Sea Titans - Pirate Theme Survival/RPG

[Captain Murphy]

This is a game we have been working on for some time now, it is a more dynamic RPG/survival style game. Lots of more dynamic world building and more. The goal is to create a fully dynamic type of world and experience where the player can determine their world before starting. You can check out more information over at our site:
Sea Titans Game

Here is an excerpt from the site:

Sea Titans will feature a vast open world, where the main aim at first is to salvage and survive the days after you are washed up marooned on a island. The wreck of the ship you sailed in is broken up around your starter location, a small sandy cluster of islands. Your main objective at this point is surviving and building a small raft to get to the near islands. Then to build a bigger raft to cross bigger waters to populated islands further away. At these islands you will learn more skills through quests, which will make it possible for the player to build its own base/house and start building a ship to be able to cross even longer distances.

The player will then assume the role of a captain in control of a ship. An ever-changing economy will affect the game world and the decisions the player makes. The player may choose to lead an honest merchant life, or resort to piracy – or both… each path being equally rewarding and engaging. The player will have to fight pirate lords and Pirate Titans to take control over areas and to learn more skills. The Pirate Titans control the outer parts of the known world.

The Sea Titans world will be a bit stylized with realistic looking textures.

Salty Sea Dogs has plans to allow for modding Sea Titans and also plans to release DLC’s where the player can swap out the “Stylized” elements of the game with realistic looking assets. We have no long term plans for a multi-player version. We feel that it dilutes the focus of the game. We MAY decide on a coop capable version at a later date, though that entirely depends on the release state and schedule.

Download!

 

[Dat Scharger]

Do you have to pay for the DLC or will it get released for free?

But THANK GOD no multiplayer! Nowadays it's refreshing enough to have a game which doesn't force an online-experience on you.

 

[Captain Murphy]

To be honest, the DLC pricing will be decided much further down the road. It will also depend on whether we end up being able to create the assets ourselves or end up having to license ones to round out the package.

 

[Dat Scharger]

Because I don't think it's a good idea to already announce paid DLC when the game isn't even out. Better after release.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Because I don't think it's a good idea to already announce paid DLC when the game isn't even out. Better after release.

You were the one who said "paid"; @Captain Murphy left that up in the air.
He simply doesn't know yet.

Pretty sure he wrote that bit to calm down the "realism brigade".
Also, he mentioned only a DLC to change the look of the game.
Nothing about actual gameplay or story content.

 

[LarryHookins]

It looks pretty good so far. I agree about not forcing the player to do mulitplayer.

It is FAR too early to worry about possible DLC pricing. Personally I'd rather pay for a good DLC than get a mediocre one for free, and if they have to license assets then charging for DLC is certainly appropriate.

Hook

 

[Homo eructus]

I'm not too keen on the idea of a DLC that changes stylized assets for realistic ones. That tells me that the developers aren't too convinced themselves with their own design choices. The art direction is as much part of a game as anything else, and it should be in the design core of the game. Player freedom of choice is good but it should never trump a properly thought out design. That's my view, anyway. Best of luck with the project.

 

[Dat Scharger]

You were the one who said "paid"; @Captain Murphy left that up in the air.
He simply doesn't know yet.

Pretty sure he wrote that bit to calm down the "realism brigade".
Also, he mentioned only a DLC to change the look of the game.
Nothing about actual gameplay or story content.

"the DLC pricing will be decided much further down the road"

No word about "Might be free or not", just about the pricing.

I'm afraid that announced DLC before release just sounds like "Cutting content to make extra money" for me, after all those shenanigangs the professional developers pulled. Yes, a different art-style isn't "cut content", but I think that kind of stuff just makes paranoid^^

 

[Pieter Boelen]

"the DLC pricing will be decided much further down the road"

No word about "Might be free or not", just about the pricing.

It means "no decision has been made yet".
Which makes sense, because their focus is on getting the basics fully operational.

"A decision about pricing" can also mean "no pricing".
Don't read more into it than what is there.

I'm afraid that announced DLC before release just sounds like "Cutting content to make extra money" for me, after all those shenanigangs the professional developers pulled. Yes, a different art-style isn't "cut content", but I think that kind of stuff just makes paranoid^^

I know these people; they're really not like that.
Plus the way their development works, any DLC wouldn't be "deliberately cut content"; it would be "content that gets added after the base game is finished".
The reason is simple: them focusing purely on the base game first means there's a higher chance of the game actually getting done!

If you can find it in yourself, please try to look past the paranoia.
It doesn't do anyone any good; least of all yourself...

 

[Captain Murphy]

It means "no decision has been made yet".
Which makes sense, because their focus is on getting the basics fully operational.

"A decision about pricing" can also mean "no pricing".
Don't read more into it than what is there.


I know these people; they're really not like that.
Plus the way their development works, any DLC wouldn't be "deliberately cut content"; it would be "content that gets added after the base game is finished".
The reason is simple: them focusing purely on the base game first means there's a higher chance of the game actually getting done!

If you can find it in yourself, please try to look past the paranoia.
It doesn't do anyone any good; least of all yourself...

No, no no, Pieter, we are making the base game where you get some islands. The first DLC is characters, then the next DLC is swords, after that comes the Ships DLC, and later you get the Quests and Inventory UI DLC... we aren't 'cutting' content, we are adding to it!

"the DLC pricing will be decided much further down the road"

No word about "Might be free or not", just about the pricing.

I'm afraid that announced DLC before release just sounds like "Cutting content to make extra money" for me, after all those shenanigangs the professional developers pulled. Yes, a different art-style isn't "cut content", but I think that kind of stuff just makes paranoid^^

Here, I will answer your question.... for everyone else it may or may not have a price, for you, it will be expensive.

I'm not too keen on the idea of a DLC that changes stylized assets for realistic ones. That tells me that the developers aren't too convinced themselves with their own design choices. The art direction is as much part of a game as anything else, and it should be in the design core of the game. Player freedom of choice is good but it should never trump a properly thought out design. That's my view, anyway. Best of luck with the project.

We are perfectly convinced of our art style. The reason we are going go do a 'real' pack is because 1 in 5 people have the first question of 'IS IT GOING TO BE REALISTIC?!!???!??!?!?!???". Putting realistic ships into our stylized world may be possible but it doesn't fit for our design style, but we have gotten SO MANY requests for realistic looking assets that we just CAN'T ignore it and decided to announce the DLC and plan for it after the base game was built with another possible 20% in sales because of some changes to assets.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

No, no no, Pieter, we are making the base game where you get some islands. The first DLC is characters, then the next DLC is swords, after that comes the Ships DLC, and later you get the Quests and Inventory UI DLC... we aren't 'cutting' content, we are adding to it!

Makes sense; one thing at a time.

It does match with what I said: that the DLC wouldn't be "leaving stuff out", but "adding stuff in".

We are perfectly convinced of our art style. The reason we are going go do a 'real' pack is because 1 in 5 people have the first question of 'IS IT GOING TO BE REALISTIC?!!???!??!?!?!???". Putting realistic ships into our stylized world may be possible but it doesn't fit for our design style, but we have gotten SO MANY requests for realistic looking assets that we just CAN'T ignore it and decided to announce the DLC and plan for it after the base game was built with another possible 20% in sales because of some changes to assets.

1 in 5? Wow, I'm surprised!

 

[Captain Murphy]

With anything, the closer you get to 'real' the more criticism you will take for it because people will think they know more about it than you. Case in point is Tides of War. We were bombarded with 'experts' pretty regularly on every subject from sails to guns to buoyancy to damage of the ships. I can see why NA, very quickly, went down the 'realism' route when only a fraction of players really enjoyed those aspects. Unfortunately, that minor subset of players tend to be VERY vocal and it is hard to ignore. You notice that the game Skull and Bones stays REALLY far from realistic with their own stylized versions of everything. I can bet it reduces the amount of critique they take.

The 1:5 rate comes from a survey I did a few months back on a gaming forum and fed them a 'fake' game under a fictitious name. We presented two game types, same mechanics, same base design, some varying versions of mechanics, different levels of stylistic appearance. From the feedback, 4 of 5 want to drive around and get into fights with pirates, loot treasure, trade with islands, etc. Then 1 in 5 want to do the same things, but they REALLY want the world to look realistic even though the actual gameplay would not be.

Two hurdles to the 'realism' direction are: 1. we don't like it... we want the game more stylized so that we can set a more specific tone, 2. matching the style of assets is much harder and you end up with a more mish-mosh aesthetic and we don't want that. Making things look realistic in a world where you can do the things we are allowing/preparing creates something of an "uncanny valley" as well. It is much easier to play something with a specific stylistic look that is NOT realistic and accept that the things happening are just the way it is before doing it all realistic and accepting that things are happening in the 'REAL WORLD'.

Now, I want to give you an idea what 'stylistic' means to us. You will notice in the video that the textures are PBR, the plants and grass are real texturing, the sky and water are realistic. That is intentional, none of that gets turned cartoony like it will in Puddle Pirates later builds. Flannery actually posted pictures of his work in this thread at the bottom of this post. The bottom ships are the style of the world in terms of shape and character, the textures will be PBR 4k with photo scan or custom made photo realistic textures.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Release plan for those that didn't see it on the website:

The game is planned to be released in several stages:

• Island Survival
  • This game state is simple. Start on an island, survive on it long enough to gather materials and tools, harvest items for building, and build/use a raft (later boat) to explore more islands in the world.
  • The world will be selectable by the player in terms of size and composition.
  • The world will only have the player, elements, time, and some environmental AI that will be roaming the world (i.e. no human characters that are interact-able other than as an enemy).
• Blackbeard the Builder
  • Player can construct buildings
  • New ships become available
  • Ships start to show customization options
  • Guns become available
• First Contact
  • Builds upon the first stage by adding in some human AI and some more exciting enemies.
  • World will have even more biomes with the world changing in style as the player moves through it
    • Moving north/south will change the temperate nature of the world (colder near the poles)
    • Moving east/west will change the type of architecture and vegetation
  • First interact-able humans that don’t want to kill you (at least at the start).
  • Trade and quests start appearing
• Pirate Hunter
  • Ship combat starts to take a role in both quests and trading.
  • Cities begin to take shape
  • Seas start to show who ‘controls’ them
  • Ship crew becomes available.
    • Hire or recruit crew to help man the braces!
• Merchant Marine
  • Cities begin to trade with each other
  • Merchants sell commodities in addition to items
  • City Governors start to affect the region
  • Trade routes, piracy, and pirate havens take shape
• Sea Titans
  • Regions take shape
    • A region can be divided on biome type, location, or even simple randomization
  • Seas are ruled by the ‘Sea Titans’ that are the kings of their respective region
  • Player can now attempt to clear a region of the Titan’s forces and claim the region for themself
  • Final game is now taking shape. From here on out it is just bug fixes and new content!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds like a solid plan to me.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Gah, for some reason this world wrap function is kicking my ass.... I think I am making it a lot harder than it needs to be. Time to go back to the napkins and crayons to see if there is something I am missing.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Gah, for some reason this world wrap function is kicking my ass.... I think I am making it a lot harder than it needs to be. Time to go back to the napkins and crayons to see if there is something I am missing.

"World wrap"? As in "round Earth"?
Yep, that's VERY annoying.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Sorta world wrap it only wraps in the east/west direction.

The 'world' is stored as a 2D array of nodes. Each node has information such as what terrain is there, what items are on the terrain, characters, buildings, etc. I rewrote the code to try and simplify it from a single array where it had to loop over all objects to determine which ones to show. Now I have it down to only needing to grab the 'next' ones in the direction the player is traveling and it can unload and save out the data of the ones it is despawning and remove them. My problem is getting it to load the next ones in the world in the east/west direction so that a 20 wide x 10 tall world will show tile 0 after tile 20 and vise versa. I think I need to just start over from scratch to get a fresh start.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sorta world wrap it only wraps in the east/west direction.

Well, that's all you need! The poles generally have annoying land/ice in the way anyway.

Good luck with figuring this one out!
It'll be a good feature to have if you want to have a seriously sizeable game world.

 

[Dat Scharger]

Is it planned when ships get added, that the player can one day build or capture different ships of the line?

 

[Captain Murphy]

Considering the scope of the game, a ship of the line is a bit large for the world. More than likely we will evaluate our ships as they grow but so far going just to a 3 masted ship (roughly sloop of war size) is probably the max.