You Must Build A Boat

EightyEight Games

About this game

" * * * * * - A truly superb mash-up of match-three and endless runner that’s unique on mobile and thoroughly addictive. Buy it" - Stuff Magazine

" * * * * * - Makes the original game feel like a demo. It's absurdly fun and nearly impossible to put down." - Touch Arcade

" * * * * ½ Gold Award - Building a boat will indeed become the most important task in your life." - Game Informer

" * * * * ½ - We will gladly build a boat again and again." - Gamezebo


BUILD A BOAT
Travel the world in your boat, from the top of the Mage Tower to the bottom of Hell

GATHER YOUR CREW
Recruit a crew to live on your boat and offer their services

FRANTIC MATCHING
Match as fast as you can to keep on running

CAPTURE MONSTERS
Turn Monsters to your cause to get bonuses and have them aid your in battle

CAST SPELLS
Use magic to aid your quests, and don’t forget to visit your onboard Arcanery to upgrade them

RANDOM DUNGEONS
With procedural dungeons and random Dungeon Modifiers, It’s never the same experience twice

BUILD YOUR BOARD
Upgrade your tiles, Quaff Potions and Pray for Modifiers to whatever fits your play style best

SPEEDRUN
How fast can you build your boat?

You must spring out of bed.
You must bargain with the lizardman.
You must heed your undead navigators.
You must slide rows or columns of tiles on a 6x8 grid.
You must match at least 3.
You must run to the right.
You must focus intently on 2 areas of the screen simultaneously.
You must match keys to unlock chests and swords to attack.
You must literally collect your thoughts and trade them for dragons.
You must not dally.
You must not be too hasty.
You must voluntarily ramp up the difficulty by taking on multiple quests at once.
You must incrementally reach your goals.
You must try again.
You must try again x5.
You must win every time, even when you don’t.
You must remain optimistic.
You must upgrade your magic staff.
You must occasionally stop playing to allow for your hand to uncramp.
You must take credit for random chain combos you made no effort to arrange.
You must trust a blue bean man to make dangerous investments with your money.
You must forget about the blue bean man.
You must mind the asp.
You must reconcile that despite the game’s title, you begin your journey in possession of what is, in no uncertain terms, already a boat.
You must go all-in on the retro aesthetic.
You must trade junk for gold with the voidorb.
You must pray for salt.
You must consume fish and tomatoes for time.
You must venture through hell.
You must disarm traps like your life depends on it.
You must make an offering at the chapel.
You must rally the Fantasy Union and the Undead Buddies to your cause.
You must weigh anchor and methodically yet joyously hop in sync with your entire crew.
You must feign interest in critiquing the gardener’s work.
You must look up at the clock and wonder how it’s so late already.
YOU MUST BUILD A BOAT!

Ratings and reviews

On the surface, I actually really like this game. But it has some awful flaws that completely ruin the experience. I recently got to a point where it gave me the quest "Defeat a Reaper before it touches you." A challenging task on its own, but doable. But not long after getting this quest, the game just STOPPED SPAWNING REAPERS ENTIRELY, making it impossible to complete period. I tried force closing and clearing data, but that just wiped ALL my progress. Uninstalled after that. 😕

The game is riddled with strange design choices and unfair mechanics. My main issue is that half of the available tiles are effectively junk during a run. It's impossible to limit the number of junk tiles, and the functional tiles are very limited in their uses. Often times, you'll lose a run just because the game gave you a bad hand at that moment, but because of the pace of the game, it's impossible to effectively correct in time. I would write more but there's a 500 letter limit.

I love the first, and this topped it. More features, quests and other additional variables to throw into the mix. Great development/developer ethics. No IAP, no ads. Pay a few bucks for 10+ hours (minimum) of fun. Edit: I'm now 39 hours in and still haven't finished! So much content. Aside of recommending the game to others, is there an alternate way for me to donate a few more dollars to the dev in hopes of supporting a future game in the series or promotion of further content updates?

What’s new

-Bug fixing and Compatilibity changes