I was prepared to give this a good review as i like the gameplay. However, twice now, i have progressed close to getting to the naxt level only for the games to end just before getting enough points to progress to the next level saying "sorry the competiton was too tough ". on both occasions i was ranked 1 with over £100,000,000.00 in the bank. if the games ends prematurely like this, i cant give it a good rating as it seems impossible to progress

Yet another release of an unfinished game. Does anyone remember when Developers actually finished a game before you bought the CD?
The game is riddled with bugs, my engines malfunction even though maintenance is 100% and ship is only 5 months old.
Some how i ran out of fuel between France and Kuwait even though tanks were full then i get towed all the way back to France and told my cargo was delivered in Kuwait.
Missed the deadline on 3 deliveries because the game said i was missing crew members when i wasn't. Took 2 weeks to sort that out.

Thought this would be better than transocean, turns out it just a prettier version with more bugs.

I really want to like this game. I gave it a shot despite the somewhat doubtful reviews. Sadly, this game needs some fixes URGENTLY.

Events are waaay too many, electrical issues, engine issues, crew issues, its like I own a ship that is 40 years old barely staying afloat with a bunch of drunken sailors. Does not matter that my ship is more or less in mint condition or that I set the crew budget through the roof.

And game breaking bugs keeps happening. First game my ship got stuck in a storm in the Mediterranean while docking at the Port of Bari. That caused the ship to go into an infinite loop of docking and undocking which I could not escape from.

Next run I suddenly cant click on the Buy/Sell ship icon on the map. AKA, I can not expand my fleet beyond ONE SHIP.
Restarted the game. Did not help. Rebooted my computer. Did not help.

Its nice that someone is trying to make a modern TransOcean but PLEASE, release the game AFTER you have bug tested it properly, NOT before.

Just hope that the devs read the reviews and make some patches ASAP, otherwise this will be €18 down the drain. :(

Edit. Gave this a final try. Next major issue. Suddenly my ship never docks at the port but makes a 180 and RETURNS TO THE DEPARTURE PORT to start the same journey again. This results in major delays costing me $20 million in penalties. And to top this off, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES! More or less went from very profitable to almost bankcrupt.

No, I'm giving up. Its just not worth it to even try at this stage until the developers wakes up and start fixing this mess of a game. :(

I think they must have put their UX team on redundancy notice! I found this to be one of the most clumsy, i'll put together games i have played since 1989. The concept is a reasonable one the execution is gutter-awful. Really guys, go back to the drawing board on this one, you got it wrong. It doesn't need tweaking it needs a whole re-think!

There is no game here. You get so much money without doing anything else than just picking up loads. Lengthy process to get a contract, assign it to ship and off you go. Too many clicks for simple task, too little else to do.

You start with Panamax ship, as you do. Not with empty pockets and rusty feeder class ship to work your way up. No, you start from 47.000 tonne class directly.

Staff management isn't a management, you just choose member of staff to each ship and remember to set contract length every single time you hire someone. Not like using a global option that I want only 12 month contracts...

You can select how much money you spend on each ship for stuff like cleaning etc. Totally useless as prices are single thousands per month and even a simple trip makes you over a million in profit.

You can't direct ship to a port which isn't on its route after it sets off, so if you happen to sail past cheap fuel for example or want to pick up another load, not possible. Need to go to initial target first.

Random events are just notifications that pop up and go away. That's it.

There really is no game here, even the old Transocean did this better and it wasn't a great game either.

Still waiting for someone to make a proper simulation where shipping is actually fun and challenging.

(Unlike steam shows, I actually played this for an hour. Even that doesn't seem to work :) )

This game is okay for $10, not whatever the non-on-sale price is. The UI is bad. There is a map UI and multiple menu UIs, when you use one it effects the others... The game has features that mean nothing. You can buy a ship and customize the colors but you never ever again see the ships and whatever colors you chose dont reflect on the map. But if I had to say what the worst part of this game is, it is undoubtedly auctions. They built in an auction system where you can buy used boats for way less than their value which is awesome because you can get ships for 1/4 their cost new. Heres where it all goes wrong though. You bid against AI competitors. The AI, E V E R Y T I M E, will bid at literally the last micro second. You have to have cash to buy at the auction, and you can see how much cash on hand your ai has, so the only way to get a ship at auction is to have more cash than your ai competition. Ive had everyone outbid for 2 days with no new bids and at the last fraction of a second the ai will outbid me. This also means my ai competitors now have 1 more ship to use to complete contracts and outperform me so Im left spending 4x the money as the ai to buy new ships that take time to build because the devs cant make an auction bot that doesnt have a 99% win chance.

Seaorama is not a terrible game. It certainly gets the Ports of Call vibe right - and once upon a time, that was good enough for a classic. Also, the asking price is inexpensive.

The gameplay wrangles with four problems though, the most important of which is that there is nothing original in it. No slick function, no spiffy idea, no surprise whatsoever. You buy a ship, you send a ship, and sometimes it rains.

Probably the most annoying malfunction is the determination of freight in any given harbor. I am not asking for realism, like the fact that Rotterdam harbor alone moves half a billion tons of freight annually. Then again, not getting a halfway decent offer in Rotterdam for two consecutive weeks, when my ship is the one and only of that type on the entire world map, isn't entertaining. Likewise, going from port to port in the entire Mediterranian plus Black Sea and finding nothing but duds is, for lack of a better word, boring.

Third, the freight price system is messed up. It does not take into account, that the freight owner gets one and the same price for their goods in the sales location. Instead, all that counts is the freight distance. As a result, the optimal source for any given good in, say, Estland is Australia, not the Baltic harbors or the giant EU harbors in the North Sea close by.

Finally, there is no meta level to spend money on. There is no harbor realty or trade commission, and there is certainly not a trophy spouse called Jackie, who desperately needs yet another private island.

In the end, this quickly turns the sheer fun of having ships into a clickfest. Truth is, Ports of Call wasn't better, but nowadays I expect a lot more from a car than a Ford T can deliver - and the latter was a classic, too.

Another Mobile Game on PC

I played SeaOrama on hard mode, and while the initial challenge was engaging, the game quickly lost its appeal. Here’s a breakdown of my experience:

Early Gameplay Challenge:

For the first six hours, I struggled to keep my finances afloat and pay off my first ship. The challenge during this phase was quite engaging and required strategic planning.
Rapid Progression:

However, once I managed to pay off the first ship, the game’s difficulty curve plummeted. It took just one hour to acquire the second ship and an additional half hour to pay it off completely. From this point, the game became excessively easy.
Auto-Play Dominance:

By the time I bought the third ship, the game essentially "finished" itself. I could hire managers to automate operations, leaving me to merely watch as the game generated exorbitant amounts of money. This removed any sense of achievement or engagement.
Bugs and Poor UI:

The game suffers from several bugs that hinder the gameplay experience. Additionally, the user interface is extremely poor, making navigation and control frustrating.
Outdated Graphics:

The graphics are poor, and the UI is reminiscent of simple candy game styles. The 3D animation lacks detail and is far from the cinematic quality promised in the trailer, feeling more like a '90s cinematic level.

In conclusion, while SeaOrama has the potential to be a great game, its balancing issues, bugs, extremely poor UI, and outdated graphics hold it back. The early game challenge is quickly overshadowed by an overly simplistic progression system, making it feel more like a passive experience than an interactive one. With only 10.3 hours of total gameplay, it’s a sad missed opportunity, as the concept has promise but lacks depth and variety.

Its not nearly finished (By means of number of ports and types of ships) and has glitches. Transocean and Ports of Call is still a better game than this. Not worth my money.

3/10

This is an okay game for people who like this genre. There isn’t much depth to the game and the difficulty doesn’t really command much attention. Pretty mindless chill time killer. You tell a ship to pick up a load and drop it off elsewhere, and repeat. It can be pretty fun to upgrade your fleet and see how many different contracts you can organize each trip and play with the logistics like that. The way the buying/selling ships mechanic is set up is pretty cool. But the game gets old quickly. In most games, I am primarily motivated by getting achievements and the achievements in this game provide something to strive towards for enough time to make this a worthwhile purchase for me. But I really couldn't recommend it unless it is on sale for like 5 or 10 bucks.

I haven’t watched closely to see much other community reaction to this game but from a brief look, it does seem like the devs have been taking action in response to the negative aspects of reviews, so that’s a good sign. It could improve over time.

The lag seems excessive for this small of a game. I have a decent pc that doesn’t struggle with most games that I play, but even with only 4 or 5 ships my game was beginning to lag, and got worse as I expanded further. By the time I had 9 ships, I hardly wanted to touch the game anymore. Seems like a lot of the lag happens in correlation with the game doing calculations on time of trips, gallons of fuel used, and window popups when your ship finishes a trip.

I got a little under 15 hours out of the game before I am calling it quits. Probably would have set it down about 10 hours ago if it weren’t for the achievements that I was trying to get. There just isn’t enough gameplay to keep me entertained, and the annoying lag just makes it worse.