I took off my eye patch and my full attention is back on development.
I've been doing some much needed cleanup within the assets in preparation for work on the expansion. You'd never believe how many cobweb.png and dust.gml files I had to clean off after spending a few months out of the deep resource code...
Combat has been re-balanced again. I had to plead with each nation to agree on tracking damage down to the decimal so upgrades would scale properly. They agreed on one condition; their ships begin with slightly more health.
A quiet death on land in a warm bed with full belly was never meant for a true sailor! If you're not hungry, you're not dying while resting anymore. Now get back on the Ocean- there are sharks that need to eat!
Some of you have noticed that "Me PiRaTeY gRaMmARGH" isn't quite what it should be. With the help of Aedyr, nearly all of the text has now been proofread and corrected. Buy him a round if you ever meet him.
To help guide new players, I made the location halo for Nassau yellow on the map until you make port there once.
The Jolly Riot promo icon was changed to a pair of cutlasses.
A few bugs nobody found were thrown overboard and replaced with particle effects.
Next week will be a feature update!
V1.6.5 Patch Poem
Two years ago to this day, the first version of The Caribbean Sail was made.
This patch is like the first version of the game. Though not feature rich, it’s still important.
You know what that means...
You're on the edge of your seat,
to see what's new and complete;
Some exploits were removed,
and the grammar improved.
Click the new JR cause it's sweet!
V1.6.4 - The Ambition
As we near the end of the year, I'm beginning to create a list of the most important and requested features and implement them before I start working on the Fantasy Toggle expansion.
If you thought naming your crew "The Food Supply" or "Nobody important" was funny, you're going to love naming your ship things like "The Dingy Dinghy" or "Your Spirits" or anything else you can think of!
Speaking of names, were your crew unfortunate enough to have the same name? They'll now be assigned some roman numerals to differentiate each other. This uncoincidentally also fixes the duplicate name invincibility bug.
A common request for keyboard shortcuts has been met. On the sailing screen you can press "F" to fish or "I" to quickly access the inventory or "enter" to leave the logbook. There are some more keyboard commands for port and sailing but the game still isn't fully keyboard navigable.
Finally, Iceland is now cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
Make sure to wear your oilskins as winter approaches!
Back on course, directly to the Tavern!
It's certainly been awhile since the last content patch but we're back on course.
The world no longer contains eleven identical pubs around the world because some interior decoraters came in and spruced up all the taverns.
Your logbook journal is also more than a single page to write on, now it's 99 pages to write on! You can keep record of your adventure, manually track your quests, create a lot of profane ASCII artwork or whatever else your heart desires.
I know this isn't a huge content update but my attention is divided. There are plenty of suggestions and requests that I'll go through and prioritize but the final feature to complete the original Route Planning checklist is varying the Liars Dice AI around the world.
After those patches I'll hopefully begin work on the free Fantasy Toggle expansion!
IT BE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE CARIBBEAN SAIL!
'Tis time to celebrate!
365 days ago this vessel set out from port with a heading for fortune and glory. 'Tis a proud moment that brings a tear to me cheek... no wait, I've only been impaled by a cyan tessera.
To celebrate this fine day I've decided for this week to only plunder half as many doubloons from those of you who want to get yer mits on the labor of love that is The Caribbean Sail!
What a fine day!
What a pleasant coincidence that today happens to be Talk Like a Pirate Day... not at all contrived... no chance at all... YER DANG RIGHT I PLANNED THIS! IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE BLASTED YEAR!
Ye should keep the scurvy spirit alive by joinin' the community Discord!
Welp! Break's over, time fer me to get back to the helm of this adventure and take meself and me work further. If ye want to stay in touch with all the important updates ye can't beat the Victorian Clambake Twitter!
What's on the Horizon?
I have so many plans and lists that I could jam them into a whale's blow hole and make it explode from the pressure! ...visceral analogies aside- the next big moves will be towards announcing the store page of Jolly Riot! It will be a glorious spectacle fighter about pirates and cephalopods! I'm sure yer britches are already burstin' to take a stab and some squids but keep yer buttons tight and wait for more here on the Jolly Riot Twitter!
I'll share me next plans when I've decided on them. Until then, drink up and be proud to be apart of such a jovial crew of sailors! :TCS_Tophat:
BE ALIVE AND BE FREE!!!
#LoveIndies Week Sale
Have you enjoyed sailing the world spearing fish and being speared by fish?
Let people know!
Honest reviews are incredibly helpful to developers and uninitiated sailors who have yet to feel the splash of an 8-bit sea in their face.
In the indie space we read reviews daily to know what people loved or hated.
When we see a negative review we can take that criticism to improve our games.
When we see a positive review it encourages us to know we made something that brought others joy.
If you haven't left a review yet, please do so! Explain your favorite features or mechanics. Tell your personal story. Drop a recommendation potato.
Unlike the AAA industry, we don't subsist entirely on how much money we can wring from your wallets. We want to talk about our work critically and know what you think.
The Caribbean Sail will be 25% off until the end of the week, so if you've been on the fence about trying it- now is a great time to come aboard!
You'll get a warm fuzzy feeling to know you're supporting me! ...or that could be the influenza.
How will the nautical gospel spread without piratical preachers?
I'm always on the lookout for new nautical and pirate games to try.
So tell me; What are your favorite nautical and piratical indie games?
Pushing an update on a Tuesday... ah...
I'm glad to see you lads enjoying the trading cards. I haven't seen any potatoes yet so which one of you has been hoarding them all?
It's been a while since I pushed an update on a Tuesday... brings back scary sleep deprived memories from last week... or was that last night? It's hard to tell when you don't sleep most of the time. The point I'm eventually going to make is that I'm wrapping up the marketing and taking a break from the heavy development push I've been on until I can get more hours of sleep than you have living crew members after defeating the Baochuan. (Inconsistently 1-5)
On to the patch notes!
The pirates got their ship together- their Junk ship that is. You'll now encounter Junk ships of the piratical variety near Shanghai. Corsairs have become more common in the Indian Ocean but getting back to the patch notes; there's a higher chance you'll find Corsair ships while sailing around Cape Town or Calicut because they all want a piece of that booty pirate treasure.
Oh, and about those ships- they now all scale HP a little with your cannon upgrades to make the upgrades less like tactical airstrikes and more like cannonballs again. All of the boss ships also saw some tweaking, but they're recovering quickly.
The pirate captains all simultaneously found their dice and cups so they can play Liar's Dice with you now.
Finally, apart from all the bugs that keep boarding my game despite being thrown overboard every couple weeks having been thrown overboard again; there's a new sound effect that plays when something is out of your price range- which won't help the deaf very much but they usually have more money since they don't blow it all on shanties.
I'll be up to my nautical shenanigans again soon enough.
Fair winds to you all!
~-.-~*~-.-~*~-.-~:TCS_Tophat:
- Your Captain, Evan
What's that Polly? Players can now turn their hard earned doubloons into virtual collectibles that have no real world value? That doesn't sound like a scam at all!
That's right lads!
Valve recently approved The Caribbean Sail for Trading Cards and there are now 10 ships with 99% historically accurate descriptions that you can collect!
You can throw all those cards into your inventory crockpot to cook up a badge, background, and emoticon!
The real question is; Whom among us will be the one to sell their cards to allow the collecting?
I expect to find you all on deck fighting over the highly coveted potato emote by morning.
- Your Captain, Evan
A little patch poem.
As usual, if my update isn't massive then it must be a limerick.
This update is really quite small,
but it's important so I couldn't stall.
Narwhal art for amusement,
and a frame rate improvement.
You won't notice much change at all.
The Route Planning Expansion COMPLETE! - I'm not dead yet.
The massive Route Planning expansion is finally complete and has been added for FREE
After four months of blood, sweat, soylent, and sleep deprived tears; I've completed the first free expansion for The Caribbean Sail.
Feature Log
In all that time I was able to add more particle effects! ...and nine new locations, seven new player ships, four new professions, nine new achievements, twenty two new shanties*, two emergent storylines, new items, new fishes, new weather effects, new enemy types, new events, ship upgrades, a skill tree, profiles, preaching, resting, careening, barnacles, narwhals, the drydock, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker**, mexican standoff style mutinies- AND THE QUEEN HERSELF!!!
* See the Shanty Off. ** The candlestick maker died of dysentery.
Location Overview
The world is now open for exploration. Each new location features a unique song, new artwork, trade values, locals to converse with, and surprises along the voyage to them! Travel the globe and visit them all!
London, Britain
Ponta Delgada, Azores
Reykjavik, Iceland
Lisbon, Portugal
Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
Cape Town, South Africa
Long Island, New York
Belém, South America
Kozhikode, India
Shanghai, China
Nassau, Bahamas
Emergent Storylines
Survive a voyage to Nassau and become a Pirate that does as he pleases or become a Privateer for the Royal Navy and receive a letter of marque to hunt those filthy pirate scallywags. Both offer the freedom to go where you want and do as you please but give larger overall goals to work towards that reward you!
Conclusion
Nautical Oregon Trail free roam- what was I thinking? I still don't entirely know, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I love sharing the rich history, fantasy, and culture of all things nautical. There's so much new content that you'll just have to dive in to find it all. Happy Voyages!
