Yohoho! Puzzle PiratesDeveloper: Three RingsSystem: Online Publisher: Three Rings Released: 2003 |
A Review by Kevin Buffington
04/19/2004
Developers Three Rings bills Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (or Y!PP for short) as a MMORrrrrPG which out to give you some idea of the sense of humor that pervades the game. Y!PP is a radical departure from the notion that multiplayer online RPGs need to be of the hack and slash variety and as such should appeal to anyone tired of the tried and true formula. In Y!PP there are no monsters to fight, only one item really effects your stats and you can't really get anywhere unless you work as a team.
In Y!PP you assume the role of a young pirate (or piratess) out to make a name for himself in the fast paced world of piracy. You start out on your home island which is a thriving metropolis filled with shops, markets and bar or two. You can wander around the island checking out the various wares, getting into fights and even playing a drinking game if you like. Of course you don't start out with any money so you'll need to find a way to make some, and as you can guess that usually involves some pillaging on the high seas.
By yourself you can't really do a whole lot so you're going to need to find a crew to work with. Fortunately this is extremely easy to do as you just go the local notice board, (there's one on every colonized island) find a crew looking for a part-time pirate and then you can take a job with them (known as jobbing). It doesn't matter if the ship is in your port as you'll be instantly whisked to the ship where you can immediately set to work.
There are four main duty stations on a ship: bilging, carpentry, sailing and gunnery. All are pretty vital to a ships passage across the water. As water builds up in the hold everything else on the ship becomes less effective so bilging is important for keeping a ship operating efficiently. Carpentry fixes damage caused by enemy cannonballs and even leaks that spring up over time and reduces the speed that water seeps into the hold. Sailing allows you to reach your destination faster (or just outrun enemy ships) while gunnery loads your cannons for use in battle. There are different ship types and with different crew requirements from small 4 man sloops to giant Frigates which need dozens of crewmembers.
As the Puzzle part of the name implies, just about everything there is to do in the game involves some type of puzzle and all are pretty varied. If you're the type of person who spends hours playing the free puzzle games available online I can guarantee Y@PP is right up your alley. While there are detailed instructions for everything, most puzzles can be picked up fairly quickly, even if they do take a long time to master. Periodically during your voyage you'll be graded on your performance and you can see if you've done an Incredible, Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor job. If you've really screwed things up you'll have Booched the puzzle. It happens to everyone time and again, but fortunately for the first few days you play you'll get a Learning rating every time you screw up so everyone knows you're doing your best.
Every pirate has an experience ranking and current standing in each of the 8 different pirate skills. As you do the puzzles more and more you experience goes up. If you do well in the puzzles your standing will increase, do poorly and it will decrease. There is a leaderboard for your current archipelago and the entire ocean showing who is the best at each puzzle.
The best puzzle in the game and the most important one to excel at is Swordfighting. This is how a pirate will earn the majority of his money. There are two types of swordfight: 1v1 and Ship vs. Ship. A 1v1 swordfight normally takes place in a tavern or on the street and usually against a real person. Money can be wagered on the outcome and swordfighting tournaments with huge prizes can usually be found daily. The swordfighting puzzle is highly reminiscent of the classic Playstation game Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. The sword fighting puzzle is a game where pieces fall from top of the screen ala Tetris. Each piece has two parts, each either a block or breaker, and each part can be one of 4 different colors. The object of the puzzle is to assemble large contiguous blocks of the same color together and then drop a breaker of the same color onto it which will destroy the block and drop junk pieces on your opponent. These pieces will stay gray for two rounds and can't be destroyed until they turn back into one of the 4 colors. Of course your opponent will also be dropping blocks on you as they destroy bricks on their own map. The first person who's screen fills completely loses. It might sound complicated, but it's fairly easy to get the hang of.
The real fun comes when you're fighting another ship though. Every player can see a representation of every enemy board and by clicking on an opponent's board you can choose to drop your blocks on them. Teamwork is the key as getting 3 or 4 people on one enemy will usually eliminate him pretty quickly... of course the other team will attempt to do the same. Also before engaging the enemy both sides have an attempt to outmaneuver and fire cannons at the opposing ship. Successful hits will damage your opponent and will cause unremovable lines to be added to the bottom of their boards during the swordfight which often greatly influences the outcomes. Once one side has been completely eliminated the other is victorious and will take some of the money and goods stored on the defeated ship.
When a ship sets into port the ranking officer on board can divvy up the booty to all participants. Records are kept for how long a pirate has been onboard and the captain will usually adjust the payouts accordingly. There's a lot of Pieces of Eight (PoE) to be made on the high seas, particularly if you can head out for long periods at a time.
Assuming you do well enough jobbing you're more than likely to get an offer to join a crew. There are dozens of different crews you can join, all with different pay rates, objectives and resources, so it's best to look around before accepting an offer. You don't have to join a big crew but if you do you're more likely to find a crewmate to play with at any time of day althouhgh you can still always go jobbing with another crew. Bigger crews will have more ships and can even set their sights on owning shops on some of the islands. Multiple crews are often lumped together under a single Flag under which they'll work together to achieve even greater goals.
Once you've participated in a few battles you may want to spend your PoE. Of course this game rewards active participation and it can take a decent amount of work before you can afford much. If you've scrapped up enough PoE, you can spend it on new clothes in all manner of varieties or on the purchase of a brand new sword. Clothes affect the way you look but don't alter anything about the game. Swords on the other hand are responsible for the pattern of colors you drop on your opponents during swordfights. Like any commodity the better swords are more expensive than the cheap ones. Once you delve deeper you'll realize there's a thriving economy of resource gathering/trading/selling going on underneath. Every item has resource requirements and if the store you want to purchase from is out of stock, they can't make what you want. Assuming they do have everything required you'll place an order and then will be given an estimation of how long you'll have to wait for your item to be produced. Depending on how many people are employed at the store and how complex an item, it can be several days before it's ready.
As Y!PPis a puzzle game and not your standard fantasy hack-fest you'll quickly realize that the demographics of the world are pretty different from what you'd normally find online. I would guess the average player is somewhere around 30 years old and there's a surprisingly good male to female ratio... probably pretty close to 50-50. You won't find many annoying kids with their "133t-speak" or general nuisances either. Step aboard a ship and you're liable to be greeted with several "Ahoy"s or "Welcome Aboard"s. The average Puzzle Pirate is exceedingly friendly and willing to help out if you have questions on any aspect of the game, no matter how basic.
Y!PP is java based game which means the executable will run on any system with a Java runtime engine. It also receives frequent updates from the Three Rings crew as new game play elements are brought online. The one drawback of the Java environment is that it can be a little slow, particularly with all the graphics the game loads and occasionally the Client might lock up or act funny. Fortunately these are rare occurrences that you won't encounter all that often.
Of course all this fun is costing somebody money so it isn't completely free. You can download the client and try out the game with the only restriction being you can't advance past cabin person or purchase most of the fancier clothes or any new weapons. Otherwise you'll get a great feel for the elements of the game and decide if it's right for you. If it is, the game is $9.95/month, $24.95/quarter or $74.95/year. It's a pretty good value compared to most online games.
The only drawback to a game like this is that it can get repetitive. It's probably hard to tire of fighting other ships but after your 500th time Sailing or Carpentering you might long for a little more variety in the game. At least as you get promoted through the ranks of your crew, new puzzles such as Navigation become available to you.
This is a light hearted game filled with fun for old and young alike with a friendly atmosphere and a great concept. It's a new twist on an old style and one that should appeal on some level to anyone who has gotten bored with the standard MMORPG conventions.
If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, rush over to puzzlepirates.com to download the game and give it a try yourself. I doubt you'll be disappointed.
© Copyright CultureCartel.com 04/19/2004
