It's like the naval battles part of Assassins Crees without all the other bulls**t!

Its not that good

Tempest is a nice little gem. Any game these days that can look this good, is very stable and weigh in under 500Mb in download size is a plus in my book. So far I have put in just under a hour of playtime but enjoyed every minute of it. Tempest looks beautiful and seems stable to boot. And most importantly it is a fun casual pirate game. It sits somewhere between Windward and Man O'war in my book.

This game isnt even close to a full release , the dev really needs to cancel full release date and work on it a LOT
does have some promise though
refunded
but may buy in future after some serious work
The game is very clunky atm with no tutorial as such
The idea is good but needs a lot of work before leaving early access

Now...The game is awesome. But I'd love to get some changes here and there.

I love the ship battles and it's pretty easy to understand the basics. Graphics are awesome. For an early access game, it's really good and I'm looking foward to it.

Though I found some stuff that confused me.
The aiming in mid ship battles. I understand you need to lock and wait. But it doesn't metter when you shoot, the cannon balls go all over the place and I did not hit the enemy ships too often.

Talking about enemy ships...While you are traveling from the map, you get so many enemy ships trying to attack you. I understand why there is a button that makes the battle auto and finishes in 1 second. But it's just not fun. Maybe less encounters would be better and the "skip battle" button removed.

Another thing I'd change. Instead of looking at the map and moving your ship around. I'd like to actually travel on the sea. I know it'll take way longer to get somewhere. But I think it'll be more interesting.

I understand that this game is early access and everything might change. But this is what I think should be changed.

Freezes steam, even after closing steam(which it doesnt want you to do because it will say tempest is still running) and restarting it will still say the game is running. Forces you to restart computer. This game is ♥♥♥♥ing malware. says i've played 45 min now, haven't even played one.

God I love this game. I suck at writing reviews, so this will be somewhat short.

For an early access game, I feel it's quite polished. I have only encountered one minor bug which I easily fixed.
The bug was that I had an extra sail in my inventory that I couldn't sell. I removed all the sails from my ship and tried to sell one, which sold all of them while only giving me money for the one. Weird, but it only happened that one time.

It's a naval combat game. It revolves around naval combat. That is all you do. It can get very repetitive, so either balance your playtime or take longer breaks from the game if you get tired.

There are 8 factions. Each faction has 10 quests. There are also quite a few random quests. It's not a huge amount of content, but it's kept me occupied for about 70 hours as of the time I'm writing this.
There are of course other things you can do than naval combat, but that's the meat of the game.

There is a decent variety of ships. I think I have the biggest one as of right now; Queen (Battleship II).
There are loads of upgrades you can buy, like canons, sails, artifacts etc... that have different stats and will allow for different play styles.
You can also board enemy ships, which requires that you use bar shot cannon balls to destroy the enemy ship's sails, and it is recommended to use shrapnel to damage their crew. I don't do this a lot as it takes longer time, but it's fun from time to time.



Would be cool if you could have your own fleet, but you often have AI allied ships. If you go into combat with a flag from either side, that side will be your ally.
I would like to see more quests, more ships, more upgrades and customization, larger fleets, 3/4 factions battles, etc... and I'm sure there will be more of this as the development continues.
However, I'm very happy with where the game is right now.

Oh my goodness, what a great game! Addition of the wind makes all the difference. Maneuvering on the water feels real. Graphics are amazing. There is a lot of strategy and even role playing in the game. I am looking forward to future updates, but happy with the product I just purchased. (running flawlessly on an iMac running El Capitan version 10.11.5)

Tempest is a naval combat and exploration game in early access. It was released in December 2015 and Lion's Shade is developing the title and HeroCraft is publishing it. You play as a freelancer that can fight naval battles, collect in-game currency Piastres, negotiate or attack factions, and complete quests over three different regions. This review will cover the content within this early access title and the developer engagement.

Content
For a seven month old game, Tempest has a lot of content. The fundamental idea is that you upgrade your ship. You can upgrade it by upgrading parts on your ships including cannons and hulls to improve your effectiveness in battle, or buying or capturing new ships. Each city has a store and these stores allow you to sell or buy cargo to trade with factions and buy various ammo depending on the type of ship you are facing in battle. Tempest's main feature is the map. The map is your exploration and navigation screen. It contains all cities, regions, and all information for you on whether you want to enter a battle or find where to sail to complete a quest. This was only recently implemented via a patch but I really like the idea of the map as it complements the nature of the game in that you pick and choose your own battles. Another excellent feature is the multiplayer system. You can play multiplayer with up two other individuals and it acts identically to single player. For instance, in SP you can sail on the map and travel to cities - in MP, it is the same, you carry out your tasks and it acts if it is single player. However, the difference is you can help others in battles and in completing quests via battles. It is a seamless transition because even if you play MP, you can do what you want individually and if you need the help, you can ask others to help. I really love the feature as it connects both components and does ruin the nature of the game.

The naval combat aspect is straight-forward, you mainly enter a battle through the map and you attack other ships. If you win you gain loot and items, if you lose you lose gold. You can also board ships during battle which takes you to a nice battle screen of your crew fighting the enemy crew, and there are options on what to do with the ship if you win. The naval combat is very fluid and it complements the environment and the weather system, which does affect you in battle. The naval combat intertwines into the faction system, which is identical to Mount & Blade, in which there are different factions that possess different abilities and attacking them affect your relations. These factions grant you quests that allow you to complete to gain rewards and improve relations with them. The faction system affects your ability to enter their cities because if a faction hates you enough, seen in the in-game journal, then you need to pay to enter their city. Tempest does incorporate an abundance of content allowing for enormous replayability. The bonus is that some features transition with ease, such as single player and multiplayer. I am glad the developers added the main map because it allows the game to breathe by not forcing you to always battle and to just take a stroll around the regions. Furthermore, the map tells you essential information instead of stuffing your screen with unnecessary information. Personally, I'm very much enjoying all content. As mentioned prior, an important point is the breathing room in which I can plunder trade routes through auto battles for hours and then attack ships whenever. It's a nice balance of how you want to play the game.

Developer Engagement, Issues
Tempest lacks in areas including a relevant tutorial and in lack of explanation. For instance, the game has a small tutorial that does not help you to understand the game. Furthermore, the game lacks in basic explanation because it does not state how you can improve relations with factions, what are the names of factions, and what are their unique abilities. In saying that, I have contributed to the forums to express issues and ideas as I want to help the developer succeed. Lion's Shade have also been actively listening to the community with suggests and bug reports. For instance, players most wanted was an open world system, which the developers created it and released it via a patch in three months.

Overall
Tempest is a good early access title. It features a large amount of content that covers around fifty hours. The amount of content allow you to do various actions and not bore yourself with the same thing. The developers are active and they communicate regularly with the community. It is rough in some areas which I can forgive due to early access, however, I feel comfortable paying full price for this game because I know the developers are working and improving it. I recommend this game at the $11.99 price tag.

Note, for an Early Access title I won't do a ratings score.

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/418180

Since the really old old days of Sid Meier's Pirates that I didn't play a "Pirate" game this good.
It's EA, yes... and I really hope they polish it a lot until official release, but at this point, and for this price...
(Summer sale at 40% discount), it IS a must-buy and a game I highly recommend.