Content Warnings

There are some screams & shouts during raids.

Project Introduction

Most of what I'll write is properly written up on the Steam page.

To summarize, you'll start the game with very little, one ship and a small amount of gold (depending on class). You'll then travel around the campaign map, talking to mayors, accepting missions, trading in commodities. Making as much money as you can to start hiring crew, or adding ships to your fleet.
Your crews can later be sent to invade islands. They can be updated, as well as the ships they are on. Ships become unlocked as your character levels up. Any battle or island invasion gives Experience.
After any fight, you'll be able to sort loot and secure ships that survived. If you captured an island, that will be yours to govern and you can take what you want from it. It'll begin generating taxes for you after you leave. You can return any time to collect gold.
The gameplay evolves from there in the form of fleet management, engaging in wars with the 5 colonial fleets, or solving mysteries. There is some added end-game content to keep the players engaged after they've finished the campaign (By capturing all Capital islands). (Spoiler: These are skeleton infested islands in the north west & monsters such as the Kracken) The end game content is completely optional but are designed to be fun and challenging for even a fleet that has been heavily upgraded, with a large contingent of capable crew.
The campaign map in Rise of Piracy is massive. It involves moving around via right click to set course. You can control the flow of time, and travel around quickly. The "battles" take place in separate scenes, in 3rd person sailing combat, or RTS mode. The player will swap between RTS and Sailing more often once there is more going on later in the game. For example when the player has a fleet of 10+ ships, and is invading an island with forts and a large army of soldiers, the players will need to micro both their land armies as they deploy crew, whilst also taking care that their ships are not sunk by defending fleets, or cannon fire from the forts and towers.

About Developer

Up until last year, I was a web developer doing my game in my spare time. Last February I signed a deal with Microprose and have been working full time on my game since. I started a company and have been paying myself enough through that to keep me afloat.

I stream my game development daily Monday-Saturday on twitch.tv/irishjohngames and have built a community of mostly game developers there (6000 followers+). I really enjoy teaching people new things about game dev and meeting others, and sharing their works.