...And I earned money for it!

Has anyone been playing The Ship at all this weekend, you can play it for free on Steam until Midnight tonight sometime. I've played it a bit so far and its pretty damn fun, and reminded me of that assassins thread the other day.

Basically, you're plonked into the game online on a large cruiseship complete with multiple decks, bars, restaraunts, sick bays, brig and complete set of rooms etc. You play as a passenger [It's very fun when you're on a server with the full 32 people] on the ship, you have so much money to begin with, and the game is set up in rounds. Each round you're given a mark, another player on the ship, the objective is to find a weapon of some sort on the ship [knives, syringes, pool cues, frying pans etc] , and then hunt down that player and kill them while avoiding the other player thats hunting you. Only problem is you're only given the name of your mark's character, and a small note that lists their last known location.

Your weapon is generally "concealed" however when you bring it out to attack, if you bring it out in the wrong place, say infront of other passengers or security you'll be arrested and thrown in the brig for about 30 seconds, and you're fined some of your money.

Money is awarded to you every time you rub out your mark [a higher amount depending on inventive you are with your murder weapon], and is used to buy things around the ship, as your character also has to fulfill their needs to keep going; food, drink, sleep etc. This helps to add an extra feeling of paranoia to the game as theres a high chance that you'll be murdered in your sleep.

Anyway, as usual I'm crap at explaining things, but if you've got steam I suggest trying it out in the near future. I'm off to go poison some more people.

I have missed all these free weekends. :|

The game seems kind of interesting, though.

May I trouble anyone for some screen shots?

http://www.theshiponline.com/media-and-downloads.php

Theres a bunch of screens and some trailers there.

That's a neat idea. It's like Assassins in a video game.

I played it and was pretty disappointed--I expected it to be sneaky suspenseful stuff where you never know what's going on, but instead it was pretty frenetic deathmatch type stuff, reminded me more of Quake or something. :\

To do it right, it needs to be setup so that you can only kill the one person you're assigned to kill. If you can kill everybody, well, what's to stop you from slaughtering everyone?

So if somebody attacks you..can you kill them?

When I came home, there was a man in my house. I fought with this man. He had a mechanical arm. You find this man. You find this man!

After we throw you in jail. =P

That's the lamest thing I've ever heard. :\

There needs to be a HUUUUUGE incentive to remain undercover

I didn't kill my wife!

Are you sure you were playing hunt mode and not deathmatch mode?

"I don't care!"

You gonna do a Peter Pan off a Dam now?

Fine. Go get a cane pole, catch the fish that ate him.

There is. Let me clarify.

Everyone gets a target. Now, the only people you are permitted to kill is your target, and the person who is targeting you. Of course, you're not told who is targeting you, so you have to watch your back while plotting your target's demise.

If you kill anyone else, Mr. X. (the guy who has set up this game for his amusement) isn't happy and you lose money. Money is also your score. Thus you want to avoid killing innocents. At the same time, you need to be discreet to your own prey, because if they catch on that you're their hunter you've got two people after you now instead of one, and the balance tips against you until you can get away and change your disguise.

I tried it. Really good idea but really poorly executed.

The online mode was unplayably laggy.

The Sp was decent but got old after the first few kills.

There's no replay value other than killing with different weapons, which isn't neccesary.

THere's also a Sims-esque system of needs such as hunger, sleep, social, bathroom stuff and others.
It seems really tacked on and pointless.
Although the sounds for going to the bathroom are hilarious.

Overall it's just underdeveloped.
There's virtualy no incentive to do anything other than to not get arrested or killed.

The whole game is basicaly, Find a weapon, find your target, Kill. If your hunter finds you, kill them. or run to a "safe" zone and watch them get arrested.

Laggy? When I've been playing it online play is smooth as Michael Chiklas' head.