Games Like Eldritch Wildlife Tours

<span class="bb_img_ctn"><video class="bb_img" autoplay muted loop playsinline poster="https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/5148460/extras/f40ebb469dfd7d3b3617f2eaf18f1692.poster.avif?t=1787722629" width=1138 height=296 ><source src="https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/5148460/extras/f40ebb469dfd7d3b3617f2eaf18f1692.webm?t=1787722629" type="video/webm; codecs=vp9"><source src="https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/5148460/extras/f40ebb469dfd7d3b3617f2eaf18f1692.mp4?t=1787722629" type="video/mp4"></video></span>OVERVIEW

Eldritch Wildlife Tours is a 2-player (split screen-friendly) co-op 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. Neither job works without the other.

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