Would you play Pirate Rogue?

[dagondev]

Become a Captain of your own ship and sail in procedurally generated world pursuing fame/wealth/adventure/other goals. Heavy emphasis on immersion and role-playing.

Most important thing to me would be immersion. That would mean stop looking at the gui most of the time and more possibility for role-playing your character/story. While I would like to make this game realistic as possible, I would trade realism for fun/gameplay, and especially immersion, whenever that makes sense. I think this game should have grim/dark tone, closer to real Pirate times, instead all of those colorful fantasies. But I still need to think about this. Point is I am tired of all those child-like version of those times (looking at you Sid Meier Pirates!) (Although that doesn`t mean I would ignore all the cool legends!)

As you can imagine first versions would have emphasize exploration and ship fighting, to keep scope small and set basic mechanics.
To be honest I want first to nail what you can expect, and feel you would get in game, just from looking at mockup before I get to design specifics of the project.

Current mockups:







I love when games pass information about game/world without shattering immersion and this is my goal, which you can see already:

    sails show in which direction wind is blowing
    instead looking at minimap, your lookout would tell you if anything is in close proximity.
    Your crew would tell you when cannons are ready to fire.
    You, as captain, move ship by steering wheel and order crew by shouting.

But still a lot of work to do: need to creating mockup that would show how damaged cannons/hull/sails would look like and need to think how pass more information without traditional gui.

With all of this, It would help me tremendously having any feedback from you guys. If anyone would be interested I am sure I will get more power to keep going. Would you like to play this game? What do you think about mockups/ideas?


Used REXPaint to create this mockups.

TODO:

    Make sails more readable
    Make cannons represent 30% damage stated in the left bottom gui text.
    Make water show in which direction wind is blowing
    * Make sails only show damage?
    Make water look nicer
    Make bigger field of view, without creating separate 'small' models.

[Krice]

The real question is would you play it.

[dagondev]

Lol, yes. Definitely going to make game for myself, in the first place, but writing only for myself isn`t enough for me to keep going..

[akeley]

Point is I am tired of all those child-like version of those times (looking at you Sid Meier Pirates!)

Ummm...calling one of the best - if not the best - videogame of all time "child like" is probably not the wisest way to start a pitch. I`m always in the market for a pirate themed game, even though over the years most of them were abysmal failures (looking at you, Pixel Piracy)...but boy, with that spiel you really set the bar impossibly high.

Good luck 

[dagondev]

Point is I am tired of all those child-like version of those times (looking at you Sid Meier Pirates!)

Ummm...calling one of the best - if not the best - videogame of all time "child like" is probably not the wisest way to start a pitch. I`m always in the market for a pirate themed game, even though over the years most of them were abysmal failures (looking at you, Pixel Piracy)...but boy, with that spiel you really set the bar impossibly high.

Good luck 

Yeah. I said it too vague. Child-like in a graphics/settings/presence not gameplay/mechanic wise.

Edit:
I felt a need to elaborate more.
I really like Sid Meier Pirates, those years ago I played it.
I didn`t play original one, but the 3d remake and this what my opinion is based off.
What I didn`t like is this almost Disney-like style and feeling that everything is jolly and everyone want to help you and it is fun place.

[Tzan]

I would make the graphics smaller so you can see where the enemy ships are, so you can steer yours in anticipation of where they are going.

Just using text to say when to fire removes all the possible tactics from maneuvering, which is what ship combat is.
You could make a ship version that is even larger than you show to do boarding fights.

I did play Pirates and recently the Assassins Creed sailing game.

Good Luck!

[dagondev]

Yeah, need to think how this will be handled. When I get some time I will mockup another version showing more, as you said.

[akeley]

I didn`t play original one, but the 3d remake and this what my opinion is based off.

I thought as much. The original is the one to play since it`s just perfect and  the sequels and remakes were spoiled in one way or another (crap fencing, ship-to-ship combat, worldmap sailing etc)
And yeah, the 3D one was way too cuddly... plus it had dancing (ugh).

Agree with Tzan`s remarks though it`s hard to say what your plans really are regarding all the key aspects just from the little info here. To be honest, what I would really like to see is another Pirates! since they really nailed it there.  Only with more procedural stuff maybe...

[dagondev]

This version http://www.gog.com/game/pirates_gold_plus would be good then? Or do I need Atari one?

Thanks for feedback.

[AgingMinotaur]

We definitely need a good pirate Roguelike. Related items might be Slash's seafaring game Expedition (this seems to be the latest release), although not pirate themed as such. I shamefully admit I didn't play it. Krice's Teemu plays out in a desert island with pirates, but then of course, Teemu isn't actually a Roguelike

I played and loved the C64 version of Pirates. Memories that linger from back then include story tidbits like becoming governor (or marrying the governor's daughter), the fencing scenes, running out of rations in the middle of the ocean ...

I like the direction your mockups are going. As Tzan says, you probably need a more zoomed-out view for navigation, naval war and such. But I also think these ascii ships look so nice, it would be a shame to throw them overboard completely. Maybe you could use it for game modes/events where you want a more finegrained view of the ship (stocking/upgrading, boarding/being boarded, dealing with bad crew morale). Fencing and dialogue could then zoom all the way in on the individuals (maybe even as @'s on a grid ) . Whichever way you decide to go, best of luck.

As always,
Minotauros

edit: This could surely serve as inspiration?

[Krice]

Krice's Teemu plays out in a desert island with pirates, but then of course, Teemu isn't actually a Roguelike

I have plans for the new version to be more roguelike-ish with stuff like actual RPG system.

[akeley]

This version http://www.gog.com/game/pirates_gold_plus would be good then?

This isn`t as bad as the 3D one, but the 1987 original is still the best, IMO. Naval combat, dueling and sailing, even though they look plain and simplistic are super tight and very in-depth. You can still find it if you look around. C64 version would also do (that`s the one I sank countless days into...playing with sort of forced hardware Ironman mode - I could not afford a disk drive, so played from a tape version, and if you messed up and wanted to reload you`d have to spend half an hour waiting. Heady days!)

About feedback in general...well, you said earlier: "writing only for myself isn`t enough for me to keep going" - I see the point, but to be honest sometimes it`s the only way, especially starting in the RL world. If you look at other projects here, sometimes people get a page or two - or none - of comments, but then it all goes quiet. That doesn`t mean you shouldn`t write your game... I think strong belief is half of success, and you definitely should "write for yourself" - and then see what happens. If the game is strong, people will play it, that`s for sure.

But I`m not a dev, so take it with a pinch of salt :)

[Tzan]

PIRATES! GOLD PLUS
When you hit the "Read more" link:

"Includes the 1987 original Sid Meier's Pirates! and 1993's Pirates! Gold."

[dagondev]

Related items might be [...]
edit: This could surely serve as inspiration?

All of links provided are definitely useful. Thank you for your input. The more reference I have, the better.

@akeley - Thanks for feedback will check both versions. Yeah, you are right, but reception exploded on reddit [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/491xz9/would_you_play_pirate_rogue_become_a_captain_of/), which lead me to create subreddit for this game [Pirate Rogue](https://www.reddit.com/r/piraterogue/) and start working on it already. So this was needed to get starting wind in the sails. Of course your idea is valid, shouldn`t expect interest all the time and sometimes it is just me and my game. But for me it is very heartwarming to see there are people waiting for updates on this.

@Tzan - Sorry, just glanced over, should read description fully. Thanks. What is your opinion on Pirates! Gold?

[Tzan]

I only played the first version, 1987, on the Atari-ST.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Pirates!
The Pirates game had the ships moving real time, pixel to pixel, maybe with 16 rotation angles, I dont remember exactly.

Shifting to a turn based system isnt hard, its been done before as a board game by Avalon Hill.
Wooden Ships & Iron Men, 1976.
Here is a copy of the rule book.
http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/7090001.PDF
They did it with hexagons, so I'm fairly certain you could do it with 8 directions.

Each ship sits in two spaces and rotates around the front space.
Could be a problem for pure ascii.
Also you can fake hexes with squares by using at least 2x2 characters to make 1 space, then stagger each column 1/2 a space.
You then have 6 adjacent spaces.


Maybe you have multi character spaces and the ship sits in just one "space".
So it doesnt overlap into another.