The Caribbean Sail News

Another patch to delay obsolescence.
I finally added the Discord rich presence. *
Three achievements are new.
Did some bug fixing too.
Enjoy the new features with much effervescence!

* There were bugs with the Linux and Mac builds I ported,
so for Discord rich presence, only Windows is supported.

:TCS_Tophat:

Here we are lads! These are the final touches before I begin work on the Fantasy Toggle expansion!

Normally I spice up the patch notes with humor or poetry but if I tried to do that with this update log, it would be a full novel. I wasn't expecting this patch to be the size of a bloated whale and take an Atlantic crossing's worth of time to complete.

These are the new features!
+ New voyage preparation screen
+ Tutorial reset button
+ Helpful starters guide with tips
+ Pub design overhaul
+ Pub shop to buy rum
+ Rum barrel item to improve morale
+ Drunken screen and music distortion effects
+ Nation relation
+ Button in pub to view your relations
+ Very good or very poor relations determine whether or not you'll be welcomed or attacked when approaching ships
+ Worst possible relations with the pirates will cause pirate ships with red flags to spawn
+ Red flag item
+ Opportunity button in pub
+ Three opportunities (for now) and a lot of "none available" fluff text
+ Barnacles
++ Wait barnacles?
+++ A WAY TO SCRAPE OFF BARNACLES THAT AREN'T ON YOUR SHIP!
+ Pray button for the Missionary
+ Compass item to avoid storms
+ Tool prompts while sailing for the sextant and compass
+ Ability to sell items in port from inventory tab
+ Unique captain sprites for each faction
+ Staying anchored while sailing eventually cures seasickness
+ Whaling is slightly easier and the dead whale spawn rate is lower
+ An immaculate flute song available on only one day of the year
+ Right clicking "FIRE" or pressing "B" in combat will fire all loaded cannons
+ Rain puts out fires started by greased shot
+ Drowsy Maggie shanty available in port. It might be my new favorite
+ Letter of marque description changed to clarify its purpose
+ Bug fixes. Many bug fixes.
+ Particle effects
+ Particle bubbles
+ Particle bubble popping
+ Popped bubble particle effects
+ Probably more that I can't even remember

Be on the lookout for bugs as you enjoy the new content and let me know if you encounter anything I need to make a silent V1.6.9 patch to resolve before I back everything up and begin creating Fantasy Toggle.

What's next?
I'm going to (try to) bring TCS to Discord! It's an opportunity to spread the piratey gospel even further. We'll need a verified server which means building from scratch. If you want to know the deepest community lore then grab a potato and climb aboard the official Victorian Clambake Discord server.

On the first of April, I'll run a week long sale to celebrate our progress!

Be sure to leave a review if you haven't already! Can we achieve the "Overwhelmingly Positive" status?

As always, thank you for the support!
- Your Captain, Evan

I've held back the most creative ideas in favor of maintaining an accurate 1700's sailing experience. That's about to change.

Fantasy Toggle is the final major content expansion to The Caribbean Sail. It will be mysterious, dangerous, fantastic, free, and entirely optional. It will bring that sense of wonder and possibility from nautical mythology to life in the game.

Here's the plan: A toggle will be presented to enable fantasy mode when you select an empty save slot. This will allow people who prefer the historically grounded setting to continue playing without any intrusions from the mythical.

Disclaimer: Like the legends of old, some features may change.





Though much is planned, many of the events and encounters would be better experienced than explained. Where's the mystery when you already know what you'll find? Instead, here's an overview of the types of content I'll be creating.


At least three new map locations that you'll have to discover before being able to set course for them.


It won't have much impact on the likelihood your crew will become sick and die, but many of the new features had to depend on something. It will reflect your relation with the sea itself and lead to some "interesting" scenarios.


Why trust banks when the ground is a perfectly safe place to keep money? I bury every penny I make from this game behind my house and it hasn't been stolen yet. It is really hard to find a buried penny though...


There will be new professions and ships to unlock. You probably expected that, but what you didn't expect was the power of pistons! You'll be able to acquire a Steamship that isn't dependent on the wind... but you will have to pay for fuel.


As for the new encounters; You'll find sea monsters, ghost pirates, curses, events based off traditional nautical mythology and a few of my own!


Though the current set year of the world will not change, it will be instantly apparent that things are different. Unlike the current main story, many opportunities will present themselves and allow you to decide your own investment in them.


Can you really ever have enough musical alternatives? I won't be satisfied until every inventory slot contains a shanty.


Do you love particle effects? By George, I can't get enough of them. There will be new particle effects and they will be glorious.


I'm going to push one more patch before I dedicate to working on Fantasy Toggle. As with Route Planning, this will complicate the file too much to push in multiple patches so it all has to be completed as one massive update.

I'd like to complete Fantasy Toggle in four months or less but it's impossible to know how long something will take when you're a solo developer.

If you have any questions, the forums are always open. If you'd like to say "Ahoy!" then climb aboard the Community Discord. If you haven't already, do drop an honest review on the store page! They're encouraging and helpful as feedback. My gratitude!

- Your Captain, Evan.

You know that whale you always see? Yeah, that one. You can finally catch him.

Next time you see the whale flaunting his fluke and spewing his spume "Go Fishing" and you'll spot that beautiful blowhole bobbing in the bay.

After attaching your harpoon to him, a new mini-game will trigger. All you have to do is click when the white line is over the red line. If you mess up too many times you'll never see him or your precious harpoon again.

I intended to work on other things this week but once I got started I simply couldn't quit. Making a (comparatively) huge new animated asset, new song, and new mini-game, took quite awhile. Whaling has been requested frequently enough to hopefully make the effort worthwhile.

Apart from whaling, a game crashing bug was fixed... and oh so very many new glorious particle effects.

I've been doing some much needed cleanup within the assets in preparation for work on the expansion. You'd never believe how many cobweb.png and dust.gml files I had to clean off after spending a few months out of the deep resource code...

Combat has been re-balanced again. I had to plead with each nation to agree on tracking damage down to the decimal so upgrades would scale properly. They agreed on one condition; their ships begin with slightly more health.

A quiet death on land in a warm bed with full belly was never meant for a true sailor! If you're not hungry, you're not dying while resting anymore. Now get back on the Ocean- there are sharks that need to eat!

Some of you have noticed that "Me PiRaTeY gRaMmARGH" isn't quite what it should be. With the help of Aedyr, nearly all of the text has now been proofread and corrected. Buy him a round if you ever meet him.

To help guide new players, I made the location halo for Nassau yellow on the map until you make port there once.

The Jolly Riot promo icon was changed to a pair of cutlasses.

A few bugs nobody found were thrown overboard and replaced with particle effects.

Next week will be a feature update!