Title:
Picaroon.
Description: So what kind of game is it, then? Well, it’s a massively-multiplayer real-time strategy (MMORTS). If you already know about MMORTSs, then you can skip forward a paragraph. If you don’t, well, it’s a strategy game like Risk(R) but where everyone gets to take their turn when they wish to. Additionally, there are more players. Instead of 6, there can be hundreds and hundreds of players. On top of that, instead of a game that spans an evening, games of Picaroon can last weeks.
Picaroon will be free to play.
As well as exploring the world, building settlements and fleets, you can form alliances with other players (or just sink their ships and burn their settlements, of course, should diplomacy not be your thing!). Various third parties such as independent pirates, whirlpool wormholes and traveling salesman roam the open seas looking for victims or customers.
You enhance your game with specials. These are like a magic deck of cards, each of which has a feature such as forcing a volcano to erupt, laying a minefield or quadrupling construction speed for an hour on a settlement. By taxing your settlers, you can raise the in-game gold to purchase one of several random decks of cards.
If you wish, you will be able to use our secure micro-transaction system to buy more specific decks of cards to enhance your game.
Oh, and there is the unique end-game… a huge battle where the skies go darker, the roulette wheels spin and giant, mammoth ships appear out of nowhere alongside submarines launching ancient nuclear tipped missiles…
About us
We’re a small, independent developer called Nice Technology based in Cambridge, England (yes, that Cambridge, not the other ones). There’s a small handful of us beavering away building Picaroon, a game that we are deeply proud of. We hope that you’ll be interested in playing it or reading our thoughts and about our progress here on this blog.
The setting
Picaroon is played out in a grim water-world future where hundreds of small tropical islands are the only remaining usable land. The Earth, now tidally locked, has half of its surface bathed in perpetual sunlight and the other half a dark, miserable mystery where few dare to travel. The loosely ran Kingdoms hire individual warlords to fight for the control of these islands and survive by handing out rare technology and other services in return for very generous tributes.
An odd mix of the old and new, Picaroon is a world where the occasional nuclear blast rocks a mostly medieval society. Fight for yourself, fight for your Kingdom, but fight for victory. Medals and powers beyond your imagination await the successful.
Where we are
Picaroon is due for release in the winter of 2010. We say winter deliberately to give us some leeway with the exact date… software development is light years from an exact science and we wish to make sure that the game is perfect before releasing it.
However, despite the fact that it’s not out there yet, you can play the game now if you wish. Currently it is in alpha. Alpha means that there are missing features, missing graphics, missing sounds and that the game needs a whole bunch of tuning. At some point in September we expect to transition to beta. Beta means that it’s essentially a completed house with furniture in it but could do with some flowers, pictures on the wall and those general cosy things that make a house a home.