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Cortez's Pirate Game

First, let me apologize for not making this topic very fancy- I'm sure you're all used to having flashy banner graphics by now. This afternoon my younger brother went off to college (his first year), and he took my computer with him until he gets one of his own. So for the time being I'm on my family computer, without Photoshop.

Okay, now I have to apologize again for not having an official title. Recently, though, I've been referring to the project as...

The Sea Sun

The Sea Sun is the name of a pirate ship that sails the seas of the Eastern Coastline. This game tells the tale of its captain and its crew on a quest that will push them to their limits.

I've been planning the project for over a year now- the entire storyline, characters and world is completely planned out in my mind. It's finally come down to actually making it.

The Story
Gavin Garland escapes from prison after three years, and regroups with his beloved ship, the Sun. In prison, he learned about a treasure map- a treasure map that leads to the legendary buried treasure of the famed pirate Dirk Dredge. Gavin's goal now: to gather a crew for the Sun, to go after the map, and to find the treasure of Dirk Dredge.

The Crew
The crew consists of thirteen members (by the end of the game), ten of whom are playable while three simply take care of the ship. My goal in this project is for each of the ten playable characters to be memorable and unique. Throughout the game, the player will be able to take control of the different characters for different situations.

Captain Gavin Garland Gavin is the main character more than anybody else, as he drives the story (although not necessarily the gameplay- since the player can choose the party). Gavin is very cocky and motivated, which are his two most distinguishing traits. He has a love for his profession as an "honest pirate", and is a very well-educated speaker, having a very persuasive way with words. He's a strong leader and isn't the captain for nothing. His special skills include navigation and piloting the Sun.

Quartermaster Donovan Donovan is Gavin's loyal friend. A big, strong guy with a soft heart, Donovan often acts as the voice of reason to the ambitious and arrogant Gavin. He acts as Gavin's second in command. He is also one of the two magicians in the crew (magic in this world is very minimal), and has the ability to use fire spells.

Boatswain Tobias Tobias, with Donovan and Malt, is one of the only crew members who returned to Gavin with the ship. For his loyalty, he was promoted to Boatswain, making him essentially the third in command. Tobias grew up the son of a librarian, but was kidnapped years ago to help another pirate crew decipher some map symbols. He's loved the pirating life ever since and despite his quiet and intelligent personality, he's one of the best pirates in the sea. Like Donovan, Tobias is a rare magician, and he knows many ice spells.

Gunner Malt Malt is one of the few female pirates- although she hardly fits the traditional role of a female. She loves explosions and heavy equipment, and being one of the three who stayed with the Sun during Gavin's imprisonment, she rightfully earned the position of gunner aboard the ship. She carries two miniature cannons strapped to her back at all times thanks to a special heavy harness around her midsection. Her special skill, quite predictably, is blowing things up.

Captain Eli Varr Varr is the captain of the royal ship Blue Maiden, and becomes a villain throughout the game, being the character in possession of the treasure map that Gavin is seeking. Like Gavin, he is arrogant and wordy, and serves as a foil to Gavin's character. Unlike Gavin, however, Varr is sneaky and underhanded, which seems like a bit of a role-reversal, as he is in the employ of the King and Gavin is a pirate.

Dirk Dredge The legendary pirate Dirk Dredge is long dead by the time this story begins, but his famous treasure starts everything. The question is- what exactly is the treasure of Dirk Dredge?

There are plenty more characters, from a young stowaway to a talking treasure chest, but I don't want to give everything away just yet.

The Graphics
The game will have a unique and fun graphical style. I'd share more examples now if it weren't for the problem I mentioned before (with my computer and photoshop, my brother took all of my WIP sprites). If you want a sample of what to expect from this game, though- go ahead and click my sig to get to my sprite topic.

The Gameplay
The gameplay will be, for the most part, like a traditional RPG, with a turn-based battle system (I hope to edit it to be more similar in look and feel to the Paper Mario battle system, however). On the map, you control all ten characters (or less, depending on what point you are at in the game) at once as you walk around. However, when you enter a battle, you will select the four characters you wish to fight with (I might even change this to three- it depends on if I can get a decent scripter to help me out).

There will also be lots of sailing in your ship with your crew, and, of course, lots of pirate stuff- like sea battles with other ships (timing cannon fires and whatnot), and pillaging villages. I also hope to incorporate a sea chart system similar to the one in Wind Waker. If I do, Tobias will be given the additional role of cartographer.

While the story itself will be pretty straightforward, the gameplay will be very non-linear. After all, you do have a ship to yourself, and you can travel to just about anywhere you'd like. I plan to have lots of side quests, with lots of treasure maps, along the way.

Anything Else...

I don't know what else to say, really. When I get my own computer back I can share more stuff graphically. Wish me luck, and leave me lot of feedback and suggestions.

Current Script Requests for the Game
Ship Sailing Movement
 
Yay pirate game. Though it does remind me quite a bit of One Peice, hopefully your character archtypes in practice will make this game seem like a completely different animal.
 
glad to see your topic started ^^
That sux about your comp, you can always have your WIP's e-mailed to you
then you can continue your work :D
Once again, I offer my "Event Scripting" services to your game if ever needed ;)
 
ryanwh said:
Yay pirate game. Though it does remind me quite a bit of One Peice, hopefully your character archtypes in practice will make this game seem like a completely different animal.

Never heard of One Piece. Can you tell me more about it so I can avoid more similarities?
 
Well it's kinda hard to avoid anything related when it comes to simple pirate plots. I mean they're after treasure. There's only so much you can do with it from there, ya know?

Anyways, I think this'll be a light(non complicated) enjoyable game. I'm gald you've put a lot of effort into this and I look forward to seeing it come to life. The parts that have me intrested is the pillaging and cannon things. Sounds like a lot of fun if you can pull it off. :D
 

Kest

Member

Just make your story good, don't worry about if it crosses another one.

Already sounds interesting; the main character reminds me of the two from Road to El Dorado, which I liked a lot.
 
Raven The Dark Angel said:
Well it's kinda hard to avoid anything related when it comes to simple pirate plots. I mean they're after treasure. There's only so much you can do with it from there, ya know?
Not really. There has never been "hidden pirate treasure", EVER. This tall tael as well as the whole treasure map thing is an urban myth loosely based off of Captain Morgan's sacking of Panama. There wasnt very much to go around, and many pirates suspected Morgan was hoarding a larger portion of the gold than his cut. Hence, the pirate gold legend was born. In reality pirates started off as seedy privateers hired by rival nations(like france against briton, briton against spain, etc.) to raid trade ships to the new world and following a peace accord and anti-piracey laws suddenly privateers who were getting paid by their nations to do what they were doing could get executed for it. Most ended up getting screwed over by their perspective motherlands(especially brit privateers) hence they turned to a generally indescriminate type of piracey in the carribean and eastern shore starting the 'age of piracey'.</history lesson>
There's plenty an imaginative person can do with the concept without stepping on another author's toes.
 
Hmm, my opinion on the matter is that if your story resembles even a little bit of another story, it's a compliment to the copied story. (Imitation is the highest form of compliment) If you can avoid copying stuff, good for you, if not, as long as it's not blatantly copying elements, then no biggie..
 
I'm not copying anything, though.

Treasure maps and buried treasure, whether real or not, have long been a part of the entire genre of pirate stories.
 

Alael

Member

Cortez, if you´re looking for pirate resources and / or ideas, you can check the Ocean Siren link in my signature. The project is not encrypted, you´ll find lots of stuff there.

Oh, the credits aren´t done yet; if you want something, just message me and I´ll give you the credits list.
 
Alael said:
Cortez, if you´re looking for pirate resources and / or ideas, you can check the Ocean Siren link in my signature. The project is not encrypted, you´ll find lots of stuff there.

Oh, the credits aren´t done yet; if you want something, just message me and I´ll give you the credits list.

I'll check it out, and thanks for the offer. But I don't think I'll be needing it. As I said, I have the whole game and world planned out (the world's mapped on paper and all the main events are practically scripted in my head), and I'll be making all the character graphics originally.

I'll check it out, though, still. After all, we pirates have to stick together.
 
man, I am seriously looking forward to this game ^^
Any chance you could spirte up a little bit of a map so we can get a feel for what the world will look like?
 
From my original post...

First, let me apologize for not making this topic very fancy- I'm sure you're all used to having flashy banner graphics by now. This afternoon my younger brother went off to college (his first year), and he took my computer with him until he gets one of his own. So for the time being I'm on my family computer, without Photoshop.

I won't have RMXP for at least another month. The stage I'm in right now is all the fine-tuning on paper, and some dungeon design.
 

Rain

Sponsor

Cortez said:
From my original post...



I won't have RMXP for at least another month. The stage I'm in right now is all the fine-tuning on paper, and some dungeon design.


If anything that's a good thing.

It's going to give you the time to focus on the things people forget about and throw togther at the last minute.

It's good to see another Pirate game around here. :P
 
Today at work I thought of a title. Tell me how it feels.

"Pirate Lore"

I like the simplicity and catchiness of the phrase as a title- hope it hasn't been taken by a commercial game already- that tends to happen a lot to me.
 

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