I kept thinking about a survival angle to this game that could be a lot of fun. Imagine that sailing through a storm or heavy fog causes you to suddenly “get lost” out on the sea. “Getting lost” would trigger the following events:
- Little ship icon disappears from the map in captain’s desk so you can’t pinpoint your location anymore
- Island name text overlays would disappear as you approach islands so it’s harder to tell which island you are on
- Everyone starts “starving” (i.e. everyone’s health gradually starts depleting) and you have to eat bananas if you have them (and or try to fish for food if they implement fishing)
- You slowly start becoming dehydrated which could be the same visual effect as drinking grog (i.e. drunk)
- The intensity of the sun’s rays gradually start affecting your vision more
- You become way more likely to encounter (and have to fight) sea monsters such as the Kraken etc.
And basically the objective of the mini game would be to find your bearings again so that all of the above mentioned effects disappear. You could do that by:
- Sailing to the nearest inhabited island and asking someone (say at the tavern) or even another player
- If it’s daytime, using your sextant (if you purchased it hint hint) to measure the sun’s attitude over the horizon and then using your measurement in some type of navigational mini-game
- If it’s night time, waiting for the clouds to clear in order to see constellation patterns and then matching them in some type of navigational mini-game
The mechanics of the navigational mini-game could be implemented many different ways, but it should take a little bit of time and coordination to do and get progressively more difficult the more time goes on and you become affected by above mentioned factors. Not to mention that you could get attacked by another player while "lost" and then your day goes from bad to worse :-)
Thoughts?
