The Caribbean Sail V1.5.6

It's not a big update but I found the time to implement the most interesting thing you can give someone; An unopened box. 

While sailing you'll have the chance to encounter a box that you have the choice to open. Inside may be an item you've already seen in the game or it may be the new "Medicine" I added which will improve the health of your crew! Unfortunately medicine in the 1700's didn't exactly cure people...

On another note, last week I was interviewed by Gamelyst about The Caribbean Sail and independent development! Here's a link to the article: Bam

On another other note, IndieDB is holding the voting period for the top 100 indie games of the year! If you'd like to show your support then hop on over and give us a vote: Wha-Bam

The Caribbean Sail V1.5.5

Now, you may be asking yourself "What happened in V1.5.4?" Nothing and don't worry about it.

As the holiday season approaches and the most unavoidable enemy (our families) take away our most precious and valuable asset (our time) the content updates are going to slow down, don't be too surprised if I can't push one next week. 

As for this week, I'm attempting to bring challenge back to the Atlantic by stat balancing. The career and ship stats have been wildly unbalanced since the first week I began working on the game. The entire list is too long and boring for a patch log and probably won't be the final balance patch, so climb aboard a ship and fire some feedback at me.

While not a content patch, this will significantly impact the way you play and for some- make it far more enjoyable. 

The Caribbean Sail V1.5.3

Let's get straight to the updates.

The default names auto clear while your unique names can be changed without being completely rewritten. French and Spanish ship's captains are less shy and will talk to you now. When apples spoil they are no longer thrown overboard but are added to your inventory instead so you can force your crew to eat them anyway! The sloop's hull integrity was debuffed to balance the small hitbox that made it almost impossible for enemies to hit. A badge link to the Victorian Clambake twitter account (@Tophat_Scallop) was added to the main menu- plugo plugo.

The biggest update this week is gamepad support. The game wasn't designed to be controlled by a gamepad but there have been a few requests and even I'd like to play it from the couch. I've rewritten as much of the button code as I could do without rebuilding the entire game (No joke). The second hardest part was trying to fit a virtual keyboard in for writing crew names and bottle messages. Xbox controllers work and your PS4 controller will probably work.

So here's how it works: Use the analog sticks to move the cursor and the right shoulder buttons or "A" as a left click on any screen. The d-pad can be used for swapping characters and ships on the start menu, and portion control while sailing. The d-pad can also be used in battle for aiming the cannons and "B" can be used for firing them. You can pause the game any time during play with the "Start" button. The virtual keyboard isn't great but it can get the job done, some helpful alternative keys for typing are "Y" for space, "X" for delete, and the left analog button or left trigger for capitalization. 

I know it isn't great but I just didn't consider controller support until far too late- I won't be making that mistake again on my future games. Thank you for the support and I hope you enjoy the updates as development continues!

The Caribbean Sail V1.5.2

I've been building a lot of content for the expansions in the background while working on these updates and soon the time will come when weekly updates stop and I begin working on the "Route Planning" expansion. I'll share more details soon!

The first i'll let you all decide on keeping: I changed the Hunger status to read "Hunger 30/30" from "Hunger 30" to clarify what your maximum hunger is.

Making use of those new flags? Fantastic! Now you can go and fool the new Spanish ships I added to the game or just sink them because of the war and all that... New artwork has been added for the Captains cabin and you can now play Liars Dice with English Captains! Tired of all the leaking? Purchase a bucket of Pitch and Tar from the Shop for just four easy payments £9.99! Fling it against the wall to repair a few points of damage- sorta like I do with these updates! The pause key will also pause your adventure now, and dice have a simple animation when lost to better display when a round is lost/won, and you guessed it- MORE PARTICLE EFFECTS!

The feedback has been great and I've paid close attention to all your ideas and requests! I started a forum thread where I can reply to them all in the community hub. On to the updates!

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.