Sneak Peek for Pirate Code 1.6.0!

A Brave New Ocean

I constantly work to improve Pirate Code, focusing on the parts that I feel are lowest quality. Over the last month or so, my focus has been on the world map. The existing ocean is a bland place. It serves it's purpose, allowing the player to travel from one place to another and find battles, but I want it to be so much more. My goal with this update is simple: I want the ocean to be a fun place to explore! To accomplish this goal, I had to create an ocean that looks different everywhere you go. This is actually very hard to do. I had to use a noise generator to generate different ocean depths and temperatures then modify an animated tile map to gradually change between the colors at every point. The results though, are stunning.

The Islands

The next step was the islands. As you can see from the screen shots, I've done away with the rings around each island and you can now interact with them directly. The islands themselves will have a variety of tiles (hexagons of course) that will help you recognize an island when you find it. The beaches on the island allow you to land on the island (similar to contacting the ring before). Again my goal is to make a place worthy of your exploration so when I'm done there should be a wide variety of islands. So far the look is rather limited to jungles and mountains but hopefully you get the idea.

Coming Soon to an Ocean Near You!

So the big question is, when will this be released? Soon. As an indie developer, I don't set release dates. But, I expect this will be ready in November or early December. The update is beautiful and I frankly can't wait for you to try it!