Hyar, here there be dragons… and a tactical grid.
If you’re anything like me, you probably spent long hours of your childhood afternoons playing BattleTech on the kitchen table and listening to the MechWarrior 2 soundtrack on your Discman. No? Just me? Well, if you do happen to be a sicko like me, you probably keep tabs on Jordan Weisman, the designer who brought us not only BattleTech but Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and Crimson Skies. He’s got a Kickstarter campaign going until November 14th to fund a new PC game called Sea of Legends, based on an also-crowdfunded tabletop game by Zach Weisman.
Sea of Legends looks to be quite the genre mashup—it’s described on the Kickstarter as an “open world deck-building RPG,” but also boasts a romance system where you can woo the sons or daughters of local governors to build alliances and curry favor. Perhaps we can win their hearts in sexy swordfights?
Gameplay is centered around tactical deck to deck battles on an isometric grid, where you use a deck of cards to take actions with your rascally crew (y’know, deck to deck deck to deck battles). Your deck will be built from cards for each of your characters, each of whom have quests you can complete to gather more cards and improve your deck.
The essence of good pirating starts with other ships to plunder, and there are plenty of those: trade ships, troop ships, other pirates, and the infamous Spanish black ships full of ill-gotten gold. You’ll spend your loot upgrading your ship, hiring new crew, or buying new magical items to help you on your quest to become the Pirate King or Queen.
You might be wondering where magical items fit into a game about pirates, but there’s a bit of a fantasy element going on here. Undead conquistadors who’ve drunk from the fountain of youth and a secret cult that worships the Kraken add a bit of spice to your rum, and honestly if I’m playing a pirate game and don’t get attacked by the Kraken at least once I tend to leave a little disappointed.
I’m always a little leery of Kickstarters, but Weisman has a good record. He funded Shadowrun Returns on Kickstarter, a game we thought was solid if not spectacular. He’s also had successful campaigns for a board game, Golem Arcana, and their follow up Shadowrun game, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, about which Alexis Ong wrote a fantastic piece in 2022 which you should absolutely check out if you haven’t already.
The tides of time will tell if Sea of Legends will be able to break into the holy trinity of pirate games (AC4, Secret of Monkey Island, and Sid Meier’s Pirates!, for those wondering. No, I will not be taking questions). Either way I’ll be checking it out for sure, assuming of course that it gets funded.
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