You all probably know the typical vehicle simulation game: pay 20 bucks, get three different cars/trains/tracks/airports/planes/…, and for anything more you have to pay another 10 bucks a piece. The games are pure rip offs meant to extract as much money as possible at minimum value provided to the customer.

But then there are games that are sold as one single complete product and are of high quality. Such as Derail Valley or Beamng Drive. Those are products I really value and that manage to impress over and over again. They are continuously in development and feature a detailed simulation, open world, various game modes, detailed difficulty settings and more. This makes them playable forever and ever without getting boring.

I never played a ship simulation before. Does something in the same spirit exist for ships? Doesn’t matter if small boats or big cruise or transport ships.

  • lunatic_lobster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    I stumbled upon the game Ships at sea recently and it feels pretty close to what you are talking about. The developer misc games has a few other ship simulator games that focus mostly on fishing. They are pretty cool too, but ships at sea really focuses on having more realistic waves and weather conditions.

    I haven’t played them a ton but one drawback is progress is pretty slow on these games. A single job can take hours to complete and usually doesn’t pay much, and there is a lot of tedious straight line navigation across the water. Buy if you are content with relaxing and enjoying the ride they are definitely quite charming.

  • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.ukEnglish
    4·
    19 hours ago

    There’s a few games in development around the edges of this type of thing - though I think nothing as polished currently.

    Perhaps worth looking at: Following Seas
    Sailwind
    Salt
    Seafarer The Ship Sim
    Sail the Seas

    I’ve played Sailwind and Following Seas quite a bit, but not the other three (they’re on my wishlist at the moment) - I can’t guarantee any of these are good, or do what you’re after - but maybe a starting point for looking.

    You might find them more like “Euro Truck Simulator on a boat” than “Derail Valley/Beam NG on a boat”.