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About the StoryIn the enchanted underwater City of Glass, what will you sacrifice for immortality? Love, memories, freedom? Will you take freedom from others to win your heart's desire? Dive into a world of mermaids, mermen, and other merfolk, where every character has secrets, and nothing is what it seems!"The Sea Eternal" is an epic interactive fantasy novel by Lynnea Glasser, author of "Creatures Such as We" and "Coloratura," winner of the 2013 Interactive Fiction Competition and numerous XYZZY awards. Your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based--283,000 words, without graphics or sound effects--and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination. The whales have granted the merfolk eternal life, and asked you for so little in return. Defense against the giant squid. Secrecy from humans. But when a rogue mermaid tries to destroy the gift of immortality, ancient secrets rise from the depths, and the delicate balance of society rests in your hands. Will you fight to protect your immortality, or surrender it for a higher cause? Will you choose sides in the neverending war between the whales and the giant squid? Will your undying love save the City of Glass, or destroy it? • Decide what being a hero means to you, with over 10 unique endings • Choose your own mer-self, with multiple gender and orientation options available • Play alongside similarly diverse characters • Romance human visitors to the underwater city • Earn the trust of nuanced characters • Break their trust • Pick up the pieces of your shattered relationships Game Details |
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2 people found the following review helpful:
A mermaid adventure with combat and romance, June 25, 2016by MathBrush
This game is hard for me to describe. It is a long Choice of Games work, polished, descriptive, with a well-thought out underwater setting involving a complex relationship between merpeople, whales, giant squid, and humans. The majority of the game deals with navigating and adjusting this complex relationship through diplomacy and combat. The combat is centered on strategic choices rather than rng's or blow by blow play. All of the aspects I have mentioned so far worked well for me.
But I struggled with the story. I kept having surprises where I realized that the game was not going where I thought it would as a result of me misunderstanding what I had read earlier. I think the best way to describe the plot structure is that there are several major threads that seem like the focus of the whole story, which then get buried and resurface later. Each one is interesting, and each one I wanted to see the end of, but I felt like none got the screen time they deserved. Only by playing 3 times was I able to get a satisfying resolution to threads like the mermaids' past, the squid-whale conflict, and gender issues.
That said, there were many moments of brilliance in this game, clever plot choices that made me want to play it through multiple times. Its treatment of the nature of reality resonated with me, and the mythology behind the merpeoples origin was very well done. I feel like I paid a very reasonable amount for a lot of excellent writing and gameplay, and I recommend this game.
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2 people found the following review helpful:
Lovely way to spend an afternoon, April 30, 2016by Charles Parkes
Related reviews: choicescript, interactive, fantasy, sea, mermaids, whales, gender freedom, choice, underwater
Really enjoyed The Sea Eternal : ) Related reviews: choicescript, interactive, fantasy, sea, mermaids, whales, gender freedom, choice, underwater
I thought it was very well written, it benefits from the really clear choicescript format, in parts SeaE was quite poetic, there was lots of freedom to be yourself, there was a city of glass, mermaids. . .
I recommend you give it a try!
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The following polls include votes for The Sea Eternal:For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Settings of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best setting in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here...
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