Buccaneers, Bounty & Boom [official site] is the latest project from the Neptune’s Pride devs. If you’re familiar with the simultaneous turn-based nature of Neptune’s Pride, or its use of diplomacy and deception, you’ll probably already have a good idea of what BBB involves. If not, everyone takes a turn and those turns play out at the same time with ships moving and exploration happening and attacks looming. You’re trying to become the Pirate King by accumulating buccaneers, harvesting bounty and building up your firepower… and so is everyone else.

Here’s the official trailer:



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The three Bs are the things you earn Pirate Points for and the first to 30 Pirate Points wins the game, so it’ll be a matter of trying to keep everyone else’s progress at bay while promoting your own. I signed up on the site to have a poke around (although some features of play are gated for premium members which involves a fee of $12) and it looks like there’s a Parley function which I’d assume is for messaging other players in order to promise that you’re DEFINITELY not going to attack.

I’m going to put the site blurb here because otherwise it would just be me rewriting the same things and there’s a lot of info about units in there:

“Hire some of the most despicable and underhanded goblins to join your crew. Choose from 15 different crew members to customise your ships. The Grappler will hold enemy ships in place while you attack. The Bouncer will ricochet cannonballs to attack multiple hexes at once. The Slaver will smuggle crew members from attacked ships. “Build up the biggest ships and cities on the seas. Stack your ships and cities with unlimited levels of cannons, health, and armour. Upgrade your cities to improve your harvest. Cities can harvest food, wood, and metal from surrounding land hexes. Food can also be harvested from sea tiles with fish. The best bounty comes from rare treasures of the sea, such as mystic mermaids, precious pearls, and terrible tusks. Use these treasures to drive your economy and to hire goblin crew for your ships. “Parley with the other pirate leaders to negotiate trades and make alliances. But remember, pirates are untrustworthy sods and everyone is vying to be the Goblin Pirate King!”

In terms of additional info, the devs promise fast-paced games as well as the longer multi-week slogs thanks to an ability to set turn deadlines at intervals from 2 minutes to 48 hours.

I might actually be the worst person to be writing about this news because I grew so averse to and panicked by Neptune’s Pride that the game retired me based on my inaction as everyone else submitted turn after turn. I tried again with Subterfuge on my mobile and actually ended up in tears because I didn’t understand how to read situations where people I was friends with were trying to screw me over. I have the dubious distinction of never lying to anyone in that game.

BUT I do like cartoony pirates, so perhaps I’ll get suckered in to trying again. Mark my words, the day I do that with colleagues is the day my resignation from RPS is all but certain.

There’s a Greenlight page if you’re into voting on potential Steam games, or there’s the beta which you can tinker with now (although, as I said, some of the features seem to be paywalled for premium membership).