By Kieron Gillen on February 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm.
I’ve been meaning to play this since seeing it was in the IGF finalists, but Leigh Alexander being happy about it in the afterglow of her cleaning up Patrick Murphy’s interview with the developers over at Gamasutra made me follow the link and play the preview version online. And it’s really cute, in a deliciously warped fashion. It’s basically a much more playful Pirates with a splash of RPG-elements and a tongue-in-cheek Steampunk approach which brings to mind Mike Mignola’s delirious The Amazing Screw-On Head. Except even sillier.
To be honest, I really just wanted to show a picture of my crewmen’s equipment. Here’s the little guys…
Which probably expresses what sort of RPG we’re talking about here. There’s basically three sorts of subgames: Diving, Fighting and Stormy-waters navigation, made easier by the three stats.
And that’s about all there is too it. You’ll probably giggle, and I suspect today is a good day for a giggle.
13/02/2008 at 15:43 Seniath says:
Gave this a try on the advice of a friend the other day. Awfully cute and certainly barmy.
And I do wish more had been made of Screw-On Head… :(
13/02/2008 at 15:43 Leigh says:
To ensure I give credit where credit is due, I did not actually conduct the interview (Patrick Murphy did), but merely cleaned it for printing :)
13/02/2008 at 15:58 Kieron Gillen says:
FIXED.
KG
13/02/2008 at 16:11 PleasingFungus says:
I gave it a shot the last time RPS mentioned it. It seemed pretty fun, and the combat was particularly hilarious, but… well, it was a demo. Pretty short.
13/02/2008 at 16:24 chesh says:
I gave it a shot based on Leigh’s recommendation too, and was absolutely smitten. Sadly, I didn’t pay enough attention to notice she said it was a demo, and was very sad when it stopped abruptly. Can’t wait for it to come out, I want to give these guys some money!
13/02/2008 at 16:40 Willem says:
Rather spiffing.
13/02/2008 at 16:49 Andrew B says:
Does it save information? That is, if I were to close the game out, and open it later today, would I have to start over?
13/02/2008 at 17:19 Andrew B says:
Well that sucks. I got pretty darn far along, got some great equipment, and then all of a sudden “A script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player to run slowly. If this continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive….”
Everything lost. I demand the ability to save.
13/02/2008 at 17:27 brog says:
very cute, but poorly balanced. it was quite easy to get the best items, at which point encounters became trivially easy.
also, there’s no suggestion that there’s anything more to the game that might induce anyone to buy it.
13/02/2008 at 18:32 Andrew B says:
“Flash preview form”
Color me an idiot.
13/02/2008 at 18:44 Fat Zombie says:
Ahhh, the Amazing Screw on Head. That pilot was ace the first time I saw it (and subsequent viewings). Pity it never got picked up by anyone.
13/02/2008 at 22:06 Zeno, Internetographer says:
O lawdy, is that some MCP?
End of line.
13/02/2008 at 22:44 Lh'owon says:
Yea, pretty much. I think the being able to get the best items was rigged for the demo, but it made the game’s (disappointingly simple) mechanics far too obvious. And there’s no reason to think the same gameplay won’t just be stretched over the entire full version.
A pity, as the game caught my imagination.
14/02/2008 at 08:50 Ixis says:
Huzzah for Steampunk!!
15/02/2008 at 05:12 U.N.I.T.Y. HQ says:
It’s games like this that remind me of the reasons I love PC gaming and indie developers. The item descriptions, as well as their accompanying graphics after you have equipped your crewmembers, are solid steampunk hilarity. Huzzah is right!
although the game is a little bit repetitive and simplistic? Still, looking forward to seeing if anything is different in the full version, and will purchase it if it is cheap enough. They should put it on steamworks, possible new bastion of hope for indie developers.
16/02/2008 at 12:05 sigma83 says:
I have a problem. It says requires ac_runactivecontent.js. From my googling I’ve surmised that it’s a flash problem, but I’ve updated my stuffs. Any clues brave interwebs?
28/02/2008 at 23:13 Hugh says:
It looks like a problem on their end – the .js file should be on their server, but is failing miserably to be found…..