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Devil Whale Games4 days ago(+1)

BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT WITH ME!

This looks like such a blast! Having read Bright Sun Games' comment, I have to say that they're probably correct regarding Kozel. That said, I personally will riot if there is no playable bear character in Shoulder Parrots and Hooks for Hands, and I would die for Kozel. 

I really like all the characters, they're so fun and colorful. Like the other comment already said, I think the flaws system is really clever, and I love how there's a mixture of good and bad stuff in there, and how a lot of them have specific triggers. Generally, adding a minus(-)-die mechanic as a negative counterpart to bonus(+)-die is such a clever addition to the system. 

Honestly I'm impressed by how well some of the groundwork you laid out here would work (I think) for a heist-centric Havoc game. I suppose this is a heist-centric Havoc game as well, though the pirate flavoring comes out on top for me. Although I agree with the sentiment that a ship-based objective/location would've been fire and laid on the pirate vibes extra thick. That said, I'm not sure if a boarding action scene would've been able to interact interestingly with the Heat mechanic.

Speaking of: love the Heat mechanic, it's the main thing that made me comment on how well the ideas here could be applied to a heist-centric game. 

The game needs a little polishing here and there (which is both fair and to be expected when it's a game jam submission, I feel like), but I think you've got a stellar idea with really cool foundations to build upon! 

Bonebeard would be proud.

- Jorrit 

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HogwartsHoe4 days ago(+1)

Thanks so much for the review! I didn't really set out to make a heist game, but that's definitely where it ended up by the end of the month. 

I want to keep working on the flaws. I think the concept feels good and enticing to pick them, but also gives some mechanical weight that intrinsically tied to the narrative, which is my favorite thing about how the equipment works in the Havoc Engine. I think with some more playtime, I'll find some things that feel interesting and impactful after I see where people take the characters in game. 

I'm glad you liked the heat mechanic so much, it went through a few different version before I found one that felt impactful and thematic. After reading the Trash to Treasure submission, I have almost been wondering if the GM should roll one big dice pool at the beginning of the round based on everyone's heat combined, then allow players to whittle way at it until the end of the round, and then spend it accordingly, maybe with the cavaet that anyone whose heat gets reduced to zero during that round can't be hit, but then I'd have to rework the capture mechanic because it is dependent on what a character decides to spend successes on in their turn.

 I've got two ideas on my list for how to incorporate ship based combat. Both are effectively an end game chase scene. The most obvious way is that once the players have Maggoteye's head, they need to get their ship out of the harbor and have to escape other ships chasing them. The other, which feels more piratey is that when they find the governor, he tells them Maggoteye's head is on a ship headed somewhere and then they have to get back to theirs, hunt the ship down down, board it, and find the head. I would just need to slim down major/minor objectives along the way so it doesn't feel too long.  

I'm going to take it back and rework some stuff for sure and reupload in a week or two I think. Firstly because I ran out of time, I basically just had to format and submit my google docs version and I didn't have the time to edit it and lay it out in Affinity. Now that there's less pressure, I'd like to improve the presentation. 

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Devil Whale Games3 days ago(+1)

Time is never on our side, and I do wanna say I feel like it's commendable that you've created all this within the timeframe of the jam. Looking forward to seeing the prettied up version! 

In JAMS, which my friend/fellow Devil Whale Rik wrote, durign playtesting we came up with a similar idea to what you're describing (and apparently that Trash to Treasure does, though I haven't gotten around to reading that one yet). JAMS just has one static number that players have to whittle down during a round, as opposed to one shared "threat dice pool", but the concept is similar. During playtesting we found that it really amped up the teamwork and community aspects of the game, but further abstracted what exactly you were defending against. As JAMS has a lot of objectives/situations that aren't as hostile as in Eat the Reich or Shoulder Parrots and Hooks for Hands, that actually worked out really well for JAMS, but your mileage might vary. Interesting idea to play around with at the least, for sure! 

I feel like either idea for a ship situation sounds fire! I think having it be a bit more "focused"/straightforward, with a smaller location and mostly a main objective to focus on, could work really well, yeah. 

This does remind me that I really rather liked the way you handled locations and objectives, specifically for a heist-centered game!

Anyways, I look forward to seeing the next version, and good luck with your further yar-har-fiddle-dee-dee-ing. 

- Jorrit

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HogwartsHoe3 days ago

Thanks again! I'll make sure to check out JAMS asap! 

I absolutely see how the mechanic of a shared GM dice pool for all players in a round would offer tough decisions regarding risk/reward. i.e. not responding to threats on your turn if you think the next person will roll enough dice to get it on their turn. But it definitely seems like a great tool for reinforcing teamwork!

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