The game was kinda cool...
...with a little bit of work this game could be perfect
Reviews for "Black Sails"
EHHH
I gives u a 7 since it was entertaining... but i agree with those guys the money making part was hard. ANd i kuld never take over flags i had enuff men but for sum reason my ship was at 30 health and my ships entire hp was 150 that was kinda anoying i culdt do anything much i started winning but the contract thing didnt make any sense ther was no poin in it they dont help u at all it hought they wuld give u reinforcements but i didnt even get a dime.
Okay, so many bugs
I would have loved to play this game, it seemed great. But it had so many bugs;
i) I had a lovely ship with 150 crew and all weapons, I found a 'boat' to attack, I lost the close combat against their 15 men in 3 seconds...
ii) The town was bugged in some places, shops wouldn't accept you to walk to them.
Also:
i) Why walk around anyway? Just let us click shops.
ii) Money is silly sometimes, it costs a lot to keep going.
iii) Other weapons should kill some crew, it's silly that bombs don't.
This game is magnificent... EXCEPT:
1) You need a better camera in the battles, one that is focused on your ship.
2) You need more intelligent enemy ships, that don't just sail off screen and never come back... or at the very least, you need an arrow telling you which way they went.
3) You need to get rid of the "Chain Shot" weapon. If the enemy ships hit you with it 2 or 3 times, you are dead in the water, even if your ship has a dozen sails... but if you hit them with it, they don't slow down at all. And once you ARE dead in the water, it's no fun trying to hunt down the second ship, is it?
4) In fact, you should make it so that the more damage a ship sustains, or the more of its crew members are killed, the more slowly it moves - that makes sense. But you would have to make sure that this applied to both you AND your opponents.
5) You need a way to exit a battle without having to surrender your ship. If you devastate an enemy ship but run out of ammunition before you can destroy it, you should be able to just sail away. It can hardly stop you, can it?
6) If you DO surrender your ship, you shouldn't automatically be returned to the main menu screen, because it's as bad as dying! Instead, you should return to the map of the Caribbean, but you're now in the tiniest boat...
7) ...And it would be nice if, sometimes, the enemy ships surrendered to you, instead of just blindly fighting to the death. You could even have an option where you invite your opponent to surrender - and the more damage they've sustained, the more likely they are to agree.
8) If you survive a battle but sustain heavy damage, your ship should STAY damaged until you reach a port and pay for it to be repaired. And if you manage to capture an enemy ship, that should retain the damage that you just inflicted upon it - which would encourage you to take it by boarding, instead of just pounding it with Grape Shot like I usually do.
9) ...And if your opponents pound YOU with Grape Shot and kill all your crew, then you should lose, obviously! You can't fight with a crew of zero.
10) If you succesfully capture an enemy ship, you should get MORE money at the end of the battle - not LESS! I mean, if you sink an enemy ship, you might get some kind of reward from your king or something... but if you CAPTURE an enemy ship, you would get a reward AND the plunder from the ship!
11) ...And if you decide to become a pirate and attack everyone, then you should ONLY get money if you capture a ship - if you destroy it instead, you get nothing, because who would pay a pirate to sink ships? Also, for this reason, when you are ATTACKED by pirates, they should not just try and blow you up - they should try to board you. 'Cos that's what pirates do!
12) You need a bigger square of ocean in which to do battle... or maybe just redesign the whole way in which the battles are fought. I mean, why not just have your ship on the left, the enemy ship(s) on the right, and, using the left and right arrows, you just move closer or further away from them. If you are faster than they are, you can press 'left' and sail away, until you are out of range of their cannons... or even until you sail off the screen, at which point the battle ends and you return to the map of the Caribbean. But if they are faster than you, they can sail left faster than you can, and so you have to battle it out with them - or press 'right' until you crash into them, at which point a boarding action ensues...
13) In the boarding battles, and the battles to try and take over a town, you need more control over what is happening... it's boring just sitting there waiting to see who wins. If you can see that you're going to lose, you should at least be able to tell your men to retreat and then sail away in the little boat. And if you have far more men than your opponent, you should defeat them more quickly than if you are evenly matched... or again, you could invite them to surrender!
14) ...And if you do conquer a town, YOU SHOULD GET SOME MONEY FOR IT!
A long review - but then, this game is worth it. MAKE A SEQUEL! Please.
Its good, but it needs work
I like the game system. Its easy to use, well designed, and nice looking. The music is very good as well.
Unfortunately, it has a really annoying flaw, and a couple of minor ones.
First, and most important, is camera drift. If you and another boat are trading shots right against the edge of the map, the camera has a tendancy to drift away from view until you don't even know where you are anymore. You should upgrade it so that the camera stays centered on your craft at all times. This is incredibly irritating to deal with as you must physically manuver your ship to get the camera to reset to where you can see again.
For some small improvements, I suggest adding a trading system or missions. The game is a fun combat simulator, but that's all it is. It has the potential to be a lot more.
You did do a really good job on the game engine though. Make a few minor improvements and fix the camera problem and it could be top 50 material.
Oh, and for people complaining about difficulty?
Upgrade your guns. Seriously. The first thing you want to concentrate on is longer ranged cannon. If you can sit back and shell someone without getting hit yourself, you can pretty much win any battle if your ammunition holds out. Hell, Nelson did that at Trafalger.