Ship of Fools Trophy Guide

Sea Warrior
Complete all Trophies.

Once you have done everything else, this Platinum Trophy is yours!

Master-At-Arms
Destroy 10000 sea monsters.

10000 monsters is a lot, but since killing monsters will be your main activity for 90% of your playtime, you should have this unlocked before you finish grinding for Tendrils.

All the Treasures of the Sea
Buy all upgrades.

This will likely be the very last trophy you unlock, as you will need to buy literally everything you can. In total, you’ll need about 750 Tendrils to purchase everything, so this will be quite a grind.

During your expedition, you will find a few new characters which allow you to upgrade weapons and trinkets further. They are all listed below, along with their approximate total Tendril requirements.

Halga – approx. 150 Tendrils
A) Sand dollar (increase starting money)
B) Harpoon (increase starting harpoons)
C) Planks (increase HP)
D) Cargo spots (up to +2 cargo spots

Briny – approx. 150 Tendrils
A lot of ammo, trinkets and artifacts

Reed – 150 Tendrils
Recycling Recipe
Duplication Recipe
Selling Recipe

Rust – 270 Tendrils
Assault cannon
Grapeshot
Powershot
Double Barrel
Sentry

If you’re focusing solely on grinding for Tendrils, you can try to get the artifact that doubles all money gained. If you can create three copies of this in the duplication island, it’s possible to end a run with 5 digits of money, giving you a ton of Tendrils. If you can combine this with either the ammo type that gives you money every time you hit an enemy, or the artifact that gives you money every time you kill an enemy, then that just means even more money for you!

The Perfect Crew
Complete a run without taking damage.

This is the hardest trophy in the game. You have to beat the entire game from start to finish without your ship taking a single hit. Even shield damage counts, so you really cannot get hit at all during your run. There is no way to save mid-run either, so you have do the entire thing in a single sitting. This is much more manageable co-op, but with some clever planning, effort, and luck, is also doable solo.

Before you attempt this trophy, it is highly recommended to buy the first two upgrades from Reed’s shop, to give you an extra recycle and an extra duplicate, as well as to max out the Double Barrel cannon. High DPS is crucial here, as we want to mow down bosses as quickly as possible, so doubling your fire rate will help a lot. If you are going to attempt this solo, max out the Sentry as well while you’re at it.

Lastly, you want to buy from Briny’s shop until he sells you the Pearl of Ice. This will give you access to one of the most powerful ammo types in the game, ice ammo, that shoots in 3 directions. Ice is one of the best status effects in the game as it can lock enemies in place, and combined with the Double Barrel cannon, you will be shooting 6 bullets every time, letting you tear through most enemies.

A key part of this strategy is that once you buy something from Briny, you immediately get access to it for that run, so when you buy the Pearl of Ice, you start out with that ammo type. So even though you can’t backup your save mid-run, you CAN backup your save at this point to guarantee that you always start out with this overpowered ammo type every attempt, drastically reducing the difficulty of not getting hit.

Start each run by buying all three items from Briny, and even though the artifact that comes in this set, the Pearl of Regeneration, is pretty useless, having an artifact lets you recycle it after stage 1, which is important, as you want to see an specific artifact early on in your run, The Shell. This increases all your projectile damage by 50%, letting you shred through enemies even faster. So once stage 1 starts, immediately go for the artifact tile, and hope you get it. If not, you have 2 more chances at the recycle station after the first boss. Either way, you want to have this artifact before finishing stage 2, as the duplication island can turn your 1 shell into 3 shells, giving you a whopping +150% damage! If you can set this up by the end of stage 2, you will be nearly unstoppable. If you can get The Pearls too, which gives you +50% magazine capacity, then that’s just icing on the cake.

But if you’ve already purchased the Pearl of Ice from Briny, no need to lose hope just yet. The same strategy can still work for a lot of other ammo types, like a lot of the others Briny sells. So find one you like and just go for it! It’s still doable even if you start with the base ammo type, as seen in the video below:

Shadow of the Undergrowth
Defeat Tentacles.

Tentacles is the boss of the first stage. His fight cycles between two phases.

Phase 1, which you ill be facing for the majority of the fight, involves a bunch of tentacles circling your ship. Shoot these tentacles to deal damage to the boss, but watch out for when they light up with pink exclamation marks. Each individual tentacle will attack after it lights up twice. The first time it lights up, it will not do any damage yet, but it’ll resurface, immediately light up again, and then hit after a few seconds. If you can shoot the tentacle when it lights up for the first time, you can cancel its attack. But if it’s already getting ready to hit (denoted by the tentacle moving backwards), then you have to melee it to swat it away from the ship.

The best strategy for this phase is to just focus on one half of the ship and let your partner or the AI handle the other. Shoot any tentacles that appear on your side, and reload your cannons during the downtime, and you will have this part under control.

Phase 2 involves the mouth appearing on one side of the ship. It will pop up and then just sit there for a while, allowing you to unload on it, but it also spawns a bunch of slugs on your ship, so be sure to reflect them if you can, but once they appear, you’ll want to prioritize cleaning them up rather than dealing damage to the boss. Once enough time passes, the boss will return to phase 1.

Once you beat Tentacles for the first time, this trophy will unlock.

Tyrant of the Deep
Defeat Claws

Claws is the boss of the second stage. His fight also consists of two phases.

Phase 1 involves two claws constantly submerging and surfacing at random points around your ship. There are two kinds of claws – a thick claw, which always spawns near the ship and will hit it after a few seconds, and a thin claw, which spawns a little bit further away and shoots two fireballs. Shooting either of these claws will damage the boss. The thick claw should generally be prioritized, and its attack can be negated with a melee combo. The thin claw’s attack can also be negated if you shoot it enough times, but if not, you have a few seconds to clean up the fire on the deck before it hurts you.

Phase 2 starts after you’ve emptied its life bar once. In this phase, the two claws will still be doing the same thing, but will only spawn on the lower half of the screen. This is because the upper half has now been occupied by the giant crab itself, which is constantly firing a stunning beam at you. The recommended strategy here is to man the upper cannon, and place the AI cannon at the bottom. Shoot the big crab if you can, but prioritize negating the claws’ attacks whenever there’s a threat, and eventually this boss will go down too.

Once you beat Claws for the first time, this trophy will unlock.

Harbinger of Hoarfrost
Defeat Heads.

Heads is the boss of the third stage. As you might have guessed by now, his fight also consists of two phases.

Phase 1 will have the heads on the left and right sides of the screen, and a couple segments of its body appearing at the top and bottom parts. You cannot interact with the heads here, so do not bother. Instead, you want to shoot each part of the body until it submerges. The heads will also try to bother you by shooting stunning beams and fireballs, so dodge and clean up as necessary. If you take too long to hit all body segments, the heads will also slowly approach your ship, and eventually hit from both sides, dealing 2 damage, and the only way to avoid this is to shoot the segments. Once you’ve shot everything, the heads will fall down and you’ll move to phase 2.

In Phase 2, you can whack the heads a few times with your paddle, but they will eventually get back up. Once they do, a few skeleton bird heads will spawn, which you want to kill. Once you have dealt with them all, the boss will return to phase 1.

Once you beat Heads for the first time, this trophy will unlock.

Eye of the Storm
Defeat Eye.

Eye is the final boss of the game, and as such, has not just two, but three phases!

All three phases are quite similar to each other this time, but each one ramps up in speed and difficulty.

Phase 1 starts with the eye spawning at the top part of the screen, and then teleporting around a few times. Eventually, the eye will disappear, and a few waves of enemies will spawn, which you’ll have to deal with.

Once its first healthbar is emptied, phase 2 will begin. Phase 2 is almost identical to Phase 1, except that the boss has a bit more health, teleports around a bit faster, and most importantly, takes out one of your cargo slots once it spawns enemies. It’s important to take note of this, as if your ammo source is dislodged, you’ll want to quickly get it back on a different tile. But that aside, the idea’s the same.

Once you’ve emptied its healthbar again, phase 3, the final phase, will begin. Phase 3 is once again almost identical to the previous two, but this time the boss has significantly more health, teleports around even faster, and takes out TWO of your cargo slots during the enemy waves! The idea’s still the same, but things do get quite a bit more hectic here. Stay calm, deal with the threats as they come, and you’ll eventually have this phase down too.

Once you’ve emptied all three of the Eye’s healthbars for the first time, this trophy will unlock.

Old Sea Dog
Complete solo run.

Beat the game with a single player to unlock this trophy.

1 + 1 = 3
Complete co-op run.

Beat the game in either local or online co-op to unlock this trophy.

Quill Joins the Crew
Unlock Quill.

Quill will join your crew after beating the game once.

Gold Plating
Max out a cannon.

Every cannon maxes out at level 10, and needs a total of 54 Tendrils to get there. Max out any of them to unlock this trophy.

Ship Gunner
Destroy 1000 sea monsters.

See the “Master-At-Arms” trophy.

Powder Fool
Destroy 100 sea monsters.

See the “Master-At-Arms” trophy.

Tendrils…
Buy your first upgrade

See the “All the Treasures of the Sea” trophy.

Gill Joins the Crew
Unlock Gill.

Gill can be randomly found hiding in one of the boxes that spawn in grey tiles, the ones where you get off your ship.

Finley Joins the Crew
Unlock Finley.

Finley can be unlocked by recycling a plank in the area after Tentacles.

Shelbie Joins the Crew
Unlock Shelbie.

Shelbie can be unlocked by finishing an encounter without firing a single cannon. If you are playing solo, the AI cannot fire any cannons too, so pick it up before starting the encounter to be safe. You also want to unlock Shelbie as soon as you can, as she is by far the best character in the game.

Lotte Joins the Crew
Unlock Lotte.

To unlock Lotte, you need to complete one sector without taking any damage. A sector consists of a map + a boss. You will unlock Lotte naturally as part of the “A Perfect Crew” trophy.

Betty Joins the Crew
Unlock Betty.

To unlock Betty, you need to get stunned 50 times.

Cluck Joins the Crew
Unlock Cluck.

To unlock Cluck, you need to fire every egg type at least once. There are simple eggs (white), fire eggs (red), ice eggs (blue), resonance eggs (purple), oil/weakening eggs (black), and explosive eggs (pink). The last one will need to be purchased from Briny, and he will also eventually sell a Rainbow bird which produces all types of eggs.

Krillstoph Joins the Crew
Unlock Krillstoph.

Krillstoph can be found as a choice at the Shark Altars, the tiles with two arrows pointing in opposite directions. Once you find him, simply pick him.

It’s the Aquapocalypse
Complete the Tutorial.

The tutorial will teach you the basic mechanics of ship combat. Clear it to unlock this trophy.

Curse lifter
Lift a curse.

Throughout your runs, you will encounter grey tiles with cracked jar icons, these indicate curses. Curses give you some sort of negative status effect for the remainder of the stage, but if you manage to beat the next boss with the curse equipped, it’ll turn into a strong trinket. The various curses that you can encounter are listed below:

Holes in the deck cannot be repaired.
You lose 100 gold every time you take damage.
One of your cannons is randomly disabled
Your paddle only does 1 damage.
The darkness advances every turn instead of every three turns.

All of these are actually fairly manageable except for the cannon one, which you should probably avoid. After you equip and cleanse your first cursed item, this trophy will unlock.

Reflector
Reflect two projectiles at once.

When you hold down the square button, you will go into a stance that lets you reflect projectiles in a small circle around you upon releasing it. There will be plenty of opportunities to do this, like in all three of the first boss fights.