King's Sea II

King’s Sea II 

A strange little #arcade-style #ASCII #life-#sim with #roguelike elements inspired by Odell Lake, set in a weird, randomly generated fantasy world. Swim, eat, flee, and survive or become enlightened as a fish (or whatever you play as), or just chill out and eat some algae in a living ecosystem. Encounter hungry predators, eldritch goblins, ancient legends, fish friends you can just ponder life with, and the occasional fisherman.

King’s Sea II takes the simple and fun decision-based gameplay of Odell Lake and the original King’s Sea, then cranks it up with world gen, simulation, and absurd, occasionally tragic emergent narrative.

Load old worlds using “The Device.”

Moddable & Customizable:
King’s Sea II is fully moddable. All creatures, text, and data come from editable .block files. Want to add your own fish or monster? Just drop a new block file into the right folder, generate a new world, and it’s ready to play. (Not all text is “blockified” , but almost everything is!)

Canon Viewer & History System:
The game tracks every death, legendary creature, fisherman, and goblin in a Dwarf Fortress-style history log, browsable in-game with the Canon Viewer. Every encounter, legend, and demise is remembered in the canon.

World Simulation:
Each randomly generated region tracks its own species, temperatures, and lore. Legendary monsters like the Loch Ness Monster can appear—or even become playable. Intelligent species might settle as fishermen, shaping the ecosystem. Some regions could be full of fishermen, others nearly empty, adding unique depth and replayability. It’s an ever-changing story engine—perfect inspiration for your next D&D campaign.

Meditative Soundtrack:

The game’s got a chill, meditative soundtrack (all royalty free and/or used with permission). Perfect for pondering your existence and reaching enlightenment as a fish. (Yes, that’s actually a thing you can do.)

Cool things that can happen

• A crayfish can beat a fisherman to death.

• You can throw a piece of detritus at a predator to bludgeon them to death then eat their corpse.

• You can become enlightened and become one with the nodic ocean of existence.

• Some random seagull that killed you once can end up winning a boss fight against a loch ness monster offscreen, gain enlightenment, teach philosophy to all the other seagulls, and then die randomly twenty years later from a lightning strike.

• A fisherman can become a historical figure for catching you, then die of starvation offscreen.

• A ghost you don't recognize may kill you, and only later you realize: it was your previous character.

• You can wander into a lake, get eaten by a legendary killer fish, then read about how it died from being struck by lightning that same year.

• Play through the entire life of a hammerhead shark until they die of old age. Then, 100 in game years later, get attacked by their ghost.

• Get caught by an elf fisherman, only for them to toss you back because they’re vegetarian.

• You can become a legend, enlightened, Or food. Or alll three.

• Two fishermen can have an epic battle off screen resulting in one of them being decapitaed. And the other claiming their victims territory.

FAQ

Q: Why though?

A: Why not?

Q: What even is this crap?

A:
It’s a weird little free ASCII game for anyone who liked Odell Lake on the Apple II, or folks who are into Dwarf Fortress-style world history, or just want a chill life sim. If you like any of that, you’ll probably get at least some kick out of it. Basically, if you like weird games, you’re probably in the right place. None of my games are "normal".

Q: You really think anyone will play this when there are flashier games around?

A:
Yes. Yes, I do. And honestly, if someone skips it just because it’s ASCII, maybe they should ask themselves, why not try something different for once? Sometimes weird is better.

Q: Why does King’s Sea II have so much focus on simulation, emergent narrative, and history systems? It seems a bit overkill for a game meant to be a spirtiual successor to odell lake…
A:
Great question! The deep simulation and canon/history system in King’s Sea II is part of a larger plan: I’m building a flexible, moddable simulation framework that can be reused for much bigger and more complex projects in the future, things like fantasy RPGs, world simulators, or even generative storytelling games.
King’s Sea II is both a game and a playground for developing and stress-testing these systems in a weird, fun, and accessible package. Think of it as the “fish tank prototype” for ideas that will someday grow legs and crawl onto land (metaphorically, or maybe literally in the next game).
If you like games with deep simulation, Dwarf Fortress vibes, and emergent stories, you’ll find lots to mess with, and your feedback will help shape future projects, too.

Q: Will these simulation/history features appear in other games?
A:
Yes! King’s Sea II is just the beginning. I plan to reuse, expand, and refine the simulation and canon systems for future games, more detailed worlds, more complex interactions, and wilder stories. Supporting modding and deep history sim is a core philosophy for most of my projects going forward.

Q: Why does it have so much moddability and text in external files?
A:
It makes it way easier for players (and me!) to add, change, or remix content, plus it helps me test new mechanics for future projects without rewriting everything from scratch. Also allows people to localize it, if they have the patience. Which is something DR4X and RLDR sorely lacked.

Q: Are you open to feedback, suggestions, or ideas?
A:
Absolutely. The whole point of starting with a “fish game” is to build a foundation, get weird with it, and see what’s fun. Suggestions, mods, and feedback are very welcome!

Q: Will you ever replace the ASCII art with “real” graphics since you use actual art for backgrounds?
A:
Not for this project. King’s Sea II is designed as an ASCII game, the style is part of its identity, and it helps keep development focused on simulation and story, not art. Future projects using this simulation system will experiment with other visuals, but King’s Sea II will stay beautifully weird and text-based. (And probably the next game too,)

#retro #odelllake #fish #lifesim #roguelike #other #altgame #textadventure