An island survival game for Linux and Windows
The lights went out. The sea didn't.
Captain your own working ship across a sound full of islands where the power grid failed years ago. Haul cargo, pick over the wrecks, earn a place in a crew, and decide how far you'll bend for the Administration that holds the ports.
There are no monsters out here. Just people, weather, and whatever's left in the tank.
A few years after the grid went down, the islands of Sea Dwellers run on diesel, barter and favors. Nobody is coming to switch it all back on, so the people who stayed have learned to make do.
The danger is ordinary and very real: an empty fuel tank halfway across open water, an engine that has been patched once too often, a storm that catches you between ports, raiders who have learned that a loaded trawler is easier to rob than a warehouse, and other captains who want your cargo more than you do. Get the small things right and the sea will carry you anywhere. Get them wrong and it will remind you who is in charge.
Your ship
Forty-four meters of rust, diesel and stubbornness
Every captain starts with the same thing: an old deep-sea trawler, rebuilt from scavenged parts, and a small crew who would rather you didn't run her aground.
She is yours to walk from bow to stern while she is under way. Climb to the wheelhouse and take the helm yourself, or mark a harbor on the chart and let the autopilot carry you there and back her into a free berth. Go below to the engine room, the galley and the bunks, or stand out on the working deck and watch the islands slide past.
Over time the shipyard will fit her with a stronger engine, bigger tanks, armor plate, a salvage crane, more bunks and, if the waters get rough enough, a deck gun on the forecastle. Her hands work for their keep, too: the helmsman holds her steady, the engineer keeps the engine alive, and the deckhand patches the hull while you sleep. More about your ship.
The crews
Nobody makes it alone
Five crews hold the islands, and each one makes exactly one thing the others need.
The farmers have food and are short of timber and steel. The salvagers have steel and are short of fuel. The smugglers have fuel and want medicine, and so it goes, all the way around the ring. That means cargo has to move between the islands, and more often than not you're the one moving it.
Run jobs for a crew, earn their trust, and they'll take you in, with a bunk in their town, a share of the stockpile and people who'll have your back. Cross them, and their guards will remember your face. Meet the crews.
Whitetail Ranch
Farmers and fishers
They feed the islands and look after their own.
Breakwater Salvage
Wreck strippers
If it sank or got left behind, it's theirs now.
Harbor Syndicate
Smugglers and fixers
Every crate has a price, and they know it.
Lifeline Clinic
Medics
They patch anyone up and don't ask questions.
Swiftwater Runners
Sea couriers
The fastest boats in the Sound, and they know every channel in the dark.
The Administration
The government
They hold Port Hallam and keep the peace their way.
Better with friends
One sea, one server
Sea Dwellers is played together on a shared server. Every player runs their own ship, and every choice you make about who to help, who to cheat and who to trust shapes how the islands treat you. Crew up with friends, race them for the best cargo, or simply give each other a wave as you pass in the sea lane.
The game is in early development, built by one person and tested every week.