Burly Men at Sea is a weird game, if we can even call it a game. It is very light on gameplay as pretty much the only thing you do is just pull the screen either to the left or right to reveal more of the level and the occasional "tap here" to do stuff.
This "game" looks very simple even though you understand that it was designed this way deliberately. Being like this, it allows you, the player, to enjoy the story it tries to tell as you watch it from afar. And to put it frankly I did enjoy the story or stories it told even though none of them made sense to me. Maybe they have deeper and hidden meanings, I simply don't know, I just found them weird AF.
I mean, you follow the Beard Bros. as they set sail for an adventure following a map they found in a bottle. The strange thing is that this is not a treasure map, it's just an empty map, but they simply don't care, apparently. They go out on the sea and from there things just get weirder. I don't want to delve into details cause of spoilers, but the events that happen involve giant whales and jellyfishes, nymphs, rock monsters, strange stringy creatures etc. It all feels so random like they were just throwing random stuff at the wall to see what stuck and called it a day.
But I don't really believe that. The dialogues, the interactions with the world, the art style, the animations, every detail feels very curated. I'll just continue playing since it doesn't just end the first or the second or third time you finish the game and maybe everything will start making sense. If not well, just the simple minimalist approach of the art style coped with some of the best original music I've ever heard and best man-made sound effects are more than enough reasons to enjoy this experience. Maybe you should try it yourself, I don't know, it's your money and you can get it on iOS or Steam. Thanks for reading!
