Plaid. Nantucket. Of dice and whales.

It`s a minimalistic strategy/role-playing game that has spontaneously emerged from the depths below, rich in valuable blubber that is the story, and can easily harpoon you into liking it. While not being exactly picturesque with most of encounters illustrated in text the game does manage to capture an atmosphere of a dreadful, yet adventurous business that whaling was in early 19^th century.

The game takes place right after the events of the novel Moby-Dick. A young captain (named Ishmael by default after the book`s Ishmael) sets out to slaughter the beast, but as these stories go one must gear up first in the way of a better ship, crew, and experience. Your crewmembers level up alongside the captain, but it is the captain who is the most versatile with any skill or profession unlockable. Throughout the story you are tasked with various side quests and little jobs that reward you with artifacts, money, and reputation, something that you use to hire better crew should you need some reinforcement, and depending on the way you like your stories you will probably need  some.

Interestingly, that`s Nantucket`s highlight, storytelling. It`s like a choose your own adventure book with people that surround your captain constantly coming and going. Sometimes crewmembers even offer side missions for you, like a treasure hunt or unfinished affairs.  Surely, the quests that are presented to you are pre-set and randomly applied, but the responses that you use and the outcome chance that is applied to your decisions single out almost every crew member`s story making it somewhat unique.

Travel view.  The game is no stranger to grind, and I`ve found is beneficial to spend a season or two just whaling near some port. It helps both financially and experience-wise.

Come to think of it, the game loves chance. A lot of decisions are chance based and so is the combat. Your captain and crewmen have a die based on their main profession: seafaring, crafting, healing, and hunting, but the last one is slightly different: others have a die that allows ‘clumsy’ low damage attacks, but only hunters have a proper attack die. On top of that, initially not all die slots are occupied with an action; some are left blank which constitutes as a null move. Each round begins with every character rolling a picked die. The actions are then selected by the player (one action per whaling boat if in water, or one per crew when fighting on ship).

The town view. A feature that I`ve found amusing: alongside any job offerings that the paper has there are actually historical events depicted as they happened.

Nantucket is played with constantly updating your save files or instead presenting a fatalist outlook of Rocky`s Drago: “If he dies, he dies”. A lot of whaling expeditions and encounters can go horribly wrong with your most skilled crew just biting the dust because the dice didn`t land in your favour a couple of times. That`s probably my biggest disappointment from the game right here: it`s just too random at times. To make matters worse, your opponents never have a nil action, which gives a bit of advantage to them and make some battles just too chance-based, like pirate attacks. Seriously, steer clear of pirates unless you have a few man slaughtering terminators on board of your ship.

Typical sea battle screen. The game scales the opponents to the average level of  your crew, so if you are hunting baby specimens in the beginning later in game you get to meet older and tougher ones.  Also, each round randomly sets conditions to it which can be both a cruse and a blessing.

Same battle later on. With one whale dead and the other one hooked up to one of the boats the battle was soon to be over. We were victorious that day.

Wild and untamed combat is coupled with a navigation mechanic where you sail your ship between ports, seasonal whaling spots, and other points of interest. You are also tasked with supplying your ship as things like water, food, booze, and timber for repairs tend to be consumed while traveling. This has messed up my early game as I didn`t pay attention to approximate number of days it takes to reach a destination. My ship ended up running out of water, and the best solution the crew could think of is to drink their own urine. While embarrassing and unpleasant this gave them a few of days of time to reach a port and stock up on supplies and saved them from dying from dehydration. With thinking that the lesson is learnt, I stocked up with just enough water. About midway it was discovered that some of the water barrels were damaged and smelly. In a joyful dilemma of whether let the crew drink from them and risk dysentery and dump them in the ocean a pray for favourable winds with having to drink just a little bit of urine I chose the latter. Luckily, no more urine was involved and I`ve learnt my lesson on how to stock up properly.

Seafaring can get pretty lonely. Who to turn to other than your fellow crew?

While the mechanics of the game can be a bit too brutal Nantucket offers great atmosphere and storytelling that allow you to experience the setting in its full toughness. Personally, I rate the game 8/10, a worthy experience provided you do not mind odds often stacking up against you.