Playtest Update - Round 6
This is a big one. It has everything we've worked on since the last playtest build at the end of September: a lot more to do between jobs, a long list of fixes from your last sessions, and a few things out at sea that we're keeping quiet about. Play it like you normally would and tell us what breaks.
New
- Fishing. There's a rod in a barrel down in the bilge. Hold left mouse to cast, wait for a bite and hook it. Reeling it in is a sea shanty: hit W, A, S and D as the notes come round. Get it badly wrong and it gets away. You can sell what you catch to the Fishmonger in Crook's Haven. They won't take a boot.
- Drinks. The tavern bar has a drink station now, and so does the bilge. Buy a mug for a galleon, fill it from the kegs and mix your own. There are seven to find and every one of them does something to you. The islanders will tell you what some of them are called.
- The brig. There's a cell below deck. If a crewmate has it coming, charge them at the door and the rest of the crew votes. If they don't back you, you're the one who goes in. It's five minutes inside, unless you can pick the lock. With only two of you aboard it comes down to luck.
- Wildlife. The islands have animals on them now, plus birds, bugs and the odd snake. You can swat the flies. Keep an eye out for turtles when you're diving.
- The end of the day has its own screen, and everyone gets a title for how they actually spent the day.
- More at sea. Dolphins and whales turn up a lot more often, and on some nights the water glows around the ship.
- Achievements. 31 of them. A few stay hidden until you get them.
- There are also a few things out on the water we'd rather you ran into yourselves. If one turns up and something goes wrong, tell us what it was and what you were doing.
Changes
- Combat. The sword has its own swing now instead of borrowing the hammer's, it comes out a little quicker, and the hammer has a new swing too. Skeletons have three different attacks.
- Sails. Each sail now adds its own share of speed, so a ship with only some sails set is slower than one with all of them up. Top speed hasn't changed.
- Sound. Gulls call from the gulls you can actually see, the sea is quieter when you're ashore, and the animals are quieter and call less often. A storm builds up around you as you sail into it.
- Smoother sailing in waves. Her speed no longer surges every time the hull lifts out of the water.
- Menus. The main menu is brighter and more colourful, and the pause menu has a cleaner look. The game keeps running behind the pause menu, like it always has, and it says so now.
- Performance. The game runs noticeably smoother, most of all in the tavern and in storms, and the little hitch every few seconds is gone.
Fixed
- Your drawing on the voyage chart sometimes didn't show when you opened it.
- Dropping the anchor at speed stopped the ship dead, and raising it with the sails set made her lurch. Both are smooth now.
- An anchored ship close to a beach could jolt back and forth.
- Things you dropped or threw on deck while sailing got left behind in the water. They stay aboard now.
- Your crewmates could see you do things that didn't actually happen.
- The mic lights in the crew list should now light up for whoever is actually talking.
- A quick burst of outside noise when you loaded into the tavern or went below.
- The anchor chain could go silent.
- The bilge bucket reaches the water from the edge now, so you don't have to be standing right in it.
- A crewmate's spyglass could send the ship flying.
- You now see your crewmates' tools held the way they're holding them.
- Nobody could hear each other in the tavern after the crew was wiped.
- Playing solo could drop to "Connection lost" if another program was using the game's network port.
- The game now starts at your monitor's own resolution the first time you run it.
- When you're dead and watching a crewmate, you hear what they hear.
- Flies don't bother you nearly as often.
For playtesters
- F12 still opens the job picker for the host.
- Your Player.log now ends with a short summary of how the game ran. Please send us your logs after a session, it really helps. They're in AppData/LocalLow/LEAL Games/Bilge Rats.
Things we'd love you to try
- Put someone in the brig, fairly or otherwise.
- Have one person fish while the rest of you watch, then sell the catch.
- Play at least one day all the way to the end-of-day screen with everyone.
- Find all seven drinks.
Known: the fishing music is a first pass.