The PC has plenty of roguelikes — so many that it's difficult to find a PC player or an indie game fan who hasn't played one in the last 10 years. There are also plenty of co-op roguelike experiences, and it stands to reason that this is how a good chunk of players learned about the genre in the first place. In that regard, Ship of Fools doesn't bring anything new to the table, but it would be foolish to write it off, as it still provides a solid experience with a few caveats.

Ship of Fools takes place in a very nautically themed world where the seafolk have been battling against an ever-encroaching storm cloud filled with giant deadly sea creatures. You find your character washed ashore and suffering from a bit of amnesia, and you're quickly whisked away to a boat where you learn the intricacies of naval combat. After that brief training session, you board your boat and hope for the best against the coming storm.

As expected, Ship of Fools follows the blueprint of the roguelike genre quite faithfully. You start off in town by the lighthouse, which acts as your hub. Depending on where you are in your journey, you can shop for permanent upgrades to your ship or relics that can pop up later in the journey. Once that's done, you go to your ship and start traveling. You start on a hex map and go from spot to spot, defeating enemies and picking up all sorts of items while the storm slowly envelops the map. It doesn't take long before you'll have to go into the storm and face the boss. Lose at any point, and you'll be sent back to the lighthouse town, and only your harpoons and tendrils carry over. You'll also be scored on how well you did, and that score instantly transforms into more tendrils that can be used to get those aforementioned upgrades.

The combat is taken in bite-sized chunks unless you're facing bosses. You never have to worry about the ship, but you have to find planks to repair the ship after enemies put enough holes in it to sink it. Cannons can be outfitted on either side of your ship, and you can move them around if one side is getting attacked more than another. Each cannon needs to be reloaded after a few shots, and while your standard ammo is seashells, you can load them with things like seagulls and crabs and elemental eggs, all with varying damage numbers and buffs. You also have your trusty oar to swat at enemies that get deck and those who come near. It also comes in handy when trying to deflect any projectiles that come your way.

There's nothing new here, but each section of the gameplay loop is done well. The exploration presents some interesting scenarios that make it feel like Beast Breaker's overworld map. Do you try to power up your ship as much as possible before inevitably going into the storm, or do you aim for a powerful upgrade but risk going up against the boss earlier than anticipated? That approach also changes per run, as most of the hotspots for shops and special items change enough to force you to stay on your toes. Combat tends to get rather frantic; enemy hordes are numerous enough that you're often placed in scenarios where you risk losing a precious item that's floating away or letting your ship take on a hit in exchange. It can get chaotic enough where you'll drop ammo instead of reloading it or constantly find yourself shuffling cannon positions as foes dart about. It starts to feel like Overcooked in this sense, but you end up laughing about those mishaps instead of cursing faulty controls.

The gameplay loop is solid, but it sings when played in co-op. The enemy counts are tailored for two players who are acutely aware of what's going on and split tasks to properly handle the enemy hordes. It can be easy to miss some of the power-ups amidst the chaos, so you'll depend on having a human partner playing alongside you. Co-op is the way to go, but solo players aren't hosed. While the enemy counts and other elements remain the same when playing alone, the game gives you some help in the form of at least one automatic cannon. You'll still need to manually reload it, but it does a good job of automatically detecting the most threatening enemy within its aiming range. The lack of any other companions means the game becomes harder solo but not impossible if you don't mind the extra grind.

If there's a complaint to be had with Ship of Fools, it would be with the game's length in terms of content. There are a very good number of characters to play as, and there's a nice selection of upgrades, but the environments are rather low in variety. Granted, there's only so much you can do with the ocean to change things up, but it's noticeable that the environments are set to the same order for every run. Also noticeable is that there are only four major bosses. There are updates coming to increase this, but there isn't much left to see once you get a ship that's powerful enough to see those four big creatures.

Aside from its length, the only other issue we ran into was online play. The performance is fine, but there were moments when the performance got spotty, and the items and enemies started warping around. Other players are also reporting this, with some even saying that items disappeared during runs. Patches have been released to fix the issues, but it looks like a few more are needed to take care of some of the oddities that still occur from time to time.

The presentation is very well done. The hand-drawn art style for the characters gives it a heap of charm, even if it looks like many other modern cartoon series. The backgrounds also have a similar hand-drawn style, and they still pop despite using a more muted color scheme when compared to the characters. The game runs very well no matter how many characters are on-screen, and the load times are almost non-existent. On the audio side, the title lacks any voices, but the Banjo-Kazooie-style mumbling works, and the music does an excellent job of fitting the mood in combat or at port.

Though the game is marked as Unsupported on its own page, Ship of Fools does run on the Steam Deck. However, the experience isn't exactly flawless. The warning you get from SteamOS holds true here, as the text is quite small for the device's screen. You'll need to use the system's magnification unless you want to press your face to the screen to make the text legible. The game runs at the default resolution of 1280x800, but don't expect to tweak anything else in the options screen. The battery will go for about three hours on a full charge, but surprisingly, the game hovers around the 40-50fps mark, depending on what's going on and how many enemies are present. Load times between areas are also longer than on a standard PC SSD, despite installing it on the device's internal drive. This doesn't make it a poor choice for Steam Deck owners considering that it's completely playable, but it does show that being indie doesn't always guarantee a perfect Deck experience.

Ship of Fools is the kind of game that works well in bite-sized chunks and with a friend in tow. The chaotic nature of fights lends itself better to two players rather than one, while the start/stop nature of the combat flow works wonders to prevent the whole thing from feeling like a slog. It doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the genre, but it produces some solid fun. It could use more polish online and more bosses to fight, but it is enjoyable for genre fans who are looking for something to play with a friend.

Score: 7.5/10