Captain Bones

Review

Starting a new game, you will be offered a choice of Game Mode, there are four options: Easy (a more relaxed story, you can’t die and almost all challenging mechanics of the game are disabled), Normal (a more well-balanced fun and challenging mode with all game mechanics active), Difficult (all game mechanics are active with the exception of helpful things; it's hard to play but not impossible), and the last mode is Impossible (you must be insane if you play with this mode, even the developers haven’t tested it and the game will be ended by your untimely death).

Next you can choose to play as either male or female, after which the game starts with a pirate ship battling it out with the authorities. Both ships are going toe to toe with cannon fire at each other when the pirate ship takes a huge hit. The explosions send you flying off the ship and down to Davey Jones locker, where you get knocked out by falling debris. You then wake up on some beach with a strange woman looking down on you. Somehow you survived. It’s from here that your adventure begins...

You begin on an island called Green Island and the woman who found you on the beach will aid you. She’ll send you out on a few quests which will go over some of the basics so that you’re able to continue surviving. You’ll gather some resources such as Coconuts, which are great to quench your thirst and they will also keep that hunger at bay. Rocks, Plants Fibres, Twigs can all be turned into some basic tools, Stone Hammer to do repairs, Stone Axe for chopping down trees which will give you other resources like Coconuts, Wood, Palm Leaves.

Using the resources on hand you will eventually build a raft and the woman will send you out on a mission to the nearby island of Lost City. While the raft is yours, you wouldn’t really want to call yourself Captain, as it’s barely big enough for you to stand on while kicking at the sharks which decide they want to take a few bites out of it. It will do for now though, just keep an eye out for those sharks, you don’t want them to damage your raft to the point of it being no good and you some distance away from land.

You get cursed and the curse will transform you into a skeleton at night and back in the morning to your normal self. While you’re a skeleton you will scare civilians and military folks will attack you.

It won’t be too long though before you call yourself Captain and have your very own ship; it’ll take a few quests but it will be worth it. The sailing is so much better, it’s also a lot safer, no sharks biting at your ankles, however, there are others roaming the seas who may want to destroy your lovely new ship. Onboard your ship there is some storage although you will want to upgrade it when you can so you can store more items. Once you get a crew then you will need to have something to drink and some food in the storage on your ship. This will keep your crew members from going hungry and parched, keeping them happy. Treasure hunting and doing pirate stuff will also keep them happy, you don’t want a mutiny on your hands.

After a while you can upgrade your ship. There are three categories that you can upgrade: Ship (Ship Durability, Storage Capacity and Ship Speed), Cannons (Hit Range, Damage Power and Cannon Amount), and Crew (Crew Melee Combat, Crew Weapon Power and Crew Maximum Capacity). Some have two levels of upgrades but once you have applied all the upgrades you can then unlock a new and improved ship. You can upgrade your ship at a Ship Merchant who will also trade some items for some of your pirate gold. There are other merchants scattered around the islands, all of whom will come in handy.

Of course, you can’t be a pirate Captain without a crew, but to get one you must take down a merchant ship without sinking it. I did find this a bit awkward as I was trying to steer my ship from the helm but at the same time run down to my cannon and try firing at the enemy while still in range. This was frustrating as the enemy would nearly always turn away before I could get to fire my cannon or my ship would fly past too quickly.

This led to a small problem I had a couple times.  When going back to take control of the ship's wheel I would get stuck when hitting “E” for a few seconds. Unable to move, I hit my spacebar to jump in the hope of becoming unstuck, only for me to jump straight over the edge of my ship into the deep blue sea. This automatically gave me two serious problems.  Firstly, I was nowhere near any land that I could see, but more importantly, my ship carried on at full speed sailing into the sunset. There was no way I was going to catch it up so I had to exit the game and resume from my last save; luckily my last save wasn’t too far back in time. After getting a crew member I figured out that I could aim and fire from the helm, which was certainly a lot easier.

Once you have done enough damage to an enemy ship its sails will fall, allowing you to board the enemy ship. It is a bit tricky trying to board another ship, especially if you’re moving too fast and if the enemy ship is really low on health. A few times I’d go to pull up side of a ship only to hit it too hard and sink it, which was a pain especially as I was after a crew member. Whether you end up sinking a ship on purpose or not, they will drop some barrels into the sea which can be collected for the loot hidden inside.

There are hidden treasures and you may find clues on a map as to where some are buried. You can also find treasure chests around the place, these could be on rocky islands, on top of buildings or under the waves on shipwrecks.

You will need to keep hydrated and fed as well as look after your health. Coconuts are a good source of food, and they can quench your thirst. You can also collect meat from snakes and you can go fishing and cook both the snake meat and fish on a campfire. You can make a campfire in most places; you will be able to cook any meat you have but you can also use the campfire as a save point.

The game is in Early Access so there will be some hiccups here and there. I’ve had a couple hiccups as mentioned earlier, getting stuck on the helm wheel and having my ship sail away into the sunset without me. I had another problem although this could have been down to me being somewhere I maybe shouldn’t have been. I was making my way over some rocky boulders when I tried to go through a gap and work my way down to the village below. I got stuck between two boulders, kind of like the movie 127 Hours. I bottled it though and instead of amputating my arm the only thing I lost was some game time after I quit and reloaded a save from a short time earlier.

I occasionally found the combat very frustrating, and I died a few times because I’d have got knocked down and by the time I was getting back up I was being hit down again, and so on until I died by multiple attackers. Other times I’d be fighting multiple attackers onboard a ship I was just plundering when I’d get stuck on the helm steps or around the wheel.

Another time that got me was when I tried to board another ship, but each time I tried to jump over I would grab hold of the side of the ship and then get hit multiple times, knocking me into the water. I would have to climb back onto my ship and try again and again.  In the end I just blew the ship up and grabbed the floating barrel of loot afterwards.

In the settings there are Display Settings (Language, Resolution, Quality, Terrain, Anti-Aliasing, FPS Limit, Vertical Synchronisation, Automatic Optimisation and Full Screen), Camera Settings (Camera Sensitivity, Rotation Speed, Camera Vertical and Horizontal), Sound Settings (Game Sound, Music, Ambient and User Interface Sound Volume Controls), Control Settings (Keyboard and Game Controller Binds and Focus Lock), and Gameplay Settings (Game Mode and Interface Display).

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Captain Bones Steam Store Page