Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Game
Game2016
Burly Men at Sea
Developer Brain&Brain
Burly Men at Sea is a 2016 indie video game released for Steam, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch designed by Brooke Condolora and developed by Arkansas-based studio Brain&Brain, published by Brain&Brain and Plug In Digital. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
198 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Aug 11, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
63
Fresh
119 positive · 71 negative
95% range 56–69%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 119 | 71 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
8 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
313 of 499 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 198 · most liked firstBMAS is basically an illustrated storybook that gives you a different adventure to go on each time you play it. It's well suited for a tablet where you'd ideally read it to a kid for story time which is denoted by the fact that is available for mobile devices at half the price that they ask for it on steam. If you got a windows tablet though this is a charming picture book with a pleasing aesthetic you can enjoy on your own or with friends/relatives. It's a nice experience if you are in a mood…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hello Friends! This game is short, hence the small time i put into playing it. Basically you play a game as three bearded men (ZZ TOP!) and go out into the world on a boat and do different adventures. Simplistic game with minamalist type graphics and funny sounds. This game would be great for a young child to play. I would say a child of 5 or 6 even. These stories are almost like a bedtime story. I won't run a pro/con list to this game as it is quite short and fun. I recommend for young…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ehhh....Burly Men has a really great aesthetic with its wonderful graphics and charming sound effects, but it's very clear this was natively a mobile game. Using a mouse to navigate the environment and move the men is so so clunky and tedious. Even though you can beat a playthrough in about twenty minutes, that time feels like an eternity because of how often I'm fighting with the controls. Also, this is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs but has no options to skip dialogue and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi, new friends! We’re David & Brooke, a duo making games from a tiny corner of Ozark woodland. You may know us from our second game, Burly Men at Sea. We’re now working on Raincaster! It's something like a puzzle ballad of folk superstition, set here in the Ozarks. raincastergame.com
unlabelledView post →A quirky choose-your-own-adventure game that is full of charm but also full of repetition. Do Play if you want a lovely, lighthearted game if you enjoy offbeat games with personality if you enjoy very clever visual and audio design if your inner (or outer) child wants to play Don't Play if you want a meaningful CYOA if you are bothered by repetition if you are bothered by awkward controls if you are bothered by slow walking and transitions…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm not too happy about giving this game a negative review as it has many qualities I like and look after in games, but the end product fails to fully incorporate them into a competent, fun game. Good things the game has: -Nice art style - Pleasant music - An upbeat, happy world that doesn't get syrupy sweet The problems: First of all, this game could be the example why "multiple endings" should make the buyer careful. The game has 12 endings. It has a first choice that creates 3 branches in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Was quite a cute game until it lost its novelty, became quite tedious and boring towards the latter stages.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a tiny choose-your-own-story game with beautiful music and a lot of charm in very minimalistic but soothing artstyle. Sounds good, but it still managed to leave quite the sour taste. So I set out to discover the story branch, like I normally do with interesting choice games. Picked up a notepad and jotted down notes and things that I could try and do differently in the next playthrough, trying to go for a bit of a a depth-first iterative search algorithm to find all the content. I was…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wish I liked this game, because it is very beautiful and peaceful. Unfortunately, it is also slow, somewhat repetitive, and incredibly boring. The controls are also very awkward: you have to click and drag to either side of the screen to move, but the burly men are initially slow to react, and then slow to walk/swim/paddle/etc for the duration of movement. You also have to dramatically overshoot to get the men to go where you want, since they will not go WHERE you indicate, just WHEN…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't remember how this game appeared on my account at all. It might have been a purchase in some bundle, but I noticed it thanks to a fairly quick platinum - all achievements can be done in 2 hours. The game is a simple flat drawn story about 3 men who go on adventures. There are 12 possible endings in different variations. Sometimes, this repetition starts to get boring, and the game itself is very white, which is definitely not pleasing to the eyes, accustomed to dark themes everywhere…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As an art-project it is somewhat interesting despite the low production value, but as a game it is just boring. Even the most ardous PnC andventuregamer will grow tired of the gameplay in no time, and while it does offer three endings they are more or less identical so there is no real replay value.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great story, but the gameplay itself is boring, moving at a snails pace. I would have preferred to see the full story as a short movie. rather than having to arduously click through it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's gorgeous, and the soundtrack is very good. The problem is the same as several narrative games: in order to get to the unique endings, you have to keep going through the same old start of the story several times. I don't think I'll play more than 2 or 3 times, it gets redundant. Still, it was cute and humorous, if you like point and click adventures, this is a fine one. Still, the price tag is a bit hefty for the little gameplay present here.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →(Completed) Burly Men At Sea (Casual, Visual Novel, Adventure) {Steam}. [Burly Men At Sea](https://store.steampowered.com/app/403290/Burly_Men_at_Sea/)
unlabelledView post →This would be a great game for passing time on public transport on a tablet or phone. On a PC, it's just a bit dull and repetitive. The different outcomes aren't really exciting enough to make it worth repeating the game over and over and seeing the characters slowly walk/swim/sail to locations you've been to before quickly becomes irritating.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is basically an interactive story book with 12 different endings. I kept playing it hoping there would be more, but it's just a giant decision tree to show different scenes. It took me about 2 hours to see all the endings. It's quite repetitive, boring and the controls are not very good.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Credits Rolled Before I Could Even Understand What the Game Was About I don’t mind short games or ones with limited interactivity, but this particular game takes that formula a bit too far. The act of interacting with it felt almost meaningless, and I couldn’t help but feel disconnected from what was happening. While I do appreciate the simplicity of the art style, some scenes—like the one with the island and the giant—are so convoluted that it's hard to discern what's going on. The game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has a strong core idea and certain well-executed parts. You can tell where work and heart went into it - the music, for example, has this kind of a capella, homemade sound that makes me think it took time and passion to create. As a game, though, it's lacking in some ways that turned me off from it. The controls for PC are irritating. They don't break the game or anything, but at no point do they feel good, and at times for me they didn't work without trying a couple of times. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Where my majestic Viking beard got more sea breeze than actual adventure, but at least I got to name a whale 'Fluffington'! Buy this game if you are into stories!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Funny and charming little game about three bearded brothers and their adventures on the vast seas! One day our bearded fishermen find a bottle with a map in it. Each of it anticipates a different thing, but to their surprise it's blank with only their island being marked. They go home to ask about it around the village and they are told that they need to draw in it their own adventures. Adventure it is then! As they once more set sail something happens and what they do after that will shape…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can't give this game an unqualified thumbs up, but despite its flaws, I don't have the heart to give it a thumbs down. This is a family-friendly visual novel that's meant to be replayed multiple times. Each playthrough takes just a few minutes, so you really aren't remotely getting your money's worth if you don't explore all the various paths. You are, in fact, paying a fairly steep price for the amount of content even if you do 100% it. But despite the emphasis on replayability, the end of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Absolutely painful to play. The art style is sweet, but I played 0.6 hours and it's a miracle I got past 20 minutes of it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →10 euros for an awful visual novel that will test your patience due its clunky interface and its terrible pace. The console version has controller support which probably makes it more bearable. There's not even a basic Unity sound/graphics menu ffs ! Praise be to my patient 7 years old son who devoted 3 hours to completing this piece of trash.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like this game, but not overwhelmingly so. It's a very interesting and well illustrated game, but unfortunately the very structure of the game itself makes it rather boring. The story branches like a tree - so to experience each ending, you'll have to repeat the same story beginning many many times, which makes it a bit difficult to appreciate the beautify of it when it's your 5th time (perhaps an exaggeration) seeing it. However - it would be criminal to not recommend this beautiful,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is a delightful story about... Well, the title says it all. There are some burly men who are looking for a treasure, so they get on their boat and start exploring the sea. And then stuff happens! A whale. A storm. A meeting with Death. Each situation is a small diorama to push and poke with your mouse. There are no big puzzles to solve, but just small moments that can have different outcomes depending on your actions. Each playthrough is a new trip around the sea, with…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game. It looks fun. Minimalistic, a little silly and something that would spark the creativity of the developers. Sadly, there are things that, while alone, would be fine, but together are just making a frustrating experience. * There's a 30fps lock. Not only that, it seems that the animations are running at an even lower frame rate, so the game just feels laggy. * The controls are unique, but unintuitive. You are in a small bubble with your three sailors and you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting ideas, excellent presentation, too little substance. If you want a slow art piece, this is great; if you want a game, or a satisfying story, or really anything other than to kill a little time, this will probably not be for you.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I got this game through Humble Bundle. It has a definitive style, but it has little more to offer. There are no wrong choices, but that means there are no right choices either. Each choice is just going to lead you to a different next step in the story, but there's no cause-effect relationship. The ending sequence at the end of each storyline is the same every time, kind of long and unskippable. The controls are designed for a tablet but on a PC it's clumsy. They're supposed to be intuitive,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea has a very nice art style and calm soundtrack, which will probably interest children. However, I cannot recommend the game for other players because it's very short for the price tag, and the gameplay is repetitive and it seems like there's no point to the story.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Slow, bland and painfully repetetiv picture book, and even for the minimalistic interaction there is, the control/input style feels quite bad. Story/stories are forgettable and unimaginative, and even the art style is the same "Corporate Memphis" you already forget while you are looking at it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We’d say it’s probably most like our game Burly Men at Sea in tone: at times whimsical, at times sincere, and just generally joyful.
unlabelledView post →Such a pretty game, but also very boring. I'm not a fan of repeating things multiple times, and this game started to feel grindy even though it is a very short game. The idea is there and I liked the characters the burly men met. I just wish there had been less branching and more story for each branch. Now it was 3 clearly different main branches which then each branched to a 2 different sub-branches, and then these sub-branches branched again to two different endings. So there were a total of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →got this 2018 in a humble bundle, finally played it as part of my goal to play through my older untouched games. it's...alright? the art direction is gorgeous, i love the acapella sound design and it has a very whimsical storybook charm, but it's charm doesn't carry it. controlling it feels awkward as hell, the drag mechanic feels annoying in it's best moments and detrimental at worst. it's very obviously a mobile mechanic lazily ported over- just giving me the choice to use wasd+mouse would…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A nice little game telling 12 small stories of adventurous journeys, taking path between three routes, each of which will make you choose between two choices, leading to another pair of last choices until you loop back to the beginning, ready to take on another of those 12 stories. :P The stories are short and the actions simple, but sometimes you'll have to wait a bit as the characters transition from a scene to the next one, but it's not a problem unless you wanted to hurry through the game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As you may read in other reviews, this game is really cute and chill, and it's a bit of a "choose your own adventure" situation. The paths you can choose are rather short, and there are 12 of them. While the first few tries are enjoyable, having to replay the same first 3 parts of a path just to get a different thing on the 4th (repeatedly clicking through the cutscenes and dialog) gets old really fast.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cute game!👍 Tried it for the first time on PS Vita, then completed it on PC. The few characters in it made me laugh, glad to have played it :D
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It won't even launch but apparently it tricked steam into thinking I played it for 21 hours.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An odd, utterly charming little game about telling stories. Almost more of a "choose your own adventure" book than a traditional game, but it's beautiful to look at and short enough that it doesn't over-stay its welcome. Definitely a great mood piece if you're looking for something light but engaging.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very repetitive point n click game for kids. getting every achievement takes an hour or so.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't like this fairy tales from a Hipster universe. It's a Point & Click without any gameplay and proper feedback, when you clicked a thing, which makes it more of a Click & Point. The story is boring and nothing you do is fun. Also look at the feets during walking: WTF?!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a lovely game!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is an interactive story based around three bearded men, each with a character trait, as they embark on an adventure after finding a map in a bottle. The game uses a simple control method, whereby every interaction you make is through your mouse, with only left click required, to click, hold, and drag in order to effect the game and its environment. The main story will change dependant on the choices you make, with 12 endings available in all. At first this seems like a good…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good for free, not worth any money though. Super short.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good, short game with wonderful music and a nice storyline. Have only played it once all the way through, took me about 15 minutes.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a short game in which you play as a group of burly men, going on an adventure out to sea. The idea is that each playthrough is short, and you create your own little story. There are multiple endings, so you can play this game casually and create little stories until you get bored, or you can try and find all of the different scenarios. Going for the latter can make it a little repetitive by the end of it. This is something I imagine would be good to play with a young kid or something,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A supremely simple visual novel/point and click game. It's cute, but slow paced. Controls on PC feel a bit weird, not always clear what you can and cannot click on. I assume this works better in a mobile format.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is a short game about the adventures of three bearded brothers finding a message in a bottle with a map. One trip consists of three locations each time with a single decision how to proceed at each location and ends with the same return scene home. The first station always is a whale who swallows the ship and the sailors. There are three ways to proceed from there. Depending on the choice, the brothers continue to one of three follow-up locations (a boat race with death, an…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can only say this is a beautiful game. I like the story, but I do believe it won't suit everyone's taste. For anyone seeking a contemplating, dark, mature, serious, full of plot twist kind story, I don't think it's for you, but don't let what I said stopping you from trying this game out. Also, IMHO, you can play this game with your children. I've gone through 2 story routes when reviewing this game and I think the story is safe for everyone. Younger audience will probably like the artstyle…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is a choose your own adventure game. It's very short, but in this case that's not a bad thing. It's cute and fun the first few times around. The artwork is minimal, but effective. The controls can be a bit frustrating though - they could've improved the mouse movement and camera a little bit more. My only real gripe is that some of the endings are buried and not intuitive to get to. That means you may have to repeat a lot of content to see everything. If you want a simple,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Burly Men at Sea is a very charming game. It's essentially a choose-your-own-adventure book, but unlike many on Steam, it's actually made for and fits the digital space. From the theme (which is literally "go on an adventure!") to the wholesome artstyle to the sound effects (most, if not all, of them are made by mouth; one of the first you encounter is a blacksmith where the hammer is literally someone going "tink, tink, tink..."); it's all creating a delightful atmosphere that is actually…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite my positive review, I would consider this a maybe. The big standouts here for me are the art style and the sound design. I love the minimalistic look of this game, and all the sounds are done vocally, giving it the feel of being read a storybook by a parent as a child. However, there isn't really much 'game' to speak of. It's a choose your own adventure style game, but after getting a couple endings, I didn't really feel incentivized to try for all of them. If this game seems like…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a complete waste of time. The appealing art style does not make up for the repetitive "gameplay" and story. Your actions thoughout the game have no baring on what ending you get other than the sea serpent appears above the water or appears below the water. I actually put up with this crap for 2 hours to get all the different paths just to see if there was a different ending once you got them all, the only difference: one different line of dialogue from the sea serpent. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →OTD in 2020, I finished & Platinumed BURLY MEN AT SEA, a delightful little interactive storybook you can clear in an afternoon. Good palette cleanser game if you've just wrapped up something heavy or need a little pick-me-up on a rainy day.
unlabelledView post →The gameplay and story took a bit time to get used to, but after that I enjoyed it. There are 12 possible endings which you can play in any order. After having played a part of the story, part of the dialogues will change and some cutscenes are shorter so it's not as tedious as I expected to get all endings. Still there are some parts i wish they had shortened. Story is not as interesting but i was entertained enough by the dialogues, characters and possible choices. Also I loved the funny…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Platinum 137: Burly Men At Sea. Weird little groundhog-ish day game where once you get an ending you restart and do the game over for another ending. All the characters are aware of this so its kind of neat with the dialogue acknowledging it.
unlabelledView post →Introduction Burly Mean at Sea is a stylish mix between a visual novel and a point and click adventure. Pros & Cons Pros: + Stylish minimalistic graphics + Nice soundtrack Cons: - Boring gameplay - Unskippable cutscenes - Little to no gameplay Story You play as three fishermen looking for an adventure. And they find not the one but the whole twelve of them. The adventure always begins with their ship being swallowed by the whale. There are multiple ways out of this situation, and the one…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After 8 min of game play I already can't stand the controls which cause the game to be miserable to play. (only way that the game is bearable to play is by using cheat engine to do a speed hack to do a 10x speed so that animations don't take forever
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The music is the highlight of this one.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have tried to like Burly Men at Sea, but the controls on Switch are not working for me. Some endings they fail altogether, which left me waiting for a sort of cut scene to end. And waiting. And waiting. Quiting the game fixes it but honestly it is not worth feeling abandoned. Tiny pretty game, but I'm declaring myself satisfied and done after struggling to get three endings. #BurlyMenAtSea #Nintendo #Mrgrgr
unlabelledView post →It's got burly men. They're at sea. What more do you need?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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