For those who’ve not heard of The Ship and have romantic visions of sailing the seven seas, I’ll quickly state that it’s a game about murder. To expand a little, it’s a multiplayer FPS about passengers aboard a cruise ship trying to have a pleasant holiday and stealthily off their target – perhaps catching them unaware while they have a waz. I asked you for murdertales a few months back, and enjoyed all the deathtales you told me.

Now we’re up to speed: hey, the ‘HD’ revamp The Ship: Remasted [official site] will launch on Steam Early Access in February.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

If so, please tell me stories from it. I have played The Ship – in both its original mod and standalone forms – but never at the right times. I was enticed into the open-ship murder simulator by pals’ tales of stalking prey from deck to deck, of bluffs and double-bluffs and needing to wee at the most inopportune moment. I missed the glory days and mostly stumbled around ineptly dying. But if you have stories, do share, won’t you?

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A cursed ship sails the cyberseas. Many who see it fall desperately in love, longing to walk its decks and stealthily murder its other passengers so they can have the ship all to themselves. They follow rituals to summon the ship and they try to create replicas, but their love is doomed. This ship is The Ship, and it is returning once more as The Ship: HD [official site].

After failing to Kickstart a sequel to the first-person cruise ship stealth murder simulator in 2012, Blazing Griffin have scaled their plans down to a “high definition” remake of the original game.

… [visit site to read more]

Fun fact: RPS is actually operated in its fun>dane day-to-day fashion entirely from the crowded deck of an upscale 1920s cruise liner. While jovially spinning our thoughts into the most eloquent of wordshapes, Jim, John, Alec, Adam, and I are constantly engaged in a methodical hunt for one other. We like to think that the ever-present threat of death keeps our writing sharp. But finally, I think I’m closing in on my target. Adam, quite simply, has demonstrated that he knows too much>. Look at what he said about the just-announced The Ship sequel – titled Full Steam Ahead - nearly a year ago: “Kick-start The Ship… ‘Full Steam Ahead.’” And sure, I may have rearranged some words to break his maniacally brilliant code, but the point’s still clear as day: Adam must be eliminated. But first, let’s talk about videogames!

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I’m incredibly proud to announce that Indie Royale has finally graduated. I haven’t the foggiest idea of what it’s actually graduated from>, but it has one of those fun dangly tassel hats now, so that means it’s probably smarter than me. Before it goes off and writes the next great American novel while aboard a rocket of its own construction made from inferior American novels, however, it’s putting more indie games on sale. Six more of them, in fact – including the debut of retro-themed zombie-blasting RPG Dead Pixels. “But wait,” you might say, tossing around high-level math like some kind of graduate-school-bound indie bundle, “that’s only one> game; where are the other five?” Be educated after the break.

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Bargain King Lewie Procter alerts me to new that the new owners of Half-Life mod-gone-pro The Ship are offering a Christmas present to existing owners of the comedy assassination game. And yes, they do openly admit it’s also “a transparent attempt at some shameless marketing”, which makes it an even easier pill to swallow. Basically, if you’ve bought (or decide to buy) The Ship at any point between its release in 2006 and the end of the current Steam Winter sale, you’ll be gifted two bonus copies of the game to give to anyone of your choosing. If they then activate it, they too get a free bonus key to giftify to someone else. It’s like a chain letter, but with activation keys for an agreeable multiplayer videogame about silently murdering toffs on a 1920s cruise liner. (more…)