Black Sails - The Ghost Ship

Expected pirate adventure - got a static painting with whispering shadows. The crew retired. Even the ghost quit.

I was enjoying it despite its shortcomings until I ran into a bug where the game just froze on a zoom-in and I had to Alt-R-F4 my way out of the game. The text on notes is very difficult to read, but I liked the gameplay and where the story was going. I'm not invested enough to try playing through it again in the hope it'll let me progress a little further though, since I have no idea what caused it to freeze and how I would avoid it. It's a shame, since I love spooky point-and-clicks.

This is like the Nancy Drew games. You walk around looking for clues, putting things together, solving puzzles, and discovering a mystery. It has a nice story for fans of mystery and horror, aboard a ghost ship.

Black Sails – The Ghost Ship, developed by Deck13, is a traditional point-and-click adventure that leans heavily into mood, isolation, and slow-building psychological tension rather than action or spectacle. Set in the late 19th century, it begins with a familiar but effective premise: two survivors of a shipwreck, Anna and Lex, board an abandoned vessel in search of help. What initially appears to be a stroke of luck quickly turns into something far more unsettling, as the ship reveals itself to be empty in body but heavy with presence. From the very beginning, the game establishes a tone of unease, relying not on sudden shocks but on the quiet suggestion that something is deeply wrong. The gameplay adheres closely to classic point-and-click conventions, emphasizing exploration, item collection, and puzzle-solving. Players control Anna as she moves through the ship’s interior, interacting with objects, combining items, and uncovering clues that gradually reveal what happened to the crew. The interface is simple and functional, making it easy to understand what actions are possible, though it does little to innovate beyond the genre’s established standards. Progression is driven b…

This game got mixed reviews, but having played it I can safely recommend it (having played about 300 of these type of games), with this in mind: + It's shorter than your average pnc adventure game (around 4 hrs which is perfect for me, just get it on sale) - camera angles and moving around is a pain, making it more disorienting than necessary - puzzles are all quite doable, except for some pixel hinting (although there is an eye icon that highlight all items on the screen) + excellent story and setting (ghostship) + decent atmosphere + decent voice acting (male was a bit getting used to, main female was all right) + good music and sound effects + play as a (tormented) little girl (similar to Resident Evil 2) All in all a 7.8 out of ten.

I liked this game, being able to explore the ship was interesting, and I liked the ending. The threats of potential child abuse in the plot though I thought were unnecessary. The voice acting was great. It took me 7 hours to complete the game.