Design Diary #1 - Pirates! - First design ideas and principles.

[@steveoh9285]

Go Nathan, go!

[@davidnichol9669]

Wow, you're absolutely steaming ahead with this. The whole thing sounds great, love the idea of a truly huge map and tons of multi purpose cards to drive the game along. Have you come across the '94 game Age of Exploration (TimJim Games)? There's a really interesting and entertaining game in there, hidden behind a bitterly unhelpful rulebook. The cards move the game along - at sea, you draw a Sea Movement card which has different sections depending on whether you're on the coast or in deeper water, which will have ramifications on the effects of storms/scurvy/wind (in many ways similar to the Eldritch Horror event cards that are divided up geographically) I'm currently reading The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans by David Abulafia - it's a huge tome and a brilliant resource for something like this, great info on who was doing what and when in the Caribbean and up and down the coast of N&S America (and everywhere else of course).

[@oscarvi3232]

I have vague memories of an old Commodore 64 game set in the same location and time... very good fun.

[@WiseGuyHistory]

@@oscarvi3232 yeah probably Sid Meier's Pirates!

[@COOPFORTWO]

A grand monster experience of pirating sounds amazing.

[@JohnRed-p8x]

This looks awesome! To assist with the design process I would suggest checking out this game 'Maracaibo' which is a great euro point salad type pirate game that may help form some further ideas for your design. Maracaibo includes many paths to victory including trading, fighting, exploring etc and it also includes a card system and point to point map.

[@WiseGuyHistory]

Oh yeah I have and really enjoy Maracaibo [and most of Alexander Pfister's designs]!

[@bradenatkinson4784]

also if you own the original xcom from the 90s and its sequel terror from the deep there is an amazing pirate themed mod for those games called xpirates. xpirates is a monster game 100 hours plus, heck I have never gotten past the begging of the early game transitioning to the begging of the middle of the early game that was 10 hours of play time. the setting is also a really cool cyberpunk/sci-fi hybrid that is really well fleshed out.

[@Joeys-Channel]

Definitely need more pirate games!

[@bradenatkinson4784]

This reminds me of a free erotic game I wanted to tell you about when you first did your rant but was afraid to cause of the subject matter called no haven where you manage a group of slave traders in a fantasy setting. It is quite an interesting game as you have to manage your slavers who all have different character traits that give bonuses or penalties on a given mission depending on the slavers assigned role in the mission. Though no haven doesn’t have a map like what you have here it does have different regions with unique missions that you have to scout for and are time sensitive.

[@WiseGuyHistory]

Yeah I'm trying to think of ways to weave those unique traits into things...

[@asyncritus]

Two 22x34" maps would only be 44x34" or 22x68". You'll need four maps to get 44x68".

[@WiseGuyHistory]

Oops yep, I misspoke there.