Game Review: Yo Ho Ho Puzzle Pirates!
So you have too much time on your hands, but you just can’t manage to get addicted to World of Warcraft or Everquest. You don’t want the pressure of a monthly subscription, and you prefer arcade and puzzle games to online RPGs.
Obviously you need to play Puzzle Pirates.
Puzzle Pirates is kinda-sorta an RPG, in that you create a character and move it around an online world. But that’s where the resemblance ends. The basic unit of interaction between pirates is the puzzle. Which means, if you’re anything like me, you can say good-bye to your free time and productivity right now.
Let’s say you want to go to sea and help a crew to attack and pillage other vessels, what with your being a pirate and all. Well, in between sea battles, you have to help keep that ship running. Maybe your job is to man the sails, in which case you play a game that’s remarkably similar to Nintendo’s Dr. Mario. Maybe you volunteer to pump the bilge; in that case, you’ll be playing a game one might described as a variant of Popcap’s Bejeweled. Or you put on your carpenter cap and get busy plugging holes in the ship’s hull–that’ll be a game of spacial relationships similar to pentaminos. In each case, the better you do at the puzzle, the more help you contribute to the smooth sailin’ of yer vessel.
So far so good. There you are, happily carpenting away (for example), when the navigator gives the order to engage another ship! One ship grapples another, and a melee ensues!
Swords flash (another Dr. Mario variant) and punches fly (Bust-A-Move) until one crew knocks out all the members of the other crew–and loots their ship! Yarr! Loot which you’ll get a share in when your captain sails into port and divides the booty! Yo ho ho!
And that’s not to mention the crafting puzzles wherein you work an honest hour’s labor for some landlubbin’ shop or other (or own a shop of your own), or challenge others to swordfighting duels or drinking contests for a friendly wager, or participate in parlor tournaments at the local inn. Or throw a party at your house. Or buy some bitchin’ clothes. Or…
Anyway, you have got to try it. A description like this doesn’t do it justice. If you’re the sort whose mental screensaver turns into a game of Tetris after a few hours of playing the real thing, Puzzle Pirates will hit your sweet spot.
Besides, the little cartoon avatars are so cute!
You may be wondering, how much does all this fun cost? The answer depends on what you want to do and on what ocean you do it. Puzzle Pirates has two payment models. Here’s how they work.
When you first create an account, the game shunts you off to the Cobalt Ocean, which is one of the subscription oceans. You can play without subscribing, but it’s “crippleware.” You can go pillaging, but you can’t own a ship or hold rank. You can own a longsword and wear a striped shirt, but you can’t own a skull dagger or sport a captain’s hat. You can only play crafting puzzles or parlor games only on the days when each is free. After you pay a subscription fee, all game options become available to you.
Alternately, you can play on a doubloon ocean. With doubloons, you can buy your way into privileges and play options individually. For instance, five doubloons get you a 30-day labor badge, which lets you play any crafting puzzle any day you want. An 30-day officer badge allows you to hold rank within a crew. Doubloons are also figure into the delivery cost of smaller goods (clothes, weapons) and the purchase cost of large ones (ships, real estate, shoppes). So how do you get doubloons? Well, you can buy them outright with your credit card. But if you’re a cheapskate like me, you can save up your Pieces of Eight (that’s the main in-game currency) and use them to purchase doubloons on the Doubloon Exchange. The going rate usually hovers around 800 PoE per doubloon.
So what we’ve got here is lots of puzzling fun in a real-time online community for pretty much free. What more can you ask for? I mean, reasonably ask for?
But–fair warning–it’s addictive. It will eat your free time and your work time and your sleeping time.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.