Trawl

Trawl is arguably the neatest yet most unsettling experimental game on Steam. The whole thing consists of being stuck on a little old trawler at sea, dragging up mysterious items from the depths and writing fantastical stories about them on your old typewriter, then stuffing the stories in a bottle and tossing it into the water. You can link the items if you want, or do a separate write up for each, the game does not care either way. Figuring out where to trawl is as simple as dropping the net, firing up the engine, and steering until whatever's in the radio say hi. Not joking about the radio, it's one of the spookiest things I've encountered in any horror game. This is an older Unity title so expect the odd glitch upon clicking and grabbing things to turn or steer them, just let go and the item should reset. The visuals in Trawl are great if a bit dated, the audio is fine apart from the radio which I really love but also hate lol. Achievement hunters, you'll finish this in under 20 minutes depending on what stories you come up with. I love this game. I really shouldn't with how short it is but I do. Note there is a selection of items you can pull from the depths but it is limit…

Trawl is basically a writing exercise game. I love games that let you use your keyboard to write whatever the Hell you want. And this is basically all this game is, with you every now and then catching a writing prompt in your net. And the best thing of all is that the game saves what you wrote in documents, so you can go back and reread them! The only problem I have is that you can only catch three things at a time, and then you have to restart. If this could go on a lot longer, it would be perfect.

Honestly pretty disappointed in this I know it's supposed to be a writing prompt thing and it's not like I was expecting a ton of gameplay but still. The way the screenshots look and the kinda vibe the store page gives off I was expecting kinda horror or at least creepy vibes. “trawl the sea to recover discover what secrets are hidden in its depths and record your findings on your typewriter. ” they say, and it's like, yeah ok I found an old boot. Cool. So the “game” such as it is, is you cast your net, use the radio to pinpoint a direction, and then when the bell starts ringing you bring up the net and check what you found. A straight razor or a broken pair of glasses or something like that, then you repeat this 3 times at which point your radio breaks. You can inspect the objects but there isn't any flavour text or anything to really notice on any of them. You can then take a note of what you've found along with anything else you wrote and chuck it in the sea which kicks you unceremoniously back to the main menu where you can start again. I wish they would have at least like varied the amount of objects per run but no it's always 3. again with the horror vibes when you get c…

A lot of the negative reviews for this game are from players that did not understand the concept. Trawl is essentially a solo journaling TTG turned into a video game. If you're already familiar with solo journaling TTGs you will probably enjoy this game, if you are someone that enjoys writing prompts, you will enjoy this game, as Trawl is essentially an immersive and wonderfulyl executed writing prompt. I love solo-journaling style TTGs and Trawl is a game that takes that concept and executes it beautifully into video game form. It's an enjoyable introspective game, that's an excellent warm up or practice session for writing. Every replay is slightly different and I love typing on the type writer, it's fun and adds another layer of ambiance to the game. The sound and environmental design are all on point. As someone who has worked on actual trawl and dredging boats (albeit to catch fish rather than following an ominous radio signal) this game is close to my heart when it come to all the small details that remind of my time spent on the water. I could gush about how much I love the sound and environmental design, because it really does make me feel like I'm back working a dredge on …

A haunting game that is interpreted by each player for what it gives them. Simple but it tells a story that is formed in our minds and that story becomes ours.

I knew what the game was supposed to be like. My expectations were not high, yet the game still managed to fail all of them. "It is difficult to say definitively how long each playthrough is, as this depends entirely on how much you engage with the game and decide to write in your in-game journal." This statement, pasted from the game description, is a lie. You can collect items, but only three. You can write in your journal, but only for one page. You can chase a radio signal, but only for a minute. These contradictions and pointless limitations are representative of the game as a whole. Why? Why limit the game like this? If the game is supposed to be about writing, why is there only one sheet of paper? Why does the game end when you throw your bottle out to sea? Why can you only collect three items from the ocean? Why does the game not save your progress from session to session? With just a couple of tweaks, this would've felt like a complete game instead of an alpha build/tech demo/proof of concept. Why not add the ability to collect other player's messages that they throw in the ocean? A collection album where you can choose to save other player's notes you find? Look at Ele…