Ship of Fools - Steam Deck Review

The game was provided to us for free by Fika Productions and Team17. Thank you!

Ship of Fools is a roguelite co-op game where you play as, you guessed it, fools! The Great Lighthouse that once protected the lands has broken and a storm of corruption is brewing. You must take your ship and voyage across the sea, defending against sea monsters and more. Chart your way across a procedurally-generated map and upgrade your ship to hopefully have a successful voyage. With trinkets, artifacts, and co-op play, you and a friend will get to figure out the best way to make it to the other side.

Personally, I am having a field day with Ship of Fools. It is a ton of fun and I can see myself playing it more and more on Deck. I am a sucker for roguelikes and co-op games that I can bring a friend over and just have a good time with, this is one of those games. While the game is definitely playable, it isn't as playable as I would have expected it to be based on the artstyle and type of game, but it can be.

Ship of Fools: Performance

Ship of Fools, without any changes or caps, tends to hover around 43-44 FPS in general with a 16-18W drain. I found that really odd since I established no caps, but the game automatically did it. But, I found that with a TDP of 10 and GPU Frequency of 1200, the drain stuck a bit lower and was stable most of the time. There are some areas where the game will slow down a bit, like in the hub area before going on the ship, but when fighting, the game stuck around 40 and felt good. There were also some little stutters here and there, but they were small and nothing that interfered with the action of the game.

I felt that, while I did enjoy 40 FPS's smoothness, 30 FPS just felt better overall for the game. Not only was it more stable, but added an extra hour and a half to the battery. I was also able to bring TDP down to 7 comfortably and felt no drops or stuttering at all. That stability wins out in my eyes.

The reason why Ship of Fools is rated a 4 instead of a 5 here is due to some of those oddities when uncapped, as well as the 30 FPS cap. The game stopping itself from going over, lack of graphical options, and some framerate drops went to that score. I would love to see an expansion of the options or at least the ability to change the window mode from fullscreen to windowed. This will allow me to lower the resolution and use FSR, which could help stability with 40 a bit more. I felt that this type of game should be able to play at a higher rate based on how it isn't as heavy a game as, lets say, Spider-Man, but it performs around the same framerate wise.

Conclusion

Overall, I am having a lot of fun with Ship of Fools. Regardless of the performance issues, the game does hold 40 at the most important parts and is genuinely a fun game to play, but the 30 stability and battery makes this wonderful. With friends, this is definitely a wonderful game to play and have. If you are going to be fine with 40 with minor drops or a stable 30, and want a fantastic co-op experience, this will be the game for you!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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