I think that this concept has loads of potential! I love the idea of sailing your ship, and then being able to instantly change to walking on deck to shoot the cannons.
Constructive feedback:
- I personally feel that the camera rotating with the ship, along with the water shader, results in a bit of motion sickness. I'd look to experiment with keeping the camera at a fixed rotation, or at least add quite a bit more smoothing & delay to the rotation.
- Getting the ship in position to shoot and also getting to the cannons in time to trigger the shot is quite difficult. I can definitely see how it may be a skill issue on my part (maybe I need to practice allowing the boat to rotate while I'm walking to the cannons), but there's potential here to make the combat a bit more approachable.
- Other than the cannons, it would be nice to have other reasons to change over to walking along the ship deck.
- Idea: After being shot by an enemy cannon, the player could have to patch up a hole on deck in order to stop damage over time to the ship. This would force the player decide between maneuvering the ship, or taking action on deck.
Overall, I really enjoy the concept, and I can see this idea being taken further. I'm looking forward to seeing where the three of you take this in the future. Well done!