02 Apr 2024Developer post

Making Waves #4: From skiff to ship

⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️ Welcome back to our little blog series about how and why Sagres was made. We hope you found the first parts ( here , here , and here ) interesting! We’ll pass straight to ooze this time, as he’s going to tell us about some of his earliest design deci

⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️

Welcome back to our little blog series about how and why Sagres was made. We hope you found the first parts (here, here, and here) interesting! We’ll pass straight to ooze this time, as he’s going to tell us about some of his earliest design decisions, and show how the game’s visuals evolved over time.

The Age of Discovery (the 1990s!)

“Sid Meier’s Pirates was a huge inspiration from the start,” says ooze, “though the further development went on the more I leaned towards making a more convenient, less punishing experience than that particular game.

There was another title released in Japan called Daikoukai Jidai [known as Uncharted Waters in the West]. Back in the early 90s I found it utterly enthralling.

It wasn’t long after that though that the well of games in this genre pretty much dried up. When I grew up and realised that many players younger than I may not get that same feeling from contemporary games, I decided to make one myself!

As a solo developer I was very conscious of the game’s visuals early on. I didn’t want the game to look like it was made by a single developer. Looking back at some of those early designs now though, I think the game has come a long way from those first days tinkering in GameMaker!”

Safe harbour

As ooze says, Sagres was built using the GameMaker engine. We asked him about his experience with it and if he had any advice for budding developers who are thinking of using it themselves.

“GameMaker is a fun tool,” he told us. “It may be less useful for 3D games, but if you are aiming for 2D games then this is an engine that I can confidently recommend. It's an engine that people with less experience in development can easily pick up and learn to make their development dreams come true.”

***

That’s all from us here at Kakehashi Games - and thank you to ooze for giving us a bit of insight into the development journey of Sagres.

We really hope you have found this little blog series interesting. If you have any feedback or questions then feel free to get in touch!

Until next time: Fair winds and following seas! 🌊

Ooze and Kakehashi Games

Original post

18 Mar 2024Developer post

Making Waves #3: Building the crew of Sagres (pt.2)

⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️ Last time we took a closer look at Fernando, Lucia, and Sir Antonio. Today, let’s discover more about the extended cast of Sagres (with some input from the developer, ooze - thanks ooze!). *** Amelia “Amelia was designed to be a natural villain for t

⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️

Last time we took a closer look at Fernando, Lucia, and Sir Antonio. Today, let’s discover more about the extended cast of Sagres (with some input from the developer, ooze - thanks ooze!).

***

Amelia

“Amelia was designed to be a natural villain for the story, who was seemingly destined to meet a miserable end,” says ooze.

“However, during the course of development she grew on me quite a bit, and so I expanded her role considerably (including altering what was going to be a very bad ending for her!).

I hope I was able to convey how the harsh environment of sea voyages in the 15th century might lead to a twisted personality like hers.”

Chama

You’ll bump into Chama during the second act of the story when you manage to reach Central America. She’s the only one in her tribe that can speak Portuguese, which makes her a vital ally for Fernando and his crew when they find themselves in sticky situations.

“Chama falls in love with Fernando at first sight,” says ooze. “Fernando is probably responsible for her passion for learning the Portuguese language and for foreign cultures.”

Nicolau

Nicolau is a likeable guy: a sailing veteran and a source of early game information for the player as they start out their adventure.

[Note: When we asked ooze about Nicolau we got spoilery information back, so we’ll hide this quote for folks who are yet to finish the game!]

“In my original story drafts, Nicolau was actually supposed to die in an event related to the American continent!” ooze says. “But I eventually became so attached to him that I just couldn’t do it. Listening to player feedback it seems he is a lot of people’s favourite character, which is really nice to hear!”

***

Thank you for reading - and let us know if there’s a particular area of the game you'd like to hear more about or give feedback on! Next time we’ll take a look at how Sagres changed over the course of development.

Until then: Fair winds and following seas! 🌊

Ooze and Kakehashi Games

Original post

04 Mar 2024Developer post

Making Waves #2: Building the crew of Sagres (pt.1)

⛵️ Hello again Navigators! ⛵️ As you might have seen in our last development post ( here ), making Sagres was all about conveying a sense of connection. To do this the game needed a cast of characters who are fun to travel alongside and who can help bring this theme to the fore.

19 Feb 2024Developer post

Making Waves #1: Setting sail with Sagres

⛵️ Hi there, Navigators! ⛵️ For any players out there who are enjoying Sagres and were wondering a little bit about where it came from or how it was made, we thought we would take a little bit of time to sit down with the developer, ooze, and share some of the stories and insight

⛵️ Hi there, Navigators! ⛵️

For any players out there who are enjoying Sagres and were wondering a little bit about where it came from or how it was made, we thought we would take a little bit of time to sit down with the developer, ooze, and share some of the stories and insights from its development.

We’ll keep things nice and brief, though let us know if you find any of this sort of stuff interesting and would like to hear more!

***

The first thing we spoke about was what gave ooze the inspiration to make Sagres in the first place.

“Hi folks! I’m ooze, a solo indie dev based out of South Korea, and though I’ve not done too much travelling myself I find the study of world history fascinating.

My main aim when setting out to make Sagres back in April 2022 was to present a world in which the player could explore and discover, perhaps for the first time, some of the fascinating real life history that’s out there.”

Right now we live in a world that feels divided - of course into countries, but also peoples and cultures. One of the things that connects us all is this planet we live on and our shared collective history. Was this something that ooze wanted to explore? And why did he end up using this specific (and underrepresented!) time period setting?

“During the Age of Discovery in the 1400s there was a concerted effort to make connections across the globe. I wanted to explore and encapsulate that spirit of adventure, discovery and, ultimately, connection.”

Real world history throws us some stark lessons and often dark events overshadow things. This was something ooze was conscious of too when creating the world of Sagres.

“Of course, there are dark sides to history, and I make sure to represent that in the game too. Primarily though I wanted Sagres to be a warm experience, where players could feel that sense of connection to history in a positive way.

One area I was very concerned with was the authenticity of the historical elements. I grew up and live in South Korea, so there are certain things outside of my immediate innate cultural knowledge (for example what was it like in South America in the 15th century?). I wanted to make sure I presented things meaningfully for people discovering them for the first time, but also for those who are really familiar with them.

After all, the landmarks and discoveries that feature in the game are often extremely precious treasures for the cultures that they hail from, and so I was very conscious of presenting them accurately and with care.

I hope I did a good job, and that players will let me know what they think!”

***

That’s all for now. Next time we’re going to pester ooze for his thoughts and recollections on Sagres’ cast of characters. We’ll find out where they came from and how they changed over the course of development.

Until then: Fair winds and following seas!

Ooze and Kakehashi Games

Original post

30 Jan 2024Developer post

The Lunar Update: Simplified Chinese, Steam Deck Verified, and more!

⛵️ Calling all Navigators! ⛵️ We’re excited to announce that Sagres has been fully localised into Simplified Chinese (just in time to celebrate Chinese New Year)! 🐲Year of the Dragon🐲 For all of our Chinese-speaking players this means you can now get the full Sagres experience

⛵️Calling all Navigators!⛵️

We’re excited to announce that Sagres has been fully localised into Simplified Chinese (just in time to celebrate Chinese New Year)!

🐲Year of the Dragon🐲

For all of our Chinese-speaking players this means you can now get the full Sagres experience as intended. Explore the globe (all of it!) with Fernando and his crew, discover treasures, upgrade your ship, and battle against all manner of foes (be they pirate, beast, or mythical creature).

It's been wonderful to receive feedback from Sagres players all over the world since our launch in English, Japanese, and Korean last year, and we’re beyond thrilled to invite a whole new linguistic community to the crew. Welcome aboard! ⚓

🧨All hands on Deck!🧨

Alongside that, we’d also like to take a moment to welcome players jumping in via Steam Deck. We got our green ‘Verified’ tick ✅ on Steam over the holiday period, so while the game was ‘playable’ on the device before, now it’s official!

Aside from the above, we’ve also been pretty busy introducing a treasure trove of new content and quality of life features. Take a look below and see what’s new:

🏮 ‘The Lunar Update’ changelog 🏮

10 new Navigators have joined the roster, bringing the total of recruitable crewmates across the globe up to 55. Chinese players may even recognise a few of them 👀

An assortment of visual tweaks and animations have been added, including explosive damage animations during naval combat and a completely realistic thrusting attack. We’ve also added some animations to life bars and the navigator arrow to help overall clarity.

Fans of retro-styled pixel art rejoice: a bunch of new story images have been added to illustrate key scenes across the game.

We’ve added an extra line into the save file screen to help you identify which quest you were tackling during your last play session

Some players gave us feedback that it was tricky to notice the ‘Clue’ button on the main screen when they were travelling, and so we’ve added a highlight there.

Don’t you just hate it when your shovel lets you down? Well now you’ll know well in advance when your digging implement is about to go kaput, with an upgraded excavation durability indicator.

When navigating the in game menus we’ve added a couple of additional elements to help keep things nice and clean/clear.
When playing on Steam Deck (all praise the green ‘Verified’ tick!) options that are not applicable to your device will be greyed out.
We’ve also made it smoother when switching from mouse and keyboard to controller while in game by popping a little timer on the cursor.

***

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2120310/Sagres/

A huge thank you to all our players, especially to everyone that has provided feedback on the game. Please do keep it coming, we love to hear from you and we hope to continue improving on the game in the future.

Fair winds and following seas!

Ooze and Kakehashi Games

Original post

31 Oct 2023Developer post

Secret "Ghost Ship" expedition

Lately navigators in Sagres have been hearing rumors of a secret "Ghost Ship" expedition being available after visiting Iguazu Falls. While the guild master likely won't want to talk about it you might be able to persuade him if you ask on the right day! 🎃👻

27 Oct 2023Developer post

Save system update

Calling all navigators! We are happy to announce that Sagres now features multiple save files So feel free to sail to the ends of the world without fear of your losing your progress! This update is compatible with pre-existing save files and current players will now find a "Conti

Sagres

Updates & announcements

Making Waves #4: From skiff to ship

The Age of Discovery (the 1990s!)

Safe harbour

Making Waves #3: Building the crew of Sagres (pt.2)

Amelia

Chama

Nicolau

Update: Two New Navigators!

Making Waves #2: Building the crew of Sagres (pt.1)

Lucia & Fernando

Antonio

Making Waves #1: Setting sail with Sagres

The Lunar Update: Simplified Chinese, Steam Deck Verified, and more!

🐲Year of the Dragon🐲

🧨All hands on Deck!🧨

🏮 ‘The Lunar Update’ changelog 🏮

Secret "Ghost Ship" expedition

Save system update

Patch notes (September 27th)

Sagres has set sail from Early Access!

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