Oh wow thanks for the great suggestions and kind words, glad you’re enjoying the game!
It’s funny, your ideal scenario is almost exactly what I have in mind for the first PvP map coming soon, a slower predetermined map with historic factions/safe zones and ofc lots of combat with bots or people
I can definitely revisit the trim and responsiveness. Buried in the settings in ship logs you can move the wheel to the other side, need to make that more accessible
This would be a different game but I'd enjoy just sailing around semi-realistic maps with realistic wind. I pixellated Hundred Rabbits simulator would be pretty cool.
What a flattering comparison! I’ve gotten so many requests for an auto sail trim I might have to add it in, there definitely is a bit of learning curve to battling with the wind
a middle approach could be a trainer mode where you can say your desired direction of travel and the game gives you a suggestion of heading + trim. think like the driving line in racing sims, it doesn't brake for you but it helps you develop intuition of what to do when. a oldtimey map line drawn on the ocean to show where when to tack at what angle would be so nice. especially for the longer hops between islands.
This is an amazing idea, definitely going to explore this! It could even prompt you to cut upwind and dive ships effectively, there could be a lot of depth here
hmm yeah, take that one step farther and you have your get on the ocean fast tutorial level.. go from point a to point b. fight one ship. capture a small island. then the map opens up an you are just in the first level. ready to take on the rest. it also solves the beginner problem where if you cant kill three ships in one health bar you cant capture the island to heal and you can get stuck roaming the seas looking for places to heal. with a small (but a little far away) starter island you could retreat to heal and try again.
while i have you... what does the bounty hunters thing do? i see it pop up but then nothing really happens. i keep expecting like 5 ships to try and hunt me down but nada.
I need to check out that game, I’ve sunk countless hours into the 2004 Sid Meiers games. Also lying to sail a catamaran successfully back to shore is such a pirate thing to do :) you’re ready for TinyWind
Noted on the ship turn speeds, I’ve been playing around with larger ships having slower turn radii but I do want the naval combat to have more of a planning element (setup upwind, strafe run and fire, etc)
Let me look into the boat speeds in different wind conditions. I know beam reach/crosswind is faster than parachuting downwind but maybe my downwind speed is too slow now
Super fun. How do I 'fire" though given spacebar brings up the map? Is the mouse the only option? How do I see the controls as I see the "s" key does something with the sails?
Shift has the problem of bringing up windows sticky keys dialog box if you tap it too fast. Spacebar was my instinct for fire key as well. For map it would be 'M'.
Whichever you choose, please consider displaying the controls inside the game, at least during the setup screen, don't make the user search for controls in the wiki. :)
Also the hp bar below the minimap is a bit weird, would expect it the same as enemy ships above my ship, so i can see if i'm winning or losing a cannon exchange like in a rts game. Or at least someplace more convenient to quickly glance at nearer the center of the screen.
Very fun game by the way, well done! Scratches the nostalgia itch of 'Corsairs Gold' for me.
> Shift has the problem of bringing up windows sticky keys dialog box if you tap it too fast.
An operator fixes this forever by turning off that "enable Sticky Keys" keyboard shortcut. I've not used Windows 11 or Windows 8, but in every other version that had the Sticky Keys feature, I remember there being a prominent "Don't enable Sticky Keys when you press <whatever> X times in quick succession" checkbox in the dialog that let you configure Sticky Keys and related accessibility things.
Over the years, I've seen so many videogame streamers get screwed over by the "Activate Sticky Keys??" dialog pop up that it became pretty clear that they were all keeping it in reserve for the entertainment value. Maybe regular folks get so flustered by it that they don't bother to read the system dialog that pops up.
As others mention, show the keys in the interface. It took me a while to discover accidentally, by pressing space, that I can trim the sails. You could make a graphical guide, showing a ship with arrows around, some arrows attached to the hull with keys responsible for turning the ship, some arrows attached to sails with keys responsible for trimming them. Yet another key by the cannons fire to show which key... umm... fires the cannons...
If it's only a few buttons anyway you can just show them somewhere as hints while the user isn't giving input or until they used then.
Eg just show a "m for Map\nspace to fire" until the user used each, hiding them each when the m/space is used respectively for that session (session storage so it shows up again if the user comes back later)
Shift doesn't make sense as a main key almost at all tbh.
Space to fire makes more sense than shift to fire
Edit: Shift is a modifier key. Hold shift to go from lowercase -> capitals. In FPS games shift is walking -> running. In RTS games shift is "select one of these units -> select all of these units"
I know your game doesn't have to follow these rules, you can do whatever you want. However it's worth thinking about what "language" each key on the keyboard is speaking when you want to use it.
This actually makes a lot of sense to me. Never thought about shift being a modifier key from a UX perspective, I’ll likely make space to fire and move map to M because of this thread. Thanks guys!
Really want to play this with a controller. Seems to me that a joystick to steer and another to adjust the sail would be really intuitive. Aside from that really fun, looking forward to future updates.
It’s funny, your ideal scenario is almost exactly what I have in mind for the first PvP map coming soon, a slower predetermined map with historic factions/safe zones and ofc lots of combat with bots or people
I can definitely revisit the trim and responsiveness. Buried in the settings in ship logs you can move the wheel to the other side, need to make that more accessible