Hi everyone,
it's been already two weeks since we published the last patch, so we're here to give you some insight on what we've been doing and the next steps for Pixel Piracy:
Mikko is progressing fast on the next big thing Pixel Piracy: new standard XML savegame format. Yesterday the testers started playing the first builds with this system. For the ones who don't know exactly what we're talking about, this improvement will allow us to fix some of the most relevant bugs in the game, mainly the crew members tasks management system and consequently pirates AI. This will also allow us to introduce tailored content in the game, like custom islands with particular enemies and items, missions, treasures, some specific configurations and behaviours to your ship, even that popular community suggestion about being able to build a fortress will then be feasible (and we have plans to implement it!). We can safely say in a few weeks we should be done with the savegame format (testing included :).
You may also be wondering, what about the other annoying bugs in the game? As you can imagine, changing the way the game stores, loads and even generates content is a major change in the game and implies tons of testing and effort, that's why Mikko couldn't dedicate much time to other issues lately.
Anyway, we managed to get a new build out to test this weekend! Mostly, it will fix bugs related to character flipping due to excessive speed and many of the ridiculous fights amongs your pirates that usually trigger when you have overpopulated crews cleaning (and doing poop teleporting magic), to fix this, we temporarily disabled poop damage.
If everything goes as expected testing wise, this patch will be out on Monday for all of you to enjoy.
Thanks for your support and patience.
Mikko and Jesús.