Hi. My 7DRL submission this year is Piratical, a fairly traditional roguelike with some fun little experiments.
You play as a pirate attempting to defeat the dread Captain Bloodbeard, a black-hearted cur who made a deal with dark powers to become one of the most feared pirates to set sail out of Barataria Bay. Join forces with Madame Sarita, the voodoo priestess, to find Bloodbeard's phylacteries. Destroy them to make him mortal, and then defeat him with cunning and a little magic of your own!
Here's what I was trying to accomplish this year:
- Have some solid, laptop-friendly roguelike fun. The game plays nicely in the web browser, uses orthogonal movement (to ease the pain of laptop users), and sports some nice, colored environments.
- A fun theme. Pirates are fun, right? I tried to reinforce the theme with several mechanics, like being able to lop off a hand and replace it with a hook, having voodoo curses, sunken galleons, treasure maps, etc.
- Expanding how maps work a little. In Piratical, levels are two-tiered: above water and below water. You can dive down to the underwater level and surface up to the above water level, which makes for some interesting mapping mechanics.
- Make it approachable. I tried to get instructions on the screen at all times to help with onboarding, and I tried to get some quality-of-life features in place like the compass and quick-keys for changing the equipped weapon.
- Levels with distinct feels to them, so that not all levels feel the same. I think I accomplished this, although I was hoping to get a few more in there. There are swampy bayous, labyrinthine sea caves, sunken galleons, and beaches.
- Game progression. As you delve further into your adventure, you will encounter things that are tough, and you will need to figure out the capability to respond to them. The mechanisms in the game are simple, but they reinforce the theme, so I'm happy with them.
- Approachable challenge. The game will probably kill you a few times while you get your "sea legs", but once you have some experience, you should be able to win the game without spending months attempting it. The RNG is generally pretty forgiving; most deaths are avoidable.
Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out. I'd like to spend some time cleaning up the codebase and doing some things in a more "proper" way, and adding more content. But for now, I'm happy with where it stands for a seven day effort.
Here are some screenshots of the game in action:
