Giveaway of the Day - Rise Of Pirates

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game please take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of ‘potential’ cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain why your reasons for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with a levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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Rise of Pirates :

Wheemplay Logo

Installation:

Rise of Pirates downloads to a 13.8MB zip file that unpacks to a read me and a wrapped dual setup and activation module. The game installs to:

C:\Games\Rise of Pirates.exe

As with all Wheemplay games, the executable installs directly to the games folder with no folder of its own; the file size is 13.3MB when installed. You can create a folder for the game during the installation wizard, and if you wish change the installation path. There’s no shortcut installed to either the desktop or the Start menu/Programs list, and to uninstall the game just delete it. There is no uninstaller provided.

The game plays on win XP Pro 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, Vista home Basic 32 bit, Win 7 Pro 64 bit and win 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

Main Menu

In game image showing direction to travel towards pirates

Introduction:

In this pirate simulation you can play one of two modes, select a character with perks when playing the campaign mode, upgrade your ships and weapons, buy and sell goods and even smuggle contraband between the naval battles that make up the main part of this game

World Map showing the various ports you can travel to. The red one is your immediate destination to complete the level

The Game:

This is a basic pirate simulation where you have to destroy enemy ships avoiding certain areas where sea monsters lurk. If you run over a sea monster your ship receives damage, which then makes it easier for enemy pirates to destroy your ship. Thankfully sea monsters usually show themselves momentarily so you should be able to avoid them. Your ship and weapons are upgradeable. To upgrade these you need to earn money by destroying your enemy or by making a profit by selling goods purchased in the ports either legally from the markets or illegally via the black market (transactions of this type are carried out in the taverns). To upgrade you have to enter one of several ports which are scattered across the globe. Travelling to any port is hazardous because you can be attacked by enemy pirates anywhere, plus of course there are also the dangers from sea monsters.

Once in port you can use your earnings to upgrade your ship. This will increase your defensive capabilities by moving faster or having better armour. Or you can spend your money on new cannon that will give you faster firing cannons or cannons that fire further afield or cause more damage per shot. You can also exchange experience points to improve the various perks that are available which give your character better seamanship qualities and improve the skills of your ships crew. You can see the various upgrades and perks by checking out the slideshow which I’ve linked to below or looking at the various images posted within the review.

When starting the game for the first time you can select either the full campaign by clicking on new game or selecting survival. The latter enables you to start the game right away with no tutorial. Selecting new game will take you to the campaign mode where you will initially be given the choice of two of three characters. The first two; Franklin Ford and Henry Morgan give you either a plus 1 authority perk (Franklin Ford) or a plus 1 Bombardier perk (Henry Morgan) at the start of the game both of which increase the respective skill/attribute by 10%. You don’t get the initial starter perk when playing survival, but you can earn them during the game (if you survive long enough). The third character which has unknown bonuses and no history becomes available once you’ve completed the game in full. Both of the known characters are introduced briefly via a short story. Once you’ve chosen a character you have to keep that character until the end unless you start a new game. You cannot run two characters concurrently from the same executable, which means for the whole family to play this game you’ll need to install the game as many times as the number of family members who want to play it. You will need to install the games to different locations, or alternatively rename the game for each installation so that you don’t overwrite them. rename to include the name of the family member eg Rise of Pirates – Stephen). The game takes up little space so having multiple copies is not going to impact on your disc space. Once you’ve chosen your character you will be shown a map of the world and introduced to the tutorial which takes you through the basics step by step and introduces you to all new aspects of the game such as movement of your ship, firing your cannons, and upgrading your ships and cannon as well as carrying cargo and adding perks.

The Campaign mode takes you through the whole game level after level whereas survival is one level that is continuous play until you are destroyed. Both modes are accessible from the main menu from the start of the game. Progress is always saved when playing the campaign mode at whatever point you left it, but if you start a new game all previous progress is lost. There is a high score table which gives you separate scores for each of the two modes of play, plus there is a trophy page. Trophies include ‘Best Ship and Cannon purchased’, ‘100 enemy ships destroyed’ and ‘Whole game completed’ , both of which are accessible from the main menu.

Your ship has cannons on both sides which means you can shoot to the right or left of you, but not directly in front of you or behind. Use the left mouse button to fire from the left of you with respect to the fore (front) and aft (rear) of the ship and the right mouse button to fire from the right. This means you must always manoeuvre your ship into a suitable position so that you can hit your opponent. If you see a red arrow it means you cannot shoot in that direction, though the arrow also indicates the position of the nearest enemy when you cannot see them on the map. A white arrow indicates you can fire.

Along the bottom of the in game screen you can see your ships statistics which includes the amount of damage you can take before being destroyed, the reload time and range of your cannon shot, the number of cannons you have, (remember that the number will be divided into two as you can only fire on one side at a time. There are also numbers for steering ability, the higher the number the better the steering, the speed of the ship, it’s armour and cores. To the bottom right corner of the screen you can see the ships health points which is the red bar and the ships crew which is the blue bar. (The latter is important when considering boarding an enemy ship). In the middle of these two indicators is a picture of your character and four buttons that enable you to escape, go to the character screen, pause the game or go to the main menu. You are able to increase the perks via the character screen . Upgrade points are earned by destroying enemy ships, capturing booty (by boarding ships) and by trading. You also gain experience which unlocks new ships and cannon later in the game. There are three types of perks ‘Authority Perk’ which increase’s the strength of your crew, the ‘Bombardier Perk’ which increases the damage potential of your cannon shot and the distance it can travel and the ‘Trader Perk’ which gives you increased gold when capturing ships and/or trading while in port. There are five increments to each perk and each increment increases the perk by 10%.

These perks are earned when you have gained experience. You are able to choose which perk to increase. There is an indicator on the right hand panel next to the perks that tells you how near you are to levelling up. The right hand panel also shows you the experience gained, the number of upgrade points, the ship you own (each ship had different characteristics such as steering, speed, and the number of cannons it can carry), plus how far through the campaign as a percentage you have passed. The upgrade button shows you the various upgrades you can add to your ship such as cannon damage, number of cannon, crew numbers, reload speed, ship speed, ship armour and manoeuvrability. Each of these can be upgraded five times. Also on the bottom of the window you’ll see the amount of gold you have to spend on upgrading these. When you have enough ,those upgrades you can afford will be highlighted. You can choose your destination between levels from the world map, though your main destination is marked in red. While moving to these ports you are likely to be attacked several times. If you survive an attack your ship will be repaired to its normal state. Occasionally messages and more of the story will pop up usually when you arrive at your destination; for example during the first mission you may get the message:

“You’ve got problems. My master wants to get something that belongs to you”, he points to the amulet hanging around your neck (which is introduced in the story at the beginning of the game when you select your character) The story continues with:
‘The conversation started off not as well as it could have and during this long monologue you felt a strong desire to cut your opponent into pieces………

Usually the messages you receive on arriving at port will contain quests that can increase your earning potential for example you may be asked to take some object or goods to another ports for which you get a decent bounty for completing. The first one I received was twice the amount I’d won from destroying three enemy pirates. Once you’ve read the story click on the proceed button. If you are in port you will be given a choice of four locations to visit; the first of which is the ship yard where you can purchase new ships; if you don’t have enough gold in your chest to upgrade to a better ship you can battle with pirates by going back out to sea then returning with more booty or go trade some of the goods you may have captured from pirates by boarding their ships , or from previous purchases from markets you’ve visited in other ports. The cost of ships range from 2500 gold coins to 30000. I’d only earned 398 on the first leg of my journey, which wasn’t enough to purchase the second cheapest ship (you start the game with the cheapest ship). You can also buy new cannons which range from 100 gold to 1030 gold pieces. The cheapest upgrade increases your cannons damage potential to +7. Depending upon how much gold you have, all cannon upgrades that you can afford will be highlighted in light yellow. Those you cannot afford are highlighted in salmon pink ( the same colour scheme goes for all types of upgrades). In the market you can buy a range of goods. Each item gives you the cost to purchase and the resell value. To purchase an item click on the icon. A small window opens which enables you to choose the number of items you wish to purchase then a confirmation or decline button (Yes or No) to accept the goods or not; from the tavern you can buy black market items, purchase support ships or drink rum with old sailors. (I’ve not discovered what drinking rum confers yet). Finally the in game music can be turned off via the toggle in the top right hand corner of the game. you can also minimize the game to the task bar or maximise it to full screen. The game starts in windowed mode by default.

Controls:

• Move Ship – WASD or Arrow Keys

• Aim Cannon – Mouse

• Fire Cannon Left and Right Mouse buttons

Images:

Slideshow:

You can see all of the images I’ve posted in this review plus more (approximately 50 images) via the following link:

http://s571.photobucket.com/albums/ss160/Whiterabbit04/Rise%20of%20Pirates/?albumview=slideshow

Conclusion:

This is a surprisingly strong game considering it’s a flash game. You’ll find it available to play on several sites if you wish to try it out before downloading (I’ve posted one link below). It may take some time to load as it’s quite large for a flash game, but I reckon it’s worth waiting for. At least you’ll get a feel for whether or not you’re going to like the game and hence whether to download or not.

The two modes allow you to play an extended campaign with lots of levels or a quick survival game where once you die the game ends. The campaign can be quite short if you race from port to port as the indicators dictate, but to get the most out of the game and to be able to upgrade your ship, you should explore the world without following the directed routes. You’ll find plenty of opportunities to earn gold which can then be spent on upgrading your ship, purchasing a new ship, buying better cannons or purchasing goods to export to various ports and to make a decent profit; however, beware, if you lose your ship in battle you lose all of your goods that you purchased in your last port of call as well. When dying you only have to play from your last save.

The game is well worth 7 out of 10 IMO, despite the simple graphics and basic game play. (8 game play, 5 for music, 8 graphics) It’s an ideal game for filling in those odd moments when you’re at a loss as to what else to play. I wouldn’t say it’s a game I could play for extended periods but that said I do like this game and will be keeping it. There are similar arcade quality versions of this game available from places like MyPlayCity and Gametop (see the alternatives section below), and there’s an interesting Facebook game called Battle Pirates that I think is much better than today’s game; the only downside is you have to play it via Facebook.

Character Profile

Items you can purchase to export

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Alternatives:

You can find this game on several flash based sites (just Google it) where you will be able to play it via your browser. As with any flash game you’ll require a flash player to play the game. Due to it’s size it may take some time to load up into your browser. You’ll find a copy at the following site:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/KingDotCom/rise-of-pirates

You can also download Rise of Pirates as a swf file for free via the following link:

http://www.king.com/website_content.jsp?ref=rise-of-pirates

There are several pirate based games of this genre, though I can’t remember offhand the names of the ones I’ve seen and played for free previously. The following can be downloaded for free (full versions) from MyPlayCity or Gametop. Please do make sure you keep an eye open during installation to ensure any boxes are unchecked otherwise you may find a new tool bar installed or your home page has been changed to MyPlayCity. These of course can be avoided by unchecking the appropriate boxes. That said they are not necessarily installed via these games. As with all MyPlayCity games your browser will be opened when you close the game down, but it’s totally innocuous.

1) … Brave Pirate:

http://www.myplaycity.com/brave_pirate/

2) … Cosmic Pirate:

http://www.myplaycity.com/cosmic_pirates/

3) … Pirates: Battle for the Caribbean:

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=765901 (you need to register with the site, though this should also be available from Gametop. I wasn’t able to access the site last night so couldn’t confirm the download at Gametop.)

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really slow moving – got very bored very quickly – not for me