[FULL] Pirates: The Legend of the Silver Crescent

DivinElegy Games

Genre: Action/Shmup
Created By: Carius
Development Tool: RPG Maker 2003
Status: Full Game





Two unlikely heroes set sail across the ocean sea seeking the ultimate treasure, a ship known as the Silver Crescent.
Duck, and his eager Scout Penguin, stumble across the first of their treasures in one of a series of caves, a small statue holding the ship becomes their first discovery.
What the pirates come to learn is that those who disrupt the sacred ground become cursed, for the statue holding the ship is the Crescent Guardian, a being brought to life to make sure the Legend remains for all eternity.

Through every step of the journey the guardian will follow the pirates, and every creature nearby form swarms and legions because of the curse, this is where you come in.
It's time to blast your way through each level, one by one until you recover all of the treasures that combine to create the final ship form: The Silver Crescent, only then will the curse be lifted and peace be restored to this odd duo.



Ship (Frequency - 3:1)

Defend your ship as enemies fly from either side of the screen toward you, the game mode is controlled by a timer in which you have to survive until the time runs out.
It makes up the majority of the game because it is how you get from point A to point B without just randomly appearing somewhere.

Enemies

Seagulls are your standard enemy, found on just about any level, they fly toward you and are generally easy targets when in groups.


Nimbus Ninjas, I need to play on some sort of Pirate vs Ninja thing and here it is, Nimbus Ninjas float on clouds and then fall gracefully when they are directly above you, the key is to trick them or shoot them down before it's too late.


Ghost Ninjas attack from behind, cheap in a way but that's how they roll, you can either try to shoot them or just navigate between them, they have an additional 'phasing' ability that makes them pass through objects on occasion.


Bee Ninjas are like a combination of Seagulls and Ghost Ninjas, aside from their cute costume they are fast movers and can often turn around to attack from behind.



The Seahorse is a different type of enemy appearing only in the water, not only do you have to shoot things from above, but also from below, the seahorse has an odd zig-zag pattern making it difficult to dodge on busy levels.



The Shark is very similar to the seahorse, except it swims up to the surface with its fin popping out of the water, ready for a made charge at you, often best to stay to the edge of the screen when it appears.


Dig (Frequency - 1:1)

It's time to dig for treasure, you have 3 holes to choose from, one contains nothing, one contains a score bonus and the other contains the necessary ship part you need to progress further, the worst case scenario is that you have to dig up all 3 holes while defending from incoming attacks but it doesn't usually result in that.
The aim is to keep your digger alive, you can't actually get Game Over on the Digging Levels, only Knocked Out, but it does damage your overall score at the end, but since when are we playing for scores huh?

Enemies

The Ninjas jump off their clouds now and choose to run at you with their spears, they can be very annoying because they jump back and forth in an attempt to dodge you.


The Yeti is just your basic enemy, but don't let that fool you, when he jumps it means he's about to charge.


Hermit Crabs can be difficult when up close, they change their movements from fast to slow and hang low to the ground so incoming rocks often miss.


Bee Ninjas also approach when you're out in the open, they fly around the screen in all different directions like they would in Ship Mode, best to hit them before they hit you.


Swim (Frequency - 1:12)

1 of 2 minigames that fill in a few cutscene transitions, in this game you have to stay on the screen at all costs, you of course do this by swimming but to make it more difficult there are icy rocks falling from above.


Duel (Frequency - 1:12)

For those of you who haven't played the Samurai Kirby Minigame in Kirby Superstar, this is basically a game of reflex, the aim is to attack your opponent by pressing the attack/defend button before they do, however the difference between this and Samurai Kirby is that there are 2 different keys to press, you press to attack or defend depending on what you are instructed to do, your reflexes have to be sharp as nails on hard difficulty.







This is the starting menu, you can only select your options at the beginning of the game but after the first level you can usually determine whether or not the default settings will run smoothly or not, otherwise you have many options to tinker with, and they are listed in order of lag factor.

The default settings also leave it on Easy mode for those first starting out, most of you will probably find it too easy though so I would recommend heading straight on to a Medium.
I would advise against playing Hard until you at least pass Medium however because... well it IS hard.


The little widescreen view picture is basically there to let you know that you're in a cutscene, the only exception to this is in the digging and dueling modes, where the HP bar will appear over the top of this to let you know it's play time.


On the left is what the first version of Pirates looked like (can be found in Gaming World's Games Database), compared to this version.


Just a snippet from what was explained under the Story section, these are the only screenshots I really need to show for now since the rest is up to you to explore...






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqZzGEqm9IE
That music is NOT in the game, so don't fret...






I would be lying if I said the game was Bug Free, here is a small list of Known Bugs in the game that don't break or hinder it, they are just things I can't fix without actually breaking the game (I did it once already, hence why I am releasing a day late).

Save Games + Cutscenes cause issues within RPG Maker itself, nothing in my coding can prevent it unfortunately and it sometimes results in the game having to turn off every switch and erase every variable in order to keep the game moving.
Because of this, especially in between cutscenes (or rather, the transition between one game mode to another) you may find some delays with screen tints, or when a level starts it may take a few seconds of NOTHING HAPPENING aside from your ship floating there before something does happen.
I played through the game at least 5 times over the past day and I've fixed all the FREEZING BUGS, but as I said there is nothing further I can do about the delays since there aren't even any wait commands in the code equating to the overall delay time.

Images sometimes have to be reloaded, this can result in an image appearing in one place, then suddenly disappearing.
This does not happen when I play each part of the game individually, but when it's all in a sequence it does, once again something out of my control but it's only on a few occasions and isn't game breaking.

Final bug of importance, sometimes during Ship mode your cannonball will hit the same enemy twice, it doesn't do any harm, just gives you more points.






http://divinelegy.com/games/[New]Pirates.zip







This game is open for you to inspect, I'm not going to be one of those people who locks their games because let's face it we aren't going to get anything out of this community if they aren't educated.
It's completely open for you to view and learn from, I would advise AGAINST changing anything though because as you'll see when you first open the game:

This made testing the entire game VERY DIFFICULT for me and I would advise against attempting to make a game with a similar realtime save system...


Special Thanks: (Gaming World Members)
Christophomicus
His opinions (and sometimes lack of opinions), helped me construct new ideas and work on existing ones to make Pirates as good as it could be,

King of Games
Tested early works of the game, offered a break from the coding grind with the odd conversation now and then.

Disillusionist
Made the motivation topic the same day I began working on this again after about 9 months of doing nothing.
Also kept this game a secret from you all when I couldn't keep it to myself.

Strangeluv
Organising an interview, then releasing it in conjunction with this game and also motivating me to finish the game so I could actually SEE the interview... GJ...
The Interview is Here, for those interested...

Thank you for reading and I hope you still have enough energy to play!

I have to say that this game is original and looks really great.
It also has the word "Pirates" in it so yeah that's enough reasons for me to get it.

this looks pretty fun, I like the cartoon-y style.

full game: moved to complete projects section

Excellent topic presentation and I have to say that it looks pretty good. I'll try giving this a download in the near future.

Finished it, it all seems to fast to end. 
The game is pretty difficult, I have to say - even in easy mode (I barely survived the onslaught stage) and the last stage was pretty funny.
Squid + Ink + Ship = ?

The game was very entertaining and actually addictive, the gameplay is top-notch. Definitely worthy of a 9/10.
Great game, cute characters, looking forward to a sequel.

Thanks for the replies guys, it's a welcome change from the "Why are you making games like THIS in RPG Maker!?" comments, as always when I'm aware of bugs I only hope that none of them impact the game too negatively, especially for some of which I can't actually fix heh.

But anyway it's good to see my work has paid off for the most part.