Eldritch Wildlife Tours

OVERVIEW Eldritch Wildlife Tours is a 2-player co-op (split screen-friendly) or solo adventure about running a sightseeing charter on a sea that does not want to be sightseen. A brother and sister have returned back to their home of Chesham-by-the-sea, Massachusetts to start this risky venture together. One of you takes the helm. The other takes the map and a camera. In solo mode, a player can swap between both roles at will. Every run is a tour: cast off from the lighthouse, carry a boat full of paying passengers out into the dark, come back with photographs worth sharing on socials, and with still-living passengers. The payout funds the boat, the boat reaches further water, and the further water holds more formidable (but more lucrative) entities. Between voyages you admire your findings, improve your boat, and set out again. It's a small game about a big ocean: two players, one boat, a stretch of coastal waters, and unknown terrors lurking beneath the waves. THE CAPTAIN The captain plays in an isometric view of the whole boat and the water around it. Throttle and rudder, a fuel tank that only burns while the engine is open, and a steerable spotlight that sheds light on the creatures of the deep... to improve photo quality, of course. The helm is a constant risk-reward challenge. Passengers pay by the head and by how far out you dared to take them, but every creature strike knocks people over the rail and grinds down a hull that carries its damage between voyages. A worn hull boards fewer passengers, makes less speed and burns more fuel. Run aground, and it costs you all three. The captain also owns the quiet half of the game: mooring at the dock to fish and hauling in the bottles that drift out in the open water. THE PHOTOGRAPHER The photographer plays in first person on the deck, and their work starts before the boat moves. Below in the cabin sits the abyssal survey terminal, which reads out every sonar contact as a size class and a grid square, along with a running sonar clock and any flotsam on the surface. Up top they raise a hand-marked sea chart, inking squares safe or dangerous themselves, building a picture of a sea that shifts every tour, and pinging locations of interest. Then there's the camera. A voyage's film roll is finite, and a photograph scores on how much of the creature you framed, how much of it the captain's spotlight actually revealed, and how close the boat dared to approach. Repeat shots of the same animal are worth steeply less; the money is in finding new things, not in parking next to one. There's also a bait pellet: one per voyage, dropped into the right grid square, raising a hidden being that is faster, meaner and worth considerably more. FEATURES - True 2-Player Co-op, Split Screen or Online — Share a couch on one screen or play online with each crewmate getting their own full screen role. Swap stations mid-voyage without leaving the run. - Two Distinct Roles— The captain never sees the terminal; the photographer never touches the wheel. Neither of you has the whole picture, so be sure to communicate. - Photos from the Deep — A finite film roll, scored on framing, lighting and nerve. The best shot you ever take of a creature becomes immortalized in the Compendium. - Improve your Boat— Five upgrade tracks across engine, fuel, spotlight, passenger capacity and film. Roughly 25 purchases and three hours of voyages. - Hull Damage That Follows You Home — Integrity persists between runs and costs you speed, range and paying customers until you pay the yard to fix it. - Chart the Sea Yourself — Read contacts off the terminal, mark the grid by hand, and ping bearings to the helm. Nothing is revealed for you. - Messages in a Bottle — 25 pieces of lore about this coast and its inhabitants, two or three drifting per voyage, out in the empty water between territories. - Fishing from the Dock — A full cast-and-land minigame with 35 species across three difficulty bands. - A Compendium Worth Filling — Three collections in one book: every fish landed, every message read, and every creature photographed, each illustrated by your own best photograph of it, credited to whoever took it.