Pixel Piracy Review

Pixel Piracy could hardly be called more clearly and straightforwardly. With a strong desire, there might have been an option to add something about “rogue”, but it turned out great even without it. You won’t believe it, but in PP we will play as a two-dimensional pirate captain, plundering everyone in sight, clearing native islands of wildlife and treasures, and building ships.

The game works like this: at the beginning of the game, your character and a global map a la “Battleship” are generated, only healthy, with six hundred cells. Almost every one of these cells is some kind of location. The three main types are “island”, “enemy ship”, and “settlement”, but there are also various faction cells and mega bosses. It is in these places that we will sail in search of experience, money, and fame.

As you might have guessed, Pixel Piracy is a clever rogue-like about buccaneers. And this means that, firstly, there is no sharp plot here, and the player is free to do whatever they want, and secondly, if desired, you can play PP indefinitely. Each new map is completely new layouts. In one game, for example, there will be only uninhabited islands around you, in another – a pirate armada, and in a third – a decent logistical puzzle with inhabited islands.

There is also a healthy role-playing system with distributing points to characteristics, perks, and other joys.

The lives of local ship captains are based on three pillars, namely Health (depletes during fights, slowly recovers on its own, and quickly with different “medkits”), Hunger (meaning, before setting sail, you will need to stock up on food), and Morale (not about spiritual values, but about plundering, drinking, and resting). The more hardcore the party settings, the faster it decreases accordingly.

And you can also build ships yourself here! Any shape and size, as long as you have enough resources for construction materials.

As in any good rogue-like, in Pixel Piracy, you can play it wrong. For the first five hours, your humble self played the role of the son (or ancestor?) of Indiana Jones and Thor Heyerdahl, exploring tropical shores alone. Progress was not easy, communication with the natives was so-so, but these facts did not make it any less interesting.

The free style creates excellent stories. The life of one of my captains was full of drama. An ambitious young pirate quickly assembled a powerful quartet of thugs who were not afraid of anyone, including local tough factions like the Empire. For nearly two months, he terrorized the sea, sparing no one, not the Papuans, not other pirates, not even unlucky fishermen. But one fine day, he encountered an equally reckless crew, and as a result of a bloody battle between the two ships, he was the only one left alive. Barely limping to the nearest port, he somehow repaired his vessel, stocked up on watermelons and rum, and set sail alone. He drifted on his ship for a long time, with decks that were no longer cleared of empty bottles, bird droppings, or the corpses of former enemies and friends, terrifying passing ships. He ended badly – docking at another island, he was hacked to death by Indian axes.

What was it like in the well-known Dwarf Fortress? It’s fun to play! Especially with such adventures and pirate grandeur.

By the way, the development of PP is done by the people who made the well-known Terraria, which means, among other things, that the game is full of various pleasant details. For example, at some point, the team may want to sing a shanty – if you worked as an 18th-century sailor or played Asssssssssssn Creed Black Flag, you know how great it is. As for graphical perks, my favorite is the process of cleaning the deck from the body parts of pirates who attacked your ship. It sounds brutal and sadistic, but in pixel form on the monitor screen, it looks funny and amusing.

However, there is a downside to all of the above. It’s called… Early Access The pleasure of playing the alpha releases of Plague Inc. has not been seriously undermined, but yes, there is not all the functionality promised by the developers in the game, and some of what is there works poorly.

I started my adventures with version 0.7.8.4, I think, and there you couldn’t pick bananas from palm trees, tear tobacco from bushes, inspect native statues, in short – there was no interaction with any of the island objects, except for chests. It was frustrating. Fortunately, a patch was released a day after the purchase, and now this issue has been fixed. Along with breaking the indicators of provisions in barrels.

Plus, it is evident that the interface is raw. The most annoying thing is the almost complete absence of hotkeys, which, it would seem, are now immediately available everywhere. Also, the inconsistent controls are not pleasing: ideally, in such games, it should be possible to control the movement either only with the mouse or only with the keyboard, but here you have to constantly switch back and forth. Periodically, there is a feeling that you are playing not a role-playing game, but a dynamic shooter.

Nevertheless, Pixel Piracy is worthy of the attention of any indie RPG lover right now. And if you hurry, you can also catch the Steam sale and buy the game at a good discount! Genre enthusiasts, if I were in your place, I wouldn’t miss this opportunity.