By Jim Rossignol on August 25th, 2011 at 9:00 am.
I’ve not had a chance to get on the Spocean beta yet, but I wanted to get the UDK-powered project up here because it looks fantastic, and could hardly be more RPSy if it tried. It’s a game of team-based galleon-crewing warfare. Built in UDK, the game is – according to creators Woodley Games – a “woodpunk” simulation of “Napoleonic-era naval warfare from a first person perspective.” And it looks rather beautiful with it s gentle caricatures of ship-to-ship conflict. “Teams start on two separate ships, fire cannon shot at each other, and then try to board when they have the advantage,” explains the FAQ. “THEN they murder each other.”
You can get it here. (Thanks, PixelProspector!)
25/08/2011 at 09:07 Nallen says:
Where did this come from?! Looks rather cool.
25/08/2011 at 09:07 konrad_ha says:
RPS, the reddit of indy-PC-gaming.
25/08/2011 at 09:31 Gnoupi says:
With the level of “discussion” we sometimes reach in times of DRM, I’d say it’s becoming spot-on..
23/09/2011 at 00:19 former nigerian says:
with or without the huge amount of racist/sexist content?
25/08/2011 at 09:10 Squirrelfanatic says:
Official RPS group? Rock Paper Ship-gun?
25/08/2011 at 09:21 Valvarexart says:
Please, dear god, no. It is enough that reddit slows down the loading-time of the site.
25/08/2011 at 09:24 Jim Rossignol says:
Huh?
25/08/2011 at 09:29 Ghil says:
If there is count me in, I’m downloading the game as we speak.
also Valvarexart: Huh?
25/08/2011 at 09:40 yhalothar says:
He means that between reddit and RPS the site got slashdotted. I’m downloading @ 1,3 kB/s.
25/08/2011 at 10:46 Metaphorazine says:
“We’ve got three servers hosting the game, with each game capped at sixteen players.”
Something tells me we’ve got a problem…
25/08/2011 at 11:09 Ghil says:
I’m still downloading. I think I’ll drop it, and wait until they have a proper infrastructure going. Those servers are going to cry until tonight; if they can take it that long.
25/08/2011 at 14:07 ChainsawHands says:
You’re going to need a bigger
boatserver.25/08/2011 at 09:12 Sheng-ji says:
Grrrrr… Why must the internets be so slow! I want this!
25/08/2011 at 09:21 The Sombrero Kid says:
wow, looks amazing, sounds amazing – amazing!
25/08/2011 at 09:32 Tei says:
woodpunk is my new favorite word.
25/08/2011 at 09:40 G_Man_007 says:
How much wood would a woodpunk punk, if a woodpunk could punk wood?
25/08/2011 at 11:35 BooleanBob says:
However much he can, before The Man shuts him down.
25/08/2011 at 09:41 razgon says:
Weird – First glance at the picture for me looked like a bunch of leprechauns playing violin, while the dancer in the middle had collapsed from fatigue.
The game looks interesting, though!
25/08/2011 at 09:51 Akimbo says:
We’re really going to need a couple of mirrors for this thing.
25/08/2011 at 09:59 BwenGun says:
Desperately so.
25/08/2011 at 10:24 Zakkeh says:
In a way, it’s good because I can watch gsl at the same time! =D
25/08/2011 at 10:07 Inigo says:
Am I the only one who saw the screenshot and thought it was a war in Santa’s workshop?
25/08/2011 at 10:14 sneetch says:
Nope. Glad to see I’m not alone. :)
I first thought it might have been a murder mystery in Santa’s Workshop “who killed this elf?” then I saw the guns.
25/08/2011 at 10:35 Scrooge says:
“Why is Santa lying dead in his workshop?”
25/08/2011 at 10:11 HexagonalBolts says:
‘woodpunk’ – Oh. My. God. I think I’m in love…
25/08/2011 at 10:23 Zoonp says:
Here’s a slightly faster link
http://uploaded.to/file/5cqzefg0
25/08/2011 at 10:30 Vandalbarg says:
Thanks! This one doesn’t even take 10 hours. Hoorah!
25/08/2011 at 10:59 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Cheers.
25/08/2011 at 15:15 Robomutt says:
I am clearly a computer since I keep failing the Captcha :(
25/08/2011 at 10:46 Vandalbarg says:
Has anyone here played it yet? Are the ships actually destructible? Like, can the cannon shots influence the game environment? Is there a list anywhere of what you need to do, apart from load the cannons and aim? Steering, dealing with the mast, etc? Also, are the classes preset, or is it a free for all, he who is available does it kinda deal?
25/08/2011 at 12:29 Norskov says:
Here’s my first impressions. The goal is to dmage the enemy ship to weaken them, before you board. When a ship takes damage, leaks will start to appear which will damage the crew aboard.
There’s three classes, Captain, Mechanic and Medic. There’s different types of shots, from what I gather they go from fast and weak to slow and deadly.
When you are going to board, or the enemy are boarding your boat, you have to grab a weapon in the front.
You only have one life per round, but it’s possible to revive your team mates(Hold E) for everyone, not just the medic.
Leaks can be fixed by the mechanic.
25/08/2011 at 11:07 DainIronfoot says:
It’s pretty cool, not really Napoleonic, more a cool fantasy thingy. Really interesting art style!
25/08/2011 at 11:44 yhancik says:
I have no idea about the game, but I looove the style :D
25/08/2011 at 12:34 HeavyHarris says:
Sooo? How is it? Who’s played it?
EDIT: played the game for a good hour. It’s pretty cool and the concept is definitely something new. I suggest playing it.
25/08/2011 at 12:46 Oak says:
Simply reading “Napoleonic-era naval warfare from a first person perspective” filled me with glee. Please be good, please be good.
25/08/2011 at 12:48 Norskov says:
Due to the lack of info in game, it might be a good idea to read: http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=814651
25/08/2011 at 12:57 brulleks says:
Cheers Norskov. That answers a few of my questions after the first attempt at playing.
Is there any way to invert mouselook?
25/08/2011 at 12:59 Norskov says:
I still haven’t figured out how to change my name, let alone any other options.
25/08/2011 at 13:40 Raithah says:
In the future, please use the Coral Cache when linking to sites that will implode under the increased traffic (i.e. put nyud.net after the TLD portion of the URL, or for example, this) — it’s basically an updating site mirror that shifts the load onto servers that can actually take it :3
Aaaalso, uploading installers to BurnBit (the torrent’s a few hours away from finishing creation, in case someone just checked that link), which converts them into a handy-dandy torrent file, allows for quick downloads while the primary server is being hammered. Hope it helps!
25/08/2011 at 15:20 pmh says:
That one was taking too long, so I grabbed it from the uploaded.to source and am pushing it onto BurnBit now: http://burnbit.com/torrent/176004/UDKInstall_SpoceanBeta1_00_exe
edit: Up and seeding. Enjoy
25/08/2011 at 15:43 Pew pew LAZORS! says:
@pmh Thank you very much good Sir.
25/08/2011 at 14:30 fenriz says:
how does the sailing work? does everyone have a role in it? Who grabs the tiller and who the topmast?
25/08/2011 at 15:26 Anvilfolk says:
Someone make a torrent!
25/08/2011 at 15:36 JonClaw says:
http://burnbit.com/torrent/176004/UDKInstall_SpoceanBeta1_00_exe
25/08/2011 at 15:59 Anvilfolk says:
My god man! What kind of connection do you have?!
I’ll be seeding throughout the day, hopefully! We should get this torrent out there!
25/08/2011 at 16:52 Robomutt says:
Me three :)
25/08/2011 at 17:27 pmh says:
@Anvilfolk: My connection is only 35Mbps, but still better than the 1KBps I was getting from their site.
25/08/2011 at 17:37 Torgen says:
Now seeding for my fellow filthy colonials and Euros late to the party.
25/08/2011 at 16:12 Nathan_G says:
Been playing for about an hour, tis indeed rough around the edges but it’s a great little game. Lots of potential I think. Hopefully the finished product will have lots of different ships, maybe some more ammo types.
25/08/2011 at 16:41 Player1 says:
It reminds me of Air Buccaneers somehow… Fantastic little game. Have been playing it for hours now
25/08/2011 at 17:49 Anvilfolk says:
So, erm, the only button that appears to be working for me is the quit button. The buttons to join servers have 0 effect. No messages nothing. I assume they are just full?
25/08/2011 at 20:52 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Well that was pleasingly daft. Should be a fun time when the bugs are ironed out and it gets a bit more meat added.
26/08/2011 at 07:39 David Bliff says:
Hi everybody, I work with the developers, two good friends of mine, on beta testing and community updates. I just want to say thanks for all the feedback and for checking the game out! It’s really exciting to have new people other than just close friends testing. If you want updates, check frequently at http://www.spocean.net (there should be a post tomorrow), or “like” Spocean on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spocean/224274047620019
There’s also an official Steam Community group, just search for “Spocean” and it’ll come right up. Thanks, guys!
26/08/2011 at 18:19 Torgen says:
Whenever I spawn in, I’m a disembodied… whatever. I have a health bar that doesn’t move when I get hit, can’t interact with anything, and can float out of the ship through a hole and hover around outside. I do get a message in the corner that “paths need to be rebuilt” or some such.