creaking, groaning Zubmarine. More stories, more pressure, more terrible things in the dark.
We’ll be in the Indie area at Twitchcon in San Diego, from 30 Sept to 2 Oct! This is our first ever consumer event in the US! We can't help but use a lot of exclamation marks when considering the possibilities! Ack!
We will bring Sunless Sea and Zubmariner goodies. These will include special, limited edition and not commonly available goodies for anyone who comes to see us in any form of Neathy costume, or who brings art/made things for us to take to our office (flat things which go nicely in a suitcase). We handed out a few of these at London Comic Con and it was lovely. We can't wait to do it again. Let us know if you’re coming! (If you're not coming, it will all - of course - be broadcast on twitch.)
