SILENT VECTOR

Silent Vector is a Cold War submarine simulator set in the late 1980s.

You take command of a nuclear attack submarine and head out into some very dark, very unfriendly water.

This is not really a game about blasting everything that appears on sonar. A lot of the time, the best thing you can do is slow down, listen, keep quiet, and try to figure out what the other guy is doing before he figures out what you're doing.

You'll manage the boat's course, speed, depth, sonar, periscope, communications, weapons, and a bunch of other systems while working through missions involving surveillance, intelligence gathering, submarine tracking, covert operations, and combat.

The submarine has weight to it. It takes time to turn, dive, stop, and accelerate. Going fast makes noise. Going too fast near the surface can make a lot of noise. The ocean floor is also very much there, so keeping an eye on depth is generally a good idea.

Sonar is a huge part of the game. Most contacts begin as a sound or bearing with very little information attached to them. You have to watch them, track them, classify them, and decide whether they are harmless, dangerous, or possibly already looking for you.

You can also come up to periscope depth, raise the scope, and actually look around the surface. Ships and surfaced submarines can be spotted and identified, but leaving a mast sticking out of the water for too long is not exactly the smartest thing a submarine captain can do.

The game includes a campaign, mission progression, training mode, save and load support, a captain's journal, enemy submarine and surface ship AI, torpedo combat, thermal layers, underwater terrain, radio communications, and a whole pile of little systems that are probably going to get you killed eventually.

Visually, I'm going for the feeling of an unusually ambitious submarine game somebody might have found on a computer in the late 1980s. Lots of vector graphics, glowing displays, sonar screens, naval terminals, machinery noise, hull creaks, and that strange feeling that there is an enormous amount of black ocean outside the hull.

There is music in the menus.

Once the patrol starts, the music stops.

At that point, you get the submarine.

And whatever happens to be out there with you.

Listen carefully. Stay quiet. Bring the boat home.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Silent Vector is designed to run on modest hardware and should be playable on most modern Windows computers.

Minimum

• Operating System: Windows 10
• Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz or better
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: DirectX-compatible graphics
• Display: 1280×720 resolution
• Storage: 250 MB available space
• Sound: DirectX-compatible sound device
• Input: Keyboard

Recommended

• Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11
• Processor: Dual-core 2.5 GHz or better
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Any modern integrated or dedicated GPU
• Display: 1280×720 or higher
• Storage: 500 MB available space
• Sound: Speakers or headphones recommended
• Input: Full-size keyboard, preferably with a numeric keypad

Notes

Silent Vector uses a deliberately retro presentation and does not require a high-end gaming computer.

Headphones are recommended. A large part of the atmosphere comes from sonar contacts, machinery noise, hull sounds, alarms, radio traffic, and the general unpleasant realization that there may be another submarine somewhere in the darkness.

The game is currently intended for Windows PCs.