Yo ho, there’s only 10 days until Cursed Crew releases in Early Access!
In anticipation of Early Access, we'll be doing a series of countdown dev blogs. In each post, we'll discuss features of the game, share stories from development, and answer your questions!
In today’s blog, we’re discussing the survival experience in Cursed Crew. As the captain, you’re responsible for both your wellbeing and your crew’s! Taking care of both a ship and a group of scallywags is no small feat. But that’s why you’re the captain.
Hunger
You and your crew are living, working beings who get hungry, so keep an eye on everyone’s hunger status! You’ll encounter many different types of food, all of which can be eaten raw, but it comes with a penalty. Consider building a stove, collecting raw ingredients like cabbage, eggs, and meat and using them to cook delicious meals. Meals are better than raw ingredients because they provide buffs like health regeneration and improved morale.
In the crew menu, you can assign your crew members’ rations. For example, you might want to impose certain policies like “only eat raw food when hungry” to ensure your crew won’t eat the ingredients you need for your meals, but still have something to eat in harsh times. Your crew will automatically cook and consume the food you assign them to, so there’s very little micromanaging needed on your end.
You can acquire food through story events, traders, loot from enemy ships, and by building fishing spots on your ship to fish at!
Morale
We wanted to make your crew members feel like real human beings, so we added a morale system. When good things happen, like victorious battles, a good night’s rest, tasty meals, crew members get a boost in morale. But when bad things happen, like death, losses, sleep deprivation, and starvation, morale drops. A resentful crew member is a problem: they might ignore your orders, throw destructive tantrums, lose all motivation to work, or even start a mutiny against you!
Remember! Your crew is an asset—so long as their morale is high.
Sleep
After a long day at sea, your crew will get tired. Provide them with sleeping spots to rest at, or build a cozier hammock if you have the resources! A decent, uninterrupted sleep is important to keep your crew happy and alert.
These resting spots are also crucial for wounded crew members. Once they lie down, they’ll begin to recover from their injuries. Healing can also be sped up by using bandages on the injured crew member.
Weather
Weather effects have been in the game since its earliest development days, but they were only isolated, visual effects without much gameplay impact. We’ve since developed a comprehensive weather system that occurs naturally in the game and reworked the original weather effects. There are a variety of weather types, including sunshine, rain, fog, windstorms, and thunderstorms. When the weather shifts, you’ll know from the clouds rolling in, the wind howling, the waves growing bigger and more violent…
Cursed Crew is a crew management roguelite, and it was important to us that survival goes beyond combat. We implemented our survival mechanics with the intention of making the world feel more immersive, dangerous, and impactful.
We’ll be back soon with more blogs on the game’s features! Please remember to wishlist Cursed Crew if you haven't already, it really helps us! And please join us on the Discord if you'd like more updates.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839760/Cursed_Crew/
See you soon!
- Roel, Phil, & Oskar