The Caribbean Sail V1.5.1

Welcome aboard sailor!

Since the sale and update last week, I've seen an Ocean of new messages in bottles. They always make me laugh when play testing so I've decided to start posting my favorites to the Victorian Clambake twitter: @Tophat_Scallop

Another week another update!

Tired of being a loyal Englishman? No more must you serve the Queen! After raiding a ship you can now take their flag and fly it proudly! Use the new Spanish, French, Danish, Dutch, and Pirate flags to show your true colors or just trick the enemy into letting you board. The way ship encounters work has been changed so you can use your spyglass (Now given to you from start) to determine the approaching ship's banner and then raise your own. Use this to board the French ships or just gain first strike in battle. Pirates still don't care who you are and will attack anyway. Also, more particle effects.

Being such a big and complicated update accounting for so many different combinations of ship types and flags, I wasn't able to ad Spanish, Dutch, or Danish ships yet- but i'm working on it! 

There have been quite a few bug fixes this week too. The apples are no longer so terrible they somehow make scurvy occur sooner. You can't surrender your sinking ship. You can catch the fish from the frenzy event in the net. A few other small bugs which I brushed under the rug and hopefully nobody will trip over... I MEAN FIXED! Yeah I definitely fixed them.

 -Side note, I'm using Google Translate to have the dialogue of ship captains be in the appropriate language, I'm well aware the translations may be inaccurate so if someone has a correction then call it out in the forums for me. Thank you!

The Caribbean Sail V1.5

Happy Halloween!

With new Halloween easter eggs and all kinds of dark whimsy, now is the perfect time to play The Caribbean Sail and die from losing your bowels- whether that's from the spooks and scares, or just dysentery again.

- Fixed a few rare crashes and changed the net strength to be more balanced, also set default rations to adequate and most importantly - More particle effects.

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.9

Sorry to string you along another day. I was at the end of my rope last week while caught up in making a net. The tensions are still high as I haul in another line of updates.

There's now an inventory system! I built it from the ground up the past couple weeks along with these items available from the first shop only:

• The Trawling Net - Physics enabled and perfect for catching fish with minimal effort.
• The Spyglass - More of a placeholder for a later update but you can stare at the water in a whole new way! You can also see the whale and land I guess but that's nowhere near as cools as the water.
• Fishing Bait - Toss it into the water to summon the hordes! Here's a tip for those of you who persevere through my loquacious updates: If you see little dark fish swimming in the ocean, go fishing when they're below your ship for a special event- use fishing bait when above them to catch enough fish to sink a Sloop.
• Barrel of Apples - If your crew is dying of scurvy it's probably too late- you should have thrown an apple at their head when you had the chance.
• Shanties! - This may be the most important update of all: TWO NEW SONGS HAVE BEEN ADDED SO WE NO LONGER MUST LISTEN TO "DRUNKEN SAILOR" ON LOOP UNTIL WE DIE.

 There are more items planned and half finished but I didn't want to postpone the update another week and I needed some feedback on it, so have some patience and expect more great things!

I keep saying things like "Calmed down" and "Taking some rest" but considering how hard i'm still working, I somehow started to believe that working for 12 hours a day is rest- compared to 19 hours though, I suppose it is. 

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.8

It's been a stressful first three weeks but things have calmed down as I've patched out the last few bugs and discrepancies found. This means I can start designing and building content for "Route Planning" and share the details with you all when ready.

There are still a few updates i'll implement while preparing the framework for the expansion so this week you'll find a completely redesigned logbook, it now has an index with five sections: Crew Log, Ship Log, Supplies, Journal, and Inventory. The journal is more of a personal notepad for you that is saved between voyages. The inventory tab is empty right now but necessary for preparation of new items that will help you on your journey in an update soon. 

The Frigate art was redone (again) to have two masts and be less of an eyesore. Hull depth of large ships was changed for accuracy and reefs are less dangerous now- but still deadly. I corrected the terminology as to no longer call St. Georges Cross a Union Jack (Dev Tip: Write dialogue after making the art)

A lot of behind the scenes work is going on but you'll see more updates next week!

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.7

After a hectic first launch week I've taken some time to rest, plan ahead, and do some important code clean up for the expansions. I've also made a few updates worth mentioning.

Continuity has been improved by making it rain during battles or reef crossings when appropriate, praise the rain! No longer will you have to be confused about the currency you're using because i've extended the font library and changed "E" to "£" - they were pounds all along! Not the weight, the UK currency. To my surprise, the lowest achieved achievement is still "Reel it back" so get out there and catch 100 fish with one harpoon without taking a break! I added an achievement stat counter for it- but Steam updates it rather slowly.

I've enjoyed reading all your messages in bottles! Plenty of messages even saltier than the water they're in but it's really spiced up play testing. One day, our 8-bit ocean will just be a surface of bottles and corpses border to border.

- ON ANOTHER NOTE - 

A friend and I participated in the Gamejolt Dreamhack Jam and made a game in 48 hours. It's called "Captain Cutter's Last Stand" - a punchy melee combat game where your goal is to survive as many waves of Squid's as you can. It's completely free so if you'd like, check it out here!

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.6

You asked for it, I delivered!

Messages in Bottles can now cross over between players! You MUST opt-in by going to settings and enabling online bottles. This was one of the trickiest features to make and may need work but with a large player base now i'm sure you'll help me find any problems in no time.

Another change has been to the profession menu, no longer must you dream of what the glorious pixelated face of a fisherman looks like- You can view every occupation and it's perks in the menu! Not enough? Well now you can be a Surgeon! 

The RNG also had a few small adjustments to lessen the absurd Influenza epidemic during storms along with more common food spoiling and battle injuries. Wondered what your hull integrity was while sailing? It's been added to the logbook and while at very low hull integrity the leaks will continue on main sailing screen- that won't get annoying for Raft sailors i'm sure. Defeated ships will have more than just food now, sometime's they'll have cannonballs or harpoons.

The feedback has been fantastic and I love hearing what you all have to say! Lot's of great ideas.

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.5

Prepare yourselves for September 19th when the Caribbean Sail launches on Steam!

This update contains a few polishes before release - A new song for liars dice. Slightly modified AI because that wasn't hard enough already. You can now catch Swordfish rarely when fishing. There's also a new fishing event where if you see some little fish passing by while sailing you can try to catch an entire school of fish! - before you start loading your ship down with so many fish that they spill over the side, they can spoil now. If you make your crew eat spoiled fish they have a chance of contracting ciguatera.

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.4

Been polishing the hull of this game and making sure it's not infested with bugs before it sets out from port next week. Ever thought "Gee, the Caribbean Sail is alright- but you know what would really make it great? Liars dice!" -oh... you never thought that? Just me? Well, the entire game of liars dice is now playable in London at the newly added Pub! A few small tweaks here and there, a "fullscreen" bug should  be fixed, a reminder to buy supplies before leaving port, and a few more little additions.

We're nearly ready to set out! This Captain is very excited.

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.3

What happened to V1.4.2 you asked? It came and left in the night because...

Tomorrow morning the Steam coming soon page will go live! Prepare yourselves as the date draws near!

As for the patch: You can now amputate all of your crews limbs and ships move a little in combat. Time passes slowly while you're anchored, you can try to flee from pirates and a few music changes were made in friendly menus to keep those glorious tunes playing while you talk or shop- the birds squawk at you too now. There are also more particle effects and a few bug fixes and some small text adjustments.

The Caribbean Sail V1.4.1

As the new month draws near, I'm aiming my efforts towards Steam. There may be a few more small updates to come but most of my time will be spent on marketing and preparing for the Steam release.

Hopefully you've enjoyed the story button on the main menu because now it has been replaced with STATISTICS! Yes! Now YOU can read all kinds of number based information about how many minutes you've spent hypnotized by the ocean, how bad you are at hitting fish compared to the amount of harpoons you've thrown, how many men you've sent to their death's AND MORE! Thought the leaderboard had seen it's best days? Nevermore! The scoring menu has been changed to award points for Food, Currency, and increased Luxury value! A small button was added to the ship selection menu to give you more information on the ships. There are quite a few abandoned ships floating around the Ocean as of the new disease buffs which will dwindle down the health of your underfed crew. The raft also has had it's minimum speed increased from 0 to 1 so you don't spend so much time in the middle of the Atlantic being circled by sharks- and finally, go fishing for a fantastic new surprise!