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[Petty_King]

NOW ON STEAM

https://store.steampowered.com/app/997020/Aye_Aye_Captain/

Welcome you scalawags! Here be pirates. Arr, onboard our ship here we're developing a game full of booty, rum, and villainy on the high seas.



Playable Alpha Available https://northstategames.itch.io/aye-aye-captain




Aye Aye Captain is a game about crewing a ship on the high seas of the 1500 and 1600s. You'll have to manage a crew, provide them with consistent booty and rum and fight off mutinies while pillaging vessels of royal names, other pirates, and trading companies. The game is in its very early stages, so please bare with me as more screenshots become available.



So far I have a basic selection system established. Each crew member has a unique "portrait button" that displays important information. Crew can be selected from this button and moved about on your ship. Enemy crew move about on their own ship. I also have a rudimentary attack option that works to kill enemy crew for the basics of the combat system. Cannonballs that hit your ship or enemy ships stand a chance of piercing through all decks, leaving a water hole that crew can fall through.

[gantt]

I really like the concept of crew management, I wonder if you would be incorporating something that makes your ship your home? Like upgrades and ship development, anyway, looking forward for this one!

[Petty_King]

Yep, definitely looking at crew quarter upgrades etc. After all, it's hard to keep your loot safe. Also toying with the idea of having a Pirate Haven that you can run back to for hiring new crew etc. I've spent the night trying to pretty things up a good bit. It's far from perfect but really beats sitting there working on programmer graphics.



I've also tweaked the "titles" for crew. There can only be one Captain at a time. However, if your Captain dies the crew randomly select a new Captain to simulate internal politics. So it'll be challenging if the crew's favorite guy is the worst at rum management etc.

[Petty_King]

Today I worked hard to incorporate a second kind of weapon, the chain-shot cannonball. It's essentially two cannon balls chained together.



I haven't figured out exactly how much more damaging it'll be but I figure it'll damage rigging etc. more than the hull. So instead of directly damaging the ship to make it sink it'll reduce other attributes of the ship like maneuverability. I'm planning to incorporate a 3rd weapon type, grape-shot, which won't damage the ship at all but will be devastating to the crews.




I've also implemented a free-roam world map. The player will be able to stop in at ports, investigate shipwrecks, and easily interact with different ships based on the color displayed. (Different nations/factions).

More to come soon!

[Petty_King]

I can't believe it's been nearly a month?! Time flies!

Anyway, I've been toying with some ideas for the game.

I've implemented nation-states on the main map. Ships are now represented by flags on the main map. I've also decided that you won't simply be restricted to a ship. You and your crew will be able to cover ground on islands as well. This will be represented by having the speed of your "party" on the map substantially slowed down as you traverse land on foot instead of by ship. I'm tinkering with how land combat will work, but it'll be a little more wide-open than the ship-to-ship combat screen. I'm currently envisioning this as your gang of pirates attempting to bury treasure, so sometimes having a timed survive aspect to the combat, other times escaping back to your ship or maybe raiding a town/brothel/tavern or abducting a Governor or Noble.

I'm also toying with the idea of using morale as the "health" for the game. Your ship wouldn't take damage per say. Instead, the more you're bombarded the slower crew would react and the worse the state of morale would become. Eventually, when the morale hits zero, the crew mutinies and sends you to the depths of the sea. As morale approaches a lower threshold orders would be less likely to be followed and crew would start acting on their own.

[Zireael]

What do the blue icons represent on the map?

[Petty_King]

The blue icons are my placeholders for random events. So it'll be anything from a town (if on land), harbors, shipwrecks, Kracken, shipwrecked sailors, etc.

 

[Petty_King]

I'm really excited about this update. A lot of things have happened!



I know this screenshot may not seem like much, but the quality of gameplay has really improved! It feels like a nearly playable demo. Crew are now able to walk anywhere there isn't equipment. There's still a grid-based system on the ship, but it's hidden. So you can click anywhere to move crew.

As you can see in the above screenshot, if crew are within distance of a "usable" object there's a box around it. It shows white when it's unmanned, so you know the object won't do anything and a light green when it's functional. The above screenshot has the top left cannon manned.

Clicking on either of the two options for shot type (Chain-shot or Cannon) allows you to then click on the enemy ship and any manned cannons will then launch a salvo. So in the above screenshot, only one cannon would fire. Those weapon selection buttons then turn red as the cannonballs launch off to wreck havoc. After a pre-set time, you can shoot again. (this will eventually require a crew-member to stay in the square of a cannon to "re-load" the cannon. I'll soon be adding a wheel, mast, gunpowder storage, and bilge pumps. All of which will be able to be manned by the crew to alter how the fights go.

The health bars above the ship are unique too. Those represent morale. If your ship takes damage the crew become frantic and you lose morale. If crew become wounded or die, you lose morale. The game is over not when your ship is destroyed but rather when your crew's morale gets so low they mutiny or all of your crew die. Morale can increase in battle if you kill enemy sailors, etc.

I've also done a number of behind the scenes upgrades that are dull and I won't go into length about them here but suffice to say it makes AI, movement, and storage of crew information far more reliable. Until next time, shiver me timbers! 

[Petty_King]

A bit more work today. When your Captain dies a new crew member takes over as Captain. I haven't decided if I like this or the thought of YOU are your Captain and when he dies its game over. If the game ends when the individual Captain dies the game would be far more difficult and short-lived. However, letting another crew member take over being Captain and only ending the game on a mutiny or death of all crew allows for a more nuanced playthrough.

Any thoughts or preferences?

[Petty_King]

Wow, what a weekend! Tons of new content that I'm incredibly excited about sharing!

I've created a shot-cooldown. Previously you were able to shoot again as soon as any cannonballs you had shot did their damage. Now, regardless of whether you're shooting or not, there's a flat timer delayed equivalent to your crew's skill. This represents your crews needing to reload the cannon with more gunpowder and shot before it can be fired again. So the more skilled they become the faster you can get those salvos off!

On the topic of gunpowder, there's now also a set amount of gunpowder your ship can carry, same with the enemy. Each time you fire a cannon, the stash of gunpowder is depleted. The thought process is that once you run out of powder you'll have to resort to 1)Ramming the enemy ship with yours (highly risky), 2) Boarding the enemy ship (a dangerous and bloody ordeal), or 3) running away and missing out on all that loot.

After you've been dealt some damage by the enemy there's always a chance a cannonball will spring a leak on your ship. This weekend I programmed that leak to gradually spread across the ship, drowning any crew that come into contact with it. Fear not. There's now a bilge pump which can be manned by your crew. The bilge pump can be overwhelmed but if you catch a leak early enough you can stem the flooding and eventually remove it entirely from your ship.

While I was testing the flooding and bilge I quickly learned that I had programmed some pretty dumb AI. They were constantly stumbling into the holes in the ship, no doubt having imbibed too much Rum from all the pillaging and piracy. I sat down and re-wrote their path-finding algorithms and they now "try" to avoid dangerous things.

I was also able to implement a save/load system. You're currently only allowed one save file and it autosaves every few seconds whether you're on the journey map or in a battle, so no quitting when things get hard! You'll always be able to restart from scratch but I'm trying to keep the difficulty up there so you feel the consequences of trying to fight a Man O'War when you've got a tiny Frigate.

Until next week, happy piracy on the high seas Mateys!

[Petty_King]

Wow, what can I say! So many updates to give the world today! Here's a quick list. I'll go into each item with more detail afterward:

• Ships were turned 90 degrees
• Randeom Event Generator
• Reset save file when killed
• If health "morale" reaches zero, lose crew
• Enemy Crew can man AI stations
• AI Intelligence
• True Combat

I decided to turn the ships on screen by 90 degrees because it'll allow me to make larger ships down the road for more variety while not compromising my current crew screen set-up. I'm excited for this, as I plan to have visually noticeable differences between frigates, dreadnoughts, Ships of the Line, Man O'Wars, etc.

I've established random events that happen on the "World Map" has you sail about. These could be anything from courier messages, events at sea, rumors, issues with the crew, etc. They're not all there, but the code and methodology exists.

Since I have a save game file it took a moment to load the proper settings so nothing carried over from the lost game.That's been solved, although I need to make a more robust auto-save feature.

 


I thought long and hard about it and I've decided that the Player is their Captain. Not their ship, not their crew, the individual Captain character. He can be moved like the regular crew but he can't "man" any of the stations except the helm. However, if he's within a certain distance of crew he will mitigate any "damage" they take from the enemy. I hope this makes combat exciting as you don't want your Captain to be killed but he can help turn the tide a lot by being present in combat.

Subsequently, should one of your crew members take a direct cannon ball, they're killed in combat. Likewise, having your in-game health bar, which represents your crew's morale, hit zero will make you lose that combat. You will be pushed back to the world map. Your ship's health will be at 10% for any subsequent battles, and one of your crew members, chosen at random (not the Captain) will be gone. This is vitally important because your ship will rely on crew members to man and load cannons, pump the bilge, etc. The ship will not be able to voluntarily leave combat without a crew member manning the mast and the captain can't fire back at enemies, so a healthy crew is vital to the game play!



If a cannonball should directly hit one of the stations that can be manned by the crew the station will be destroyed for that battle but will appear in the next battle, representing it being repaired as the crew sails.

I finally programmed the enemy AI to fight. Enemy AI will randomly find a station on their own ship and "man" it. The AI crew follows the same rules as the player crew. They die in the same manner and must "man" a station for it to function. I also programmed the AI crew on the enemy ship to seek out any unmanned stations if their station is destroyed, trying to make them fairly intelligent. I'm hoping to eventually make types of ships where crew priortize various things based on what they are. Trading ships would focus on getting out of the fight while pirates and royal navies will prioritize manning the cannons to take you down.



I also tweaked the leak code, the bilge pump code, saving algorithm, how cannonballs calculate damage, and some FPS issues with a random memory leak. Certainly a busy two weeks of coding since the last update. The game is finally starting to feel like a game and I'm hoping to get a technical demo out soon that will showcase the ship-to-ship combat for others to try out.

[Petty_King]

SO MANY BUGS! 

I've spent a substantial amount of time hunting down a memory leak, improving AI path-finding, and generally boring things that feel unproductive but are vital to moving forward.

However, I was able to implement a pause system. It's not perfect, but it works for the time. Also, if your Captain is close enough, his "influence", which can be upgraded, allows crew to survive being hit by cannonballs. They'll still drown though!

I've also been working hard to bring a more interactive experience on the main map, allowing for hiring crew at Harbors/Towns but that's very much a work in progress.

[Petty_King]

A very busy Saturday!

I've implemented the rules for three different types of shot on the ship.

• Solid Shot - The standard cannon ball. This can destroy crew stations (cannons, helm, etc.) It can also create leaks on-board a ship and begin to flood the ship!
• Chain Shot - Type smaller cannonballs connected by a chain. This attack can only destroy one crew station, the mast (which is immune to Solid Shot). It can also do minor damage to crew morale "health". No chance of flooding because of this shot.
• Grape Shot - A shotgun style blast of shrapnel. This shot does no damage to any rooms, or masts, nor can it create leaks. However, this shot is absolutely devastating to crew morale "health" and will quickly kill individual crew.

I've also worked to create "planks" which represent the ship's hull and help shield crew and rooms from initial attacks. Planking will shield the ship from Solid Shot but grape and chain shot move right through it. This answered a very real problem I had in all my play testing where the computer AI would simply wipe me out before I could return a shot. It's become a much closer game with planking added.

I've also gotten the ship's helm to work. It can only be manned by the Captain. Next step is to allow some functionality to occur when it's manned by the Captain!

[Caravaggio]

Very interesting.  I admit I skimmed a bit but a few thoughts came to mind.

I love the stuff about morale.  One thing I always like a bout an age of sail game is the actual recruitment and budgeting aspect.

I know some of the art is early but one thing that always bothers me about some games is the way the pixel art exists on different scales.  Some images are very low resolution and some are very high.  I would choose one to give it a more unified look.  As it is the characters and the ship look like they exist in different realities.

You mentioned belonging to a state, any change of politics / country loyalties coming into play?

[Petty_King]

Yes, there will be interaction with the loyalties between nations and a pirate faction. Your influence with one will effect the others.

[Petty_King]

It's been a quiet bit as I've been hard at work at real-life work 

However, I'd love to get some feedback on the combat mechanics. I've uploaded a rough alpha to Itch.io for people to try out. The map mechanics are what I'll be working on next. Right now everything kind of just restarts whenever a combat finishes. However, the basics of combat are all there. The amount of gunpowder you have will remain constant and any crew who perish should be dead until you're wiped out.

https://northstategames.itch.io/aye-aye-captain

[Petty_King]

Starting working on a new Header image. Let me know what you think!



I've also been updating a ton of code. I re-worked how the enemy cannons fire to combat some bugs that I had noticed. I've also added the option to have new crew join you as a random event after a battle. "Loot" also works, although at the moment it's merely more gunpowder for your cannons. Also, on the world map, when you win a battle, the enemy ship you fought is removed from the map.

[Petty_King]

It's been nearly a year since I worked on this project but I'm reviving it and I'm very excited about it's direction!



I spent the last weekend making a large makeover. I felt the feel was limited with the top down perspective, as I want a good deal of the game to be about moving through the interior of the ship. I've decided to change the gameplay perspective to a more isometric feel. I think it looks substantially better than the above screenshots. It took a bit of time to adjust things for it but I think it'll be worth it in the long run. Once the changes are done I'll be updating actual game content more too. Looking to add waves this week.

The new method of showing the ship allows me to have more impact with the flooding of certain parts of the ship, so some areas will be trapped by flood waters which would impact gameplay far more than the current method.

[Petty_King]

I've spent the last month working on bringing this project back up to speed and have since posted a Kickstarter. There's a decent intro video at the link with me explaining some of the things in the game. I just have awful graphics ability so it's just to secure funding for more pixelated images.



I've gone back to the older, more original screens for gameplay. They simply flowed better and allowed the combat to be more transparent.

Lots of updates on gameplay though:

• The Captain is finally useful. He stops a room from being destroyed when hit and his presence can keep the closest crewmember alive. I've found this makes for some interesting gameplay decisions.
• Shooting is now done by the AI. This gives an incentive to upgrade your crew and will allow for options on types of objects to hit by the crew versus being able to cherry-pick targets. It gives more of the vibe of being an actual captain.
• Harbors on the world map now allow you to hire crew and purchase more gunpowder.
• The world map has been increased by 1000% and is now scrollable as you navigate it.
• Fixed several combat-related bugs regarding the use of "rooms", i.e., cannons, ship's wheel, bilge pump. These items were having issues distinguishing between the Captain and crew.
• Also updated text to be white so it's easier to read throughout.

http://kck.st/2EALfy5

[Petty_King]

I've added a lot of new content that's playable via the pre-alpha that you can download below.

https://kck.st/2EALfy5

Recent updates:

• 6x larger open world
• new port options
• New AI Shooting/targeting
• Better UI
• Improved save functions
• Randomized Ports
• Title Screen