Bargains, Curses & Colours
Early Access Update v1.6.53
This one is long because it covers several weeks. Everything since v1.5.6 went through the playtest first, over several updates, and it all lands on the main game today. If your last voyage was v1.5.6, everything below is new to you.
Three new things behind the "?"
Uncharted Waters can now roll three new encounters.
Devil's Bargain: Mistress Ashgrave offers three pacts. Iron Oath gives 250 max hull, but your guns reload 25% slower. Powder Pact gives 25% more cannon damage, but enemy hits land 20% harder. Wind Pact gives 2 more top speed, but every fight brings an extra Sloop. The boon stays for the run, the price lasts until the end of that sea. Or refuse and leave
Cursed Wreck: sail in and a curse comes aboard, one of six. Damp Powder slows your reload, Torn Canvas caps your sails, Rotten Timbers makes enemy hits land harder, Tinder Hold sets you on fire twice as often, Bounty on Your Head brings an extra Sloop, and Fog of the Damned hides the chart ahead. Most last three encounters and carry into the next sea. Bear one to the end and the shipwrights owe you a free rebuild
Clue Hunt: your captain reads a clue about a landmark in a reef bay. Find the spot, follow the sonar and cast the net to bring up a cache. There are three hauls, each richer than the last, and once you choose to risk another one there is no leaving with half
Elites and Figureheads
Every chart now marks two Elite fights. The first Elite you beat in a run lets you pick one of three Figureheads for the bow, and it stays for the whole voyage:
Ram Figurehead: harder rams that ignore bracing, and the rammed ship loses its helm for a moment
Gun Deck: faster reload and more cannon damage
Armoured Belt: every enemy hit lands softer, part of a ram's damage goes back to the rammer, and rakes against you lose their bonus
Each one upgrades to Tier II and Tier III at Ship Maintenance.
Treasure Hunt, reworked, and storms are a choice
Chests: on top of the regular spoils there is one gold chest and two silver ones, and they sink on a timer, the gold one first. You can't take everything, so you pick a route
The net: the magnet is gone. Sail close and the ship casts a rope net and tows the find aboard over the stern
The pier: every hunt has one island with a pier. Dock broadside to end the hunt early with what you have. Every spot is random now, so no two hunts look alike
Storms: ride a storm cell clean through and you break out with a burst of speed, but its bolt strikes your hull as you clear it. Steer around it and nothing happens. Linger inside and the lightning finds you
Every voyage ends properly now
A won campaign used to end on a card. Now it ends at sea.
When a boss sinks, it strikes its colours. Scoop the flag and it flies from your mast for the rest of the run
After the first sea the harbour lights up for you. After the second, a messenger sloop under a white flag brings a letter from the last captain, and the port keeps a night watch
Beat the third sea and you sail home under fireworks. The captains you sank are called by name, and your captain writes the win into the ledger
The chart and the win screens now show the run's difficulty
13 languages
Pirate Twist is now translated into Polish, Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Indonesian. Turkish, Indonesian and Traditional Chinese are new. To be straight with you: much of the newer text, and those three languages in full, is machine-assisted and reviewed once, not proofread by native speakers yet. If a line reads wrong in your language, please tell me.
The demo is updated too
The free demo now starts at Port with a freshly rebuilt ship, no tutorial in the way, and sails the First Sea on a chart of two lanes that changes every run, all the way to the same boss ending. If you levelled Rourke in the demo on this computer, he keeps those levels in the full game.
The world got a pass
A player told me the art didn't hang together, and they were right. The sea now has one dusk light per sea, the islands, the coast and the shore props were repainted to match, ships cast a shadow on the water, and wind streaks run across the sea. Fish, drifting wreckage and rocks fill every encounter and cave. The main menu has its final artwork, and the bosses have new sounds from the sound designer.
Easier to read
Objectives: a checklist under the compass shows what's left in each encounter, and finished rows are crossed out
Docking: after a fight, a DOCK button (also in the pause menu) takes you straight to the pier and the haul
Damage: hits you take read red, with an arc on the hull pointing at the shooter
Aim: the range mark turns gold when a broadside would land
Text Size now works on the port and in-game screens too
The Trading Post wager now plays out with dice or cards at the Chandler's table, and shows your real chance to win
The Codex lists every ammo's damage, reach and price, and the Captain screen shows every captain passive
The tutorial is longer and covers the Bargain, the crew, the hunt, a short cave and the boss. Its guides are optional and stay in the Codex afterwards
Controllers and Steam Deck
Buttons show your pad's glyphs, focus is a gold rim around whatever is selected, and a long list of dead ends is gone: the Port, Ship Maintenance, Crew, the Bargain, the Trading Post and the Settings tabs all work on a pad now. The Deck can cast the plunder net, Start opens Pause on the chart, and DOCK has a pad shortcut. If your pad gets stuck anywhere, tell me where and we will fix it together.
Balance, the honest version
Some of this makes the game easier and some of it makes it harder. All of it:
Enemy hits no longer scale with your max hull. I added that in v1.5.6 and it went too far: upgrades stopped making you tougher. Enemy damage still grows with the sea, the difficulty and NG+
No enemy gun reloads faster than once a second. On high NG+ Pirate Lord some were firing almost nonstop
Rebuilding gets cheaper on a bad streak: the first wreck on a map pays in full, the second half, the rest a quarter. It used to climb with every wreck
Captain and Pirate Lord: the first two pirate fights of the first sea are gentler, and captains below level 3 earn 50% more XP from kills and encounters
Deckhand keeps its easy start, but enemies push harder as the voyage goes on. That's a nerf
Elite Corsairs and the Scourge get a thicker hull every sea. They were folding in one broadside on the second sea
Reyes's Call the Storm hits bosses for less: one bolt now tops out at 80 on a boss (100 with Captain's Authority). Pirates take what they did before
Getting caught under a storm cell hurts more than it did
Crew berths cost 300 gold and 50 Crew Supplies, instead of 500 gold, 250 wood and 100 iron
The Sea Cave pays more, and easy and medium caves are smaller mazes
In Defend the Port each fire ship now comes as two smaller ones
Ammo beyond what your hold can store turns into gold instead of being lost
Fresh pirates now arrive outside cannon range
Fixed, from your reports
Sea Cave: walls can't sink you anymore (the rocks already couldn't), the ship's lantern keeps burning when the fire shots run out, a decisive turn dodges falling rocks, and the cave tells you on the way in that the exit is not the way you came
Rebinding a key no longer leaves an old hidden key in charge
The resolution list only offers modes your display can show, and refresh rate has its own row
The Smuggler's Culverin is in stock in every expedition instead of showing SOLD OUT
The main menu no longer starts silent now and then
Boss lines no longer assume your captain is a man
Statistics has a RESET button, and Ship Lost shows what you collected on the voyage
The download is smaller
Thank you to everyone on the playtest and to the players who wrote reviews, sent recordings and filed reports. A lot of this update is your sentences turned into code.
Bugs and ideas go to the Discord. Or just come and say hi.