Missed Classic 21: Seas of Blood - WON! And Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

A mysterious mountain, soon to be filled with pirate booty!

Welcome back! Where we last left our evil pirate adventure, I had just discovered the mythical mountain of Nippur, the location where I am supposed to store twenty treasures to win the game. Unfortunately, I had located only thirteen of the treasures in my voyages around the Inland Sea and not all in one go. It is pretty clear that not only do I need to work out the rest of the puzzles, but I also need to figure out the correct order to approach the various cities and islands to ensure that I get to the end without running out of food, hit points, crewmembers, or all three.

In my retelling, I will skimp on narrating all the running around and experimenting. I played through aspects of the game six times, with many reloads each of those times, to inch my way forward. Sometimes I would bee-line to a specific island to try something new, other times I would try out different routes to see what might make sense. I also started playing through the gamebook to see if that gave me any clues (more on that in a bit), but there were fewer than I expected and a large number of red herrings. With the disclaimer out of the way, let’s go pirating!

Missed Classic 21: Seas of Blood - Introduction (1985)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Arr! Finally a pirate adventure I can believe in!

One peek at our leaderboard and the evidence is plain: we love pirate games. Sure you might argue that the Monkey Island series has fantastic art, great characters, and tons of humor, but that’s not the reason that those games top our charts. No, I can summarize the real reason in one word: pirates. We just love games about pirates. It doesn’t matter if they have red beards, black beards, or no beards, a game about pirates will always do well here at the Adventure Gamer. Even our #3 game, Conquests of the Longbow, was so beloved because it’s essentially pirates in the woods. At least, that’s my theory.

Before we can swash and buckle, I should say a few words about this game, but it is difficult to know where to begin. Seas of Blood was one of the final games released by Adventure International UK and shares a bit of pedigree with the Scott Adams adventures that we discussed during my look at the Questprobe series, plus it’s one of the first games written by a prominent adventure developer. Let’s jump right in!

Release the kraken!