Glad I know not to waste any time on it now, expecting it to be something it isn't.
Always trying to find a balance of realism vs arcade feel on the gameplay. Let me know how you would handle sailing upwind/downwind instead, always love more suggestions!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/patrickobrianappreciationsoc...
At no point should you (nor would it be physically possible to) set the yards in the direction of the ship. At most during sailing they would be turned maybe 45 degrees which would correspond to "close hauled" at which point you may be able to reach about 60 degrees from the wind direction.
Thus, a simple linear function that would show the optimal angle of the yards as a function of the wind direction (0 = wind straight ahead, 180 = wind straight from behind) could be something like f(x) = -3/8 x + 67.5.
And as a slight visual cue, please show the mast when it would be visible before the sails as well. I found that I was often confused whether I had the yards sheeted all the way one way or the other way.
Also I think it would be clearer to show the yard position indicator as 0 degrees when the yards are squared, that is perpendicular to the ship. Then sheeted to the maximum would be 45 degrees either way from 0.
In the other hand that made it easier, and it was already hard enough lol! I bet it's easier on desktop though...
Edit: you should add a race/regatta mode!
I’m prly not the targeted audience, sailing for more then 30 years.
My ideal: slower, more real time, full maps based on actual locations, replay specific naval battles. Multiplayer (maybe it is?), realistic fog of war. I could go on
Edit: a few more. Sail trim is clunky and seems unresponsive or unclear how it maps to physics. Would be better to have trim on one side and steering on the other. Also to turn off tacking with tap. Steering too sensitive. The battles are great. (All on mobile)
It’s funny, your ideal scenario is almost exactly what I have in mind for the first PvP map coming soon, a slower predetermined map with historic factions/safe zones and ofc lots of combat with bots or people
I can definitely revisit the trim and responsiveness. Buried in the settings in ship logs you can move the wheel to the other side, need to make that more accessible
Still, very fun!
I need to sit down and do a sailing mechanics audit to find a good balance between arcade/realism, I think a beam reach is supposed to be faster than downwind. But my angle of attacks could be more accurate especially for upwind sailing?
Here’s currently how tinywind does it if anyone’s curious:
[1] https://forum.zegluj.net/download/file.php?id=23628&mode=vie...
EDIT: After playing around some more, yea it feels less like an action game and more like a "sailing around with nearly zero health" simulator.
A difficulty slider is a good idea though.
A "difficulty" feature could just be a toggle: Start with a claimed island, or start with no claimed island.
Edit: r for [un]furl sails [0], also <shift> apparently fires
I totally get if people primarily play with two hands on mobile it makes sense to default wheel to the left
One recommendation: make the boats not turn quite so fast. It allows you to outmaneuver other vessels by planning ahead or gaining speed ahead of time.
I still don't know much about sailing, but I have a lot of kitesurfing experience. Do boats really travel that slowly downwind? I assume that crosswind is faster, but downwind should still move at the speed of the wind.
Noted on the ship turn speeds, I’ve been playing around with larger ships having slower turn radii but I do want the naval combat to have more of a planning element (setup upwind, strafe run and fire, etc)
Let me look into the boat speeds in different wind conditions. I know beam reach/crosswind is faster than parachuting downwind but maybe my downwind speed is too slow now
In that mac game, there was a tradeoff between speed and the number of cannons / health too
Running on Linux Firefox.
A couple very kind redditors have reached out to develop in game tracks so stay tuned
I am lazy and would request a settings toggle to automatically adjust the sail angles for me for optimal speed given my bearing.
I submitted this a few days ago, so glad to see it posted again. Fun game. Funner to think I am sinking people, not bots :)
I’m working on a couple PvP modes so you can run naval battles with real captains very soon :)
Thanks so much for submitting this earlier, we got a great boost!
I’ve been building this since early May with active captains through the last month. I randomly noticed traffic from hacker news a few days ago, turns out somebody had linked tinywind in the comments there. Love to see other people in the space!
Gusts is another way and you could have storms! Maybe you do already but I didn’t encounter them.
Only confusing part is healing, I don't know my health or how much healing I need to be back to 80% or something close so I can get back into battle.
Also healing takes forever.
Good luck on your pixel adventures, love to see what you build!
As a sailor, I love seeing ads or other random imagery of sailboats that's clearly photoshopped, with sails in nonsensical orientations or completely backwards with things like flags or hair blowing in the wind.
The wind teller is OK but instead of a line ending with a circle it could be an arrow. Furthermore there is need to have it turn around the center of the teller. It can turn around the center of the arrow and be twice as large or take half the space.
The wheel is confusing and should be removed. I spent minutes attempting to turn it before realizing that I was turning the ship by touching the water where I wanted the ship to go. I know where the ship is headed to (I look at the ship) so the wheel is taking space on screen and cpu for no reason at all.
Every few minutes, maybe 10, a page of instructions opened in front of the game. They were always different. I don't know if I pressed a button or if it's a training mode. The problem is that it happens out of the blue and it's not welcome.
I didn't notice any indicator of how many cannonballs I have left.
The black cannonballs on blue water are not very visible. I also noted 4 circles in the water in front of the ship when I fire. What are they?
Seriously it would be something seaworthy. Huge success viral probably
If you need help building a backend for it to be multiplayer, please email me and I'd love to team up (sssilver@gmail.com), I already have something that would help.
Any dev(b)logs for it? Always curious how these games handle multiplayer and what engines/stack they use.
I'm guessing the decision is about making a online leaderboard?
Feedback..
1. show keyboard mapping on the touch controls (for desktop / laptop users ideally)
2. Make wind indicator much bigger and centrally located
3. Make cannon cooldown much bigger and centrally located
One gotcha/ask: Can you somewhere show the keyboard controls? Maybe in the overview, once I hit the space bar? Took me a while to figure things out,
I also really like the option to immediately jump into the game without first having to log in or so!
How long did it take you to get this up and running, if I may ask?
This is impressive!
Will buy the game later on, especially as it's only $5 - I guess that's a latte in the US these days?
Oh my, it wired up its own autopilot and is wrecking havoc now.
this.state.treasureEffects.cannonCooldownS = 0
Then you can easily cheat.
Is there any way around this?
also, I need a fucking windvane, dude, please
basically, what this guy said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546879
The illusion (and thus the game) is ruined if you actually know how sailing works. I’d prefer something more realistic, which would make it more strategic- this is just a motorboat simulation with visual-only sails
