First impression

[Lytse Pier]

Hi,

First of all, let me introduce myself as to give more insight in who's first impression it is from this game.

I'm Dutch, 43 years old, married, two kids, dog, cat, whole package. ????

I saw this game on YouTube and it seemed worthwhile to support, hence I decided to back it up. Playing it already in an Alpha is a nicely added bonus. Experience of a Joe Average gamer like me might be valuable for the developers.

*Install*

The install went smoothly with adding the key to my steam account. The pop-up with the setting didn't seem to take into my Geforce GTX 970 and came up with low detail and a very low resolution. I selected preferences and details manually at ultra detail and 1980x800 resolution.

*Starting screen*

The starting screen looks very basic but is remarkably functional. I found everything I needed to start up a game or get into contact with other users through a chatbox. The only thing that is puzzling me is that there is a screen that seems to let you change the cannon setup on the ship or something. Most interesting to dabble with that, once I get a feeling on playing the battles with unmodified settings to experience the difference proper.

*Battle mode*

The ship models are surprisingly detailed and with the waves smoothly going underneath the ship I felt a great deal of immersion. The flags, apart of the nationality, seem a bit random, but give a nice grandeur to the visuals. The clipping of the graphics when zooming in were sometimes a bit odd, but not disturbing.

Sails up was easy and changing modes is apparent. It is greeted with some nice whistling, which again gives a real feel of the Iron Men responding to your commands. Sometimes when I am steering and hoisting or lowering sails the command to change sails don't work and I have to stop steering before the command is picked up from the key pressing.

*Visuals*

The visuals are quit good, but the renderrange of a username above the ships seem to be very short. A lot of times I see ships at the outskirts or beyond of my cannonrange that have no username above them and I have to guess to which team they are. This creates a necessity of me having a good situational awareness. I'm not sure this is as intended. Me writing about it makes me wonder if I should use the binoculars more to see if I can identify the flag on the ship, I stead of relying on the color of the username above the ships.

*shooting*

The shooting itself was very easy to get into, a few tips from one of the helpful users in chat about space bar for a ranging shot was very helpful. Mastering the shooting was another cup of tea. A ranging shot from a cannon on the he rear of a broadside can give a very different direction the a cannon from the front of a broadside. It would be great if I could choose the ranging cannon as to have less unexpected results.

The overall experience to shooting was that it was simple to do, but hard to master due to a lot of factors, like windposition and tilting of the ship due to lesser and full sail on that wind position, waves rocking the ship, dispersion of the gun itself. The sounds are very good and I love them!

*Aftermath*

I enjoyed my first couple of games a lot! The game pace which is of course also important to a player seems just right. It is a thinking game, and due to all the buttons to press and surroundings to keep track of, wind direction, positioning, communicating with team members, etc, it still feels the is a pressure to keep thinking.

*Tips*

Perhaps try to not put the usernames above the ships as a standard. I know it is done in many other games, but trying to identify ships and using your situation awareness can be an integral part of the gameplay. Choosing a gun for ranging shots might be a nice addition.

I hope this first impression helps to make this game even more awesome! If not, well I at least got it off my chest on how promising I think this game is going to be!

Kind regards,

Redbad - Danny