Buccaneers! joins the Steam Game Festival on Feb 3rd

[Armada]

Ahoy everyone! Skyward Digital is excited to announce that Buccaneers! will have a playable demo available as part of the Steam Game Festival starting next week!

This will be your first chance to experience an early preview of the campaign mode, which includes the following features in the demo:

• A full tutorial introducing you to towns, combat, customisation and more
• A few short quests
• Open world sailing
• Ship combat and boarding
• Ship customisation including paint schemes, cannons, upgrades and more

The demo will be fully playable with or without a VR headset and has very low minimum system requirements (for non-VR mode), so it should be accessible to the vast majority of players. Check out the game's Steam page for more info: Buccaneers! on Steam

We can't wait to hear your thoughts on the game. We've made extensive improvements since the first playable demo last year, and much of that came from incredibly detailed feedback from the community, so every comment counts!

For more information, check out this FAQ and let us know if you have any other questions below!

Spoiler: Demo FAQ

What is the demo and what does it include?
The Buccaneers! Steam Game Festival Demo features an early preview of the campaign mode, including a full tutorial, a few short quests, open world sailing and ship combat. You'll also get to customise your ship with different paint schemes, sail colours, cannons, upgrades and more.

Does the demo represent the final game?
No, the demo is pre-release software and does not represent the final quality and feature set of the full game. You may encounter some bugs, glitches or unfinished features.

Where can I get the demo?
The demo will be available from the game's Steam page: Buccaneers! on Steam

How big is the demo install size?
The demo takes up approximately 2.4GB of disk space once installed.

How long is the demo available for?
The demo will be available from 3rd Feb 10am PST/6pm GMT until 9th Feb 10am PST/6pm GMT.

Can I keep playing the demo once it's no longer available?
No. The demo will be disabled and will no longer be playable once it is removed from the store page, even if you've got it installed on your PC.

Do I need a VR headset to play it?
No, you do not need a VR headset to play the demo. VR is an optional feature.

Which VR headsets are supported?
Currently we officially support the Oculus Rift/Rift S, HTC Vive/Vive Pro and Vive Cosmos. Other headsets may work but have not been tested, so you may experience some issues.

When can I play the full game?
We don't have a specific release date yet. We're working hard to make sure the final game is a polished, feature-rich experience, so we're keen to launch it only when it's ready.

​

 

[Shiver Me Pixels]

Amazing news, very excited!

I played the ship combat demo last year and really loved it so super keen to see more of the full game loop and the improvements you've made!

Best of luck, will be looking forward to playing!

 

[Armada]

The demo is available NOW on Steam: Buccaneers! on Steam (steampowered.com)

Please give it a try and let us know what you think! We'll be monitoring user feedback here and on our Discord server, and every comment really does help!

Please note, we are aware of some issues and will release more updates in the coming days, so stay tuned for more info.

Happy pirating, mateys!

 

[DH27]

The demo is available NOW on Steam: Buccaneers! on Steam (steampowered.com)

Please give it a try and let us know what you think! We'll be monitoring user feedback here and on our Discord server, and every comment really does help!

Please note, we are aware of some issues and will release more updates in the coming days, so stay tuned for more info.

Happy pirating, mateys!

Hi!
Yesterday night I tried the Buccaneers! Demo and I really liked it! Thank you for your already amazing work so far.
There are some points which I noticed while playing that I would like to mention to you as feedback:

I really liked the city layouts and sceneries, as the cities were large and nicely populated with interacting NPCs.

However, while playing the quests, I had trouble finding my next objective two times. Once when I left the blacksmith,
as the text said that I should now go to my ship's first mate. I kinda missed that I had to take the weapons from the
shooting range in the back first, so the first mate didn't spawn until I had figured that out. The second time this happened
was when I took the bounties and I didn't get, that it was the governors assistant who would pay me the bounty. That took
a while to figure out too.

On another note, I wanted to mention the ship AI. I didn't play the siege of Havanna, but for the enemy ships in the
campaign, the AI seems to always have the same strategy depending on the enemy's ship type. For me, fighting a brig
meant going in a circle with the enemy ship like in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and shooting its sails until they were
completely destroyed. They never managed to hit my Schooner as they were unable to turn that much and always missed
their shots. The strategy for fighting an enemy Schooner was a bit different, but also repetitive, as it involved bringing
my ship into a position where the enemy was at a 90 degree angle, shooting one salve and then quickly turning 180
degrees until the enemy was in sight of the other side of my ship and shooting once again. I was able to repeat this behaviour
until the enemy's sails were completely destroyed.

Lastly, one more minor thing that I noticed was, that the flag in the back of my ship sometimes freaked out.

Overall I had a lot of fun playing the Demo, I enjoyed the customisability of my ship a lot and the ability upgrades were
also a great feature. Regarding the world map, I still have the interview of one of the developers of the sea dogs games
in mind, who basically said that the world map was built on a different engine compared to the rest of the game. As I can
only imagine how much work that would be, I liked your implentation of the world map a lot too.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just gave the Demo my first whirl yesterday and quite liked it!
I can clearly see the inspiration from the original 2003 PotC game; but with some very nice new features added too!
I'm really curious to find out exactly which direction you're planning to take the development next.

My computer is 10 years old, but at the very lowest settings, I could just about run it at around 25 FPS.
I do wonder what it is that makes Buccaneers! apparently tougher on the hardware than the 2003 PotC game.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Well the engine is considerably more modern, so this should be part of the reasons it is heavier.

I am going to have to try it out on a laptop that has similar specs to the minimum requirements.
Luckily the laptop I am writing this on has such specs. Only now I have 8GB of RAM and not 4GB.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Armada, for the items you can use to decorate your captain's cabin, please add a plate of spaghetti; with two meatballs.
Pretty please...?
It could go a long way in getting you some more public attention:

Spoiler

Well the engine is considerably more modern, so this should be part of the reasons it is heavier.

I could understand if there are more polygons in the models; or more fancy rendering going on; or complex processing required for the game mechanics.
But just "more modern" doesn't explain enough for me.

It's the Unity engine.
I managed to run various Hearts of Oak Demo's relatively well on that too...

I am going to have to try it out on a laptop that has similar specs to the minimum requirements.
Luckily the laptop I am writing this on has such specs. Only now I have 8GB of RAM and not 4GB.

For reference, attached are my own system specs.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

I could understand if there are more polygons in the models; or more fancy rendering going on; or complex processing required for the game mechanics.
But just "more modern" doesn't explain enough for me.

It's the Unity engine.
I managed to run various Hearts of Oak Demo's relatively well on that too...

Well there are different versions of the Unity engine.
Still I am not sure about the more modern too.
I haven't yet had much experience with Unity as a developer to give you another answer.
Maybe the game uses the CPU more than PotC?
Even if you can't see it maybe there are more things going under the hood?

Probably @Armada can explain this, after all he is one of the developers.

 

[Armada]

Heads up, there's only ONE DAY LEFT to try the demo!

Check out our latest update which addresses some user feedback and squashes a few bugs: Buccaneers! - New Demo Update, One Day Left! - Steam News

 

[Armada]

@DH27 Thanks for the detailed feedback!
I'm glad you enjoyed the demo. We're aware of the issues you mentioned, and will be making improvements to the AI and quest system for the final game.

Just gave the Demo my first whirl yesterday and quite liked it!
I can clearly see the inspiration from the original 2003 PotC game; but with some very nice new features added too!
I'm really curious to find out exactly which direction you're planning to take the development next.

My computer is 10 years old, but at the very lowest settings, I could just about run it at around 25 FPS.
I do wonder what it is that makes Buccaneers! apparently tougher on the hardware than the 2003 PotC game.

I'm glad you were able to run the game on that hardware! Sounds like it's below the minimum requirements we're targeting (which is a slightly newer laptop-grade CPU and GPU), but there's nothing stopping it from running as long as you have a 64-bit Windows and DX11 support.

The DirectX version may be part of the reason the game is inherently harder to run than PotC. The jump from DX8 to DX11 is pretty major in terms of new features and rendering techniques, so even at our lowest settings with simplified shaders and shadows disabled, it may well be that the newer rendering API is the culprit.

It's true that the polycount isn't all that much higher than PotC, but we do have a lot going on in some areas such as crew animations, physics calculations and AI which might also slow things down.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

How could I forget about it, Buccaneers! defienetly doesn't use DX8!

Thanks for clarifying this.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Heads up, there's only ONE DAY LEFT to try the demo!

Wait, REALLY?
Can I not keep using it as-is??
I haven't had the chance to try a sea battle yet.
Was a bit busy with other things...

I'm glad you were able to run the game on that hardware! Sounds like it's below the minimum requirements we're targeting

Absolutely fair enough in my book.
All things considered, my laptop is holding out quite nicely.
But it IS 10 years old; so no surprises it'd end up struggling sooner or later.

The DirectX version may be part of the reason the game is inherently harder to run than PotC. The jump from DX8 to DX11 is pretty major in terms of new features and rendering techniques, so even at our lowest settings with simplified shaders and shadows disabled, it may well be that the newer rendering API is the culprit.

Heh... interesting.
Sometimes I do wonder if, because newer hardware can handle more, newer software ends up being written less efficiently.
But one way or the other there, that's got nothing to do with you; and certainly nothing for you to worry about.

It's true that the polycount isn't all that much higher than PotC, but we do have a lot going on in some areas such as crew animations, physics calculations and AI which might also slow things down.

Sounds like you're describing mainly sea battles.
I don't yet know how well those would work.
I called it a day right before the (first?) ship-hunting mission...

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Wait, REALLY?
Can I not keep using it as-is??
I haven't had the chance to try a sea battle yet.
Was a bit busy with other things...

Try putting Steam in offline mode. With the last demo I think that it worked until I reconnected Steam to the Internet.

Heh... interesting.
Sometimes I do wonder if, because newer hardware can handle more, newer software ends up being written less efficiently.
But one way or the other there, that's got nothing to do with you; and certainly nothing for you to worry about.

Newer hardware can do more. After all you have more of almost everything nowadays.
So what you say may be at least partially true.
Think of writing a game for a computer with a few megabytes or even kilobytes of storage, versus writing a one for a computer with gigabytes of storage. It gives you more freedom, so you don't need to think as much about such things.

Still DX11 can definitely do more things than DX8.

 

[Armada]

Wait, REALLY?
Can I not keep using it as-is??
I haven't had the chance to try a sea battle yet.
Was a bit busy with other things...

It's a limited-time demo meant to coincide with the Steam Game Festival, and in order to stop people from downloading the demo after that, we have to "deactivate" it, which unfortunately stops you from being able to play it.

We'll be running beta tests via the Discord at some point though, which might have a longer duration depending on what we're testing and how close it is to release.

Heh... interesting.
Sometimes I do wonder if, because newer hardware can handle more, newer software ends up being written less efficiently.
But one way or the other there, that's got nothing to do with you; and certainly nothing for you to worry about.

I'm certainly not an expert on how the Unity engine works at the low level, but it's a multi-purpose engine that can be used to make basically anything, so it undoubtedly has a lot of complexity because of that.
By contrast, the Storm Engine has one job, and does it very efficiently, albeit with dated graphics, so it makes sense that it can run faster.

Sounds like you're describing mainly sea battles.
I don't yet know how well those would work.
I called it a day right before the (first?) ship-hunting mission...

Ah, even on land there might be things like NPC animations, grass, and just the sheer number of individual objects being rendered that are slowing things down. The initial scene where you choose a faction is especially taxing with the four ships lined up and high number of NPCs in the area.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

I'm certainly not an expert on how the Unity engine works at the low level, but it's a multi-purpose engine that can be used to make basically anything, so it undoubtedly has a lot of complexity because of that.
By contrast, the Storm Engine has one job, and does it very efficiently, albeit with dated graphics, so it makes sense that it can run faster.

Jack of all trades, master of none type situation then?
Makes sense.

Ah, even on land there might be things like NPC animations, grass, and just the sheer number of individual objects being rendered that are slowing things down. The initial scene where you choose a faction is especially taxing with the four ships lined up and high number of NPCs in the area.

Yep, there and on one of the shipyards is where I saw the smallest fps.
This shipyard in particular.


My fps is mostly 30 though except on the aforementioned heavier scenes, which it goes into the 20's.

Spoiler: Laptop specs

CPU: i3 3217U
GPU: Intel HD 4000 Mobile
RAM: 8GB DDR3

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

My fps is mostly 30 though except on the aforementioned heavier scenes, which it goes into the 20's.

Spoiler: Laptop specs

CPU: i3 3217U
GPU: Intel HD 4000 Mobile
RAM: 8GB DDR3

Okay so I did further testing starting over from the beginning.
The starting scene actually wasn't lagging, it was basically locked at 30 for me.
The shipyard in Nassau is the only place is have seen a 20 where the main quest sends you.

However I went to Clarence Town, where it seems the game is lagging during nighttime.
The recording seems to be a bit worse than what I was actually seeing (while recording it) at certain points, but you can get a general idea for it.

It is a demo though, so such things are expected.
I really like what I am seeing. So good luck guys!

 

[Armada]

Okay so I did further testing starting over from the beginning.
The starting scene actually wasn't lagging, it was basically locked at 30 for me.
The shipyard in Nassau is the only place is have seen a 20 where the main quest sends you.

However I went to Clarence Town, where it seems the game is lagging during nighttime.
The recording seems to be a bit worse than what I was actually seeing (while recording it) at certain points, but you can get a general idea for it.

Good catch! Indeed it looks like we left some real-time lights on at night in Clarence Town (they should be set to "baked" mode), which will slow things down significantly. Easy enough to fix though.
It was the same problem in Nassau's shipyard, but with only one light left on, so the performance impact was much lower.

We briefly tested the game on our laptops before the demo went live, but as we do the majority of testing on our development PCs at max settings, we sometimes miss mistakes like this.

Out of interest, what resolution were you playing at?

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Good catch! Indeed it looks like we left some real-time lights on at night in Clarence Town (they should be set to "baked" mode), which will slow things down significantly. Easy enough to fix though.
It was the same problem in Nassau's shipyard, but with only one light left on, so the performance impact was much lower.

I suspected as much due to NPCs casting shadows in front of the tavern. Happy to have helped!

We briefly tested the game on our laptops before the demo went live, but as we do the majority of testing on our development PCs at max settings, we sometimes miss mistakes like this.

I would probably have missed it too, my desktop runs the game maxed out at 60FPS.
So if I hadn't been compelled to install it on this laptop by @Pieter Boelen running it on his it would have gone under the radar. For now at least.

Out of interest, what resolution were you playing at?

1366 x 768