It’s an interesting time to be a fan of sailing games. Normally a largely overlooked genre, March has seen the introduction to open beta or Steam Early Access of three vastly different takes on the concept. Make Sail takes an interesting blend of robust vehicle construction, open world exploration, and the vast loneliness of an empty sea to make a game that’s interesting from the moment it hits Early Access.
Make Sail’s name refers both to an old term for getting underway in a sailing boat, and to the idea that in this game, players must literally make their own sailing vessels. Beginning with a pair of basic square sails and upgrading from there, players can create vessels of ever greater complexity. New parts unlock as players explore the world, with boat designs limited only by individual imagination, parts availability, and game world physics.
The game’s primary mode is an exploration campaign that begins with the player’s character starting stranded on a small island near the eye of a massive storm. Returning chimes to the nearby tower at the center of the storm pushes it back, making a larger area of the circular map safe to sail in. Islands contain additional chimes, boat parts, and blueprints for pre-designed vessels. The water contains very few hazards beyond the environment itself. Schools of passive purple-pink energy jellyfish float placidly on the water, existing as both decoration, and an energy source to power later advanced propulsion systems.
The real joy of the game lays in mastering the propulsion systems. The world is a circular map with a steady wind, so just rigging a simple square sail will get a boat where it needs to go eventually. However, that’s only the beginning. True sailing skill requires mastering the triangular, steerable sail, with which intrepid mariners can move not just with the wind, but also crossing, and even tacking upwind using the same zig-zag technique that real sailors have used for centuries.
Advanced propulsion systems, in the form of water jets, energy sails, and tethers add further options to the game. Water jets function exactly as one would expect, sucking-in and expelling water to move boats without needing to master any complexities of the wind. Tethers allow players to connect to a distant island and reel their boats to shore, like a reverse fisherman. Energy sails are by far the neatest of the bunch, a massive triangular sail formed by pure energy which propels a boat rather rapidly in a straight line once a good breeze has been caught.
Naturally, these advanced systems require energy, and must be fed from an onboard generator and tank. Fuel management comes into play, or keeping at least one sail on the boat as a back-up, should no convenient jellyfish be nearby when the tank runs empty. Should players find themselves out of energy and without a sail, the only option is to swim for the nearest shore, an effort which will almost certainly end in drowning and reloading from the last island launched from. Fortunately, every island has its own boat building zone, which doubles as a save point. It’s difficult to lose too much progress.
All boat assembly happens here, rotating and snapping pieces together.
Twitch streamers will find another useful tool with Make Sail, as the developer has built Twitch integration directly into the game. A section of the Options Menu allows players to put in their Twitch handle and enable chat interaction. With that enabled, audience members can type certain commands into chat which will have a direct impact on the game. The crowd favorite, no doubt, is “!storm” which summons a massive storm down on the player’s head.
One difficulty with Early Access games is knowing how they will be supported after launch. Last year’s space exploration/ship building game Lightspeed Frontier has been in Steam EA for over a year now, with its developers admitting that they took some time off from development to deal with other priorities. So far, at least, Make Sail’s developer seems quite interested in the project, going so far as to pop into Twitch streams of Early Access beta players and offer suggestions or solicit feedback.
The game’s Steam page promises more ship pieces, Steam Workshop integration, and a New Game+ mode as future EA enhancements. These all sound promising, and with the initial launch, there’s already plenty there for players to enjoy. For this writer, it makes me want to find a lake and a catamaran rental this summer and dust off my long-dormant sailing skills.
A copy of the game was provided for this preview.
