Cursed Crew News

Hi everyone,

The EA launch was quite a while ago and a lot has happened since so we owe you an update. In this post I’ll give you a peek into the update we’re working on, and I’ll also explain why things aren’t going as fast as some of you might have hoped.

[h2]How did the launch go?
[/h2]
I’m extremely happy and grateful that a lot of people purchased, supported us, played the game, and that we received a lot of helpful feedback. At the same time, the reality is that our dream to work on this full time for a living cannot be fulfilled with the current amount of sales. To not starve and to have a place to live, I needed a new primary source of income and luckily I found one. This does mean I can only develop Cursed Crew in my spare time, and the same goes for the other team members.

I want to assure you though that Cursed Crew is our passion project and we’re fully dedicated to realize its full potential. We've put in countless hours and we will keep doing that. But we also need to be realistic: given our limited resources and time, progress won’t be as fast as when we would be able to do this full time.

[h2]What’s being worked on currently?
[/h2]
We’re working hard on the next update. The game can definitely use more content and variety and the upcoming update will be focused around that. I won’t spoil everything and some things might still change, but I can at least assure you that it’ll include new creatures, cannons and story events. Here’s a quick sneak peek:

Seagull

New cannons (fire mortar, tar cannon and clusterbomb cannon).

New wisp like creature.

Once we've released the update I’ll reveal more about these new features. I can’t wait to wrap up this update and release it to the public, but it’ll still take some time to finish everything that’s planned so I won’t reveal a release date yet until I’m sure we can meet it. That’s it for this post!

I had a holiday break, but I'm back now and I'm starting work on the next major update. Before fully committing to that I wanted a couple of fixes out so hence this patch.

[h2]Fixed[/h2]
- Kickstarter DLC not loading
- Save corruption issues that could happen when the game is saved while resources are being deleted.
- Revealed map nodes (for example the island in the old man's tale event) sometimes not being reachable.
- Ability animations not halting properly when game is paused.
- Ship movement on screen not halting properly when game is paused.

We received lots of feedback about the tutorial, which honestly wasn't great. We've finally committed to make the tutorial much more interactive and thorough. This should greatly help new players learn the ropes of Cursed Crew. We're eager to hear any feedback about this new tutorial.

We'll be focusing on adding more creatures and cannons next and we're also working on the curse system in the background.

[h2]Added[/h2]
- Added much better interactive tutorial
- Added loot drop point which can be used to designate where newly looted items should be dropped

[h2]Changed[/h2]
- Crew now automatically unmans cannons after each encounter.
- Better tooltips in trade window

[h2]Fixed[/h2]
- Ship speed not updating correctly when sailing straight
- Issue causing crewmembers to get stuck outside the ship
- Issue with threats not being cleaned up after duel
- Crew manager layout issues
- Issue with not being able to assign tend job
- Several tooltip issues
- Going back to main menu while game is force-paused caused issues
- Ship tilting not working correctly when enemy ship enters screen

This update addresses a lot of player feedback and many bug reports we received. It should drastically improve the game's stability and also a provide more balanced experience. We'll work on at least one more smaller update like this one to ensure the game is a stable and smooth as we can get it before before we start working on larger content additions.

[h2]Changes/Additions[/h2]

• Increased max hull of all ships (including player and enemy ships).
  
• Status icons for health, morale and hunger now pulse when they're low.
  
• Red vignette effect is applied to the screen when the player's health is low.
  
• Improved enemy ship AI. If the side facing you doesn't have any working cannons, they'll turn towards you so their other side faces your ship.
  
• Improved how enemy crew handles threats on their ship. They're less likely to abandon their posts to handle threats, especially when their ship is in good shape.
  
• Port traders now always have currency so you can trade more easily with them.
  
• Rebalanced many events that spawn creatures so that they scale with how far you are in the game.
  
• Changed man/unman commands so that they toggle in a more intuitive way.
  
• Made the event that happens when a player stalls too much much more punishing (it gives fewer rewards and is more dangerous).
  
• Added support for Kickstarter backer only edition.
  
• Hull patches are no longer auto forbidden. Instead they're not automatically repaired during combat (you can still manually assign crew to repair them).
  
• Added separate 'repair' item in role menu. Repairing is no longer part of the construction role item.
  
• Strip deck now gives 5 wood instead of 1
  
• Reduced cannonball cost and rarity.
  
• Removed max range for cannons. This might be re-added later when both the enemy AI and the UI have better support for this.
  
• Crew will automatically unman cannons when there are enemies nearby.
  

[h2]Fixed[/h2]

• Game getting soft locked due to continue journey timer not appearing after events. This typically happened the event after you've fled combat.
  
• Enemy ship not always being cleaned up after certain events, causing the game to be in a buggy state where the player sails with an empty enemy ship next to them.
  
• Fishing spots, hammocks and sleeping spots being stackable.
  
• Enemy crew not always manning cannons when they should.
  
• Cannot open map right after loading a save
  
• Cooking job being part of crafting role item instead of cooking
  
• Operate role item not impacting steering wheel jobs.
  
• Issue with boarding hooks staying on characters.
  
• Fixed man/unman cannon commands sometimes not showing.
  
• Cancel command not letting crew unman cannons.
  
• Other small issues/errors that might not have a noticeable impact.
  

This update contains a bunch of fixes and tweaks. Moreover, it adds right click attacking as an addition option for melee combat. We noticed many new players have trouble figuring out how to melee attack. Right clicking to attack should be more intuitive if you're still getting used to the game and it also offers a bit more control if you want to attack a specific enemy. It also helps the players that prefer using the mouse over the keyboard. Holding spacebar to attack is still very useful on its own if you want to attack nearby enemies (and less prone to misclicks) so we made sure both options are available.

Features
- Added right click attacking for melee.

Changed
- Changed barrier size so you can put them next to each other without gaps
- Increased budgets of second and third areas.
- Lowest currency is now prioritized when buying things like crew


Fixed
- Issue where player can leave ship by standing near railing mounted cannons, allowing them walking on water.
- Splash damage exploding gunpowder through barriers
- Crew sometimes not responding when giving direct orders
- Crew not always attacking when you order them to in stand ground mode
- Caravel explorer variant unlocking at 10 schematics instead of the displayed 5.
- Crabs reserving tending jobs
- Sleeping spots can overlap each other
- Crew not able to pick up weapons when their role doesn't allow hauling
- Man ground command not toggling properly when selection is mixed (with some having it enabled and some not).