Pirates Vs. Mermaidspaper Crafts & Creations

Looting buccaneers take on awful undead with Pirates vs. Put on a tricorn hat and eye patch and ready your saber to battle frightful corpse-like creatures as you search for valuable treasure. Engage in daring duels when you role-play with friends on both sides: plundering privateers and lurching mutants. Pirates of Dark Water video games were also released for the Super NES and Sega Genesis platforms, both published by Sunsoft. The Super NES version is a side-scrolling beat 'em up in the style of Final Fight from Capcom, co-developed by Japanese and American staff members, where players can choose to play as Ren, Tula or Ioz and proceed to.

Space Pirates and Zombies (S.P.A.Z.) is a real-time strategy video game released on August 15, 2011, on the Steam distribution platform. with a top-down perspective based around space combat. The game was developed by a two-man team under the studio MinMax Games using the Torque engine. The game was later ported for Mac OS X and Linux systems.

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3. The pirates have 30 minutes to destroy the emerald inside the castle defenders castle. To get to the castle the pirate must construct a bridge from the ship to the castle. During this period where the pirates are building the bridge the castle defenders can mine resources inside their castle to forge equipment.

A sequel, Space Pirates and Zombies 2, was announced on February 5, 2014,^[1] and was set to be released in the 1st quarter of 2015,^[2] but it was delayed until 2016.^[3] Space Pirates and Zombies 2 has been in Early Access on Steam until its release on November 7, 2017.^[4]

Gameplay[edit]

S.P.A.Z. integrates top down shooter gameplay with role-playing video game and real-time strategy elements within a futuristic space setting. The game also features large-scale randomly generated galaxies to explore. Players command a fleet of ships, and may control any one of their ships individually at a time. The galaxy is organized into systems, each system containing a star and a set of planet bodies and areas which may be 'warped' to via an in-game map. These areas may contain faction stations where trade, missions, or sieges may take place. The player's standing with the faction affects what services the station will give you. Players can improve their faction standings through missions and level up their fleet through missions and combat.

When controlling the craft players can fire the craft's main weapons, fire alternative weapons such as missiles, or launch shuttlecraft filled with marines. The view of the game world can be scrolled in or out, enabling a distant view or a closer view for combat. Combat involves positioning your ship to hit the enemy with your weapons while dodging enemy fire, and tactically deploying larger weapons such as minefields and mass bombs. Each vessel has different shields, armor and hull types and each is strong or weak against certain types of weapon, encouraging players to diversify within their own fleets in order to engage different enemies. Initially gameplay involves interacting with the UTA or Civilian factions, depending on the player's standing with them in the current star system. Shortly into the game a faction of Bounty Hunters is introduced, and later in the game the eponymous and extremely dangerous zombie force appears.

Three types of resources are available in-game; Rez, Goons and Data. Rez is the material that is mined from asteroids and is used to build ships and buy technology. Goons are crew members found in ejected escape pods or bought from colony worlds, and are used to crew your ships and can be gifted to factions to improve relations. Data represents gathered technology and forms the basis for the game's experience system; the more the player destroys enemies and completes quests, the more Data is rewarded which can then be spent on upgrading the various aspects of the fleet.

There are currently 43 different types of controllable ships split into 5 size categories; Tiny, Small, Medium, Large and Huge. These can be fitted with a variety of weaponry such as lasers, cannons, torpedoes, guided missiles, mass bombs, fighter drones and mines whilst the ships themselves can be customised with different types of propulsion, reactors, shields, stealth technology and various utility boosters making them more effective in certain situations.

Synopsis[edit]

Humanity has expanded throughout the galaxy after the discovery of the miraculous Element 126, colloquially known as 'Rez', which enabled matter replication technology (including cloning), advanced artificial intelligence and faster than light travel in the form of the warp gate network. With more of the new element found near the galactic core, the outer worlds, including Earth, have become neglected backwaters. With humanity now numbering in the thousands of trillions across thousands of planets, the spread of interplanetary diseases caused the collapse of many human governments. A totalitarian militaristic police force called the United Terran Alliance (or UTA) stepped in to fill the void and began to strictly police access to the warp gates. Civilian access to interstellar travel was abolished in what was described as a 'temporary move' but this state of affairs has existed for over 1000 years. With humanity living in the decaying remnants of its past glory the civilian populations of many sectors rose up against the UTA in the vicious 'Lockdown Wars' over control of space travel and the supply of Rez.

There has always been rumoured to be an endless and hidden motherlode of Rez in the galactic core, but none have ever managed to find it. Chasing this dream, thousands of miners and pirates in the Earth system band together to take on the UTA and claim their fortune.

Plot[edit]

Mermaid Creations Inc

For years the Pirates of the Earth system, under the command of explorer Don Gibson, second-in-command Elsa Young and former UTA scientist Dr. Carl Memford, have been constructing a massive armed mothership named the Clockwork to take on the warring UTA and Civilian fleets between them and the galactic core. After allying with the Rez miners in the Earth system, the Clockwork crew blast their way through the UTA blockade at the system's warp gate and head into the wider galaxy. This brings them into conflict with the high ranking UTA commander Admiral Jamison who doggedly attempts to stop them reaching the heavily guarded Core Worlds.

After acquiring the technology necessary to access the Core Worlds the Clockwork crew discover that the Core Worlds are overrun with a horrific biomechanical pandemic that fuses living tissue into ship systems to create an all consuming hiveminded fleet of Zombies. It becomes apparent that the UTA had been battling this infection for over 200 years and the added security measures for accessing the Core Worlds were not to keep Civilians and Pirates out but to keep the Zombie infection in. The Clockwork battles on and eventually discovers a hidden alien warp gate into the galactic center - there it discovers an extremely ancient and hostile alien intelligence known as the 'Dark Entity' which is both the source of all Rez in the galaxy and the controlling intelligence of the Zombies.

To the horror of his crew, captain Don Gibson immediately defects to the Dark Entity and the Clockwork is infected and transformed into a Zombie superweapon. The remaining crew are only saved by the intervention of Admiral Jamison, who then retreat in shock. Don reveals that he had encountered the Dark Entity over 200 years ago and was enslaved and dispatched as a means of securing the success of its infection by destroying the UTA's blockade on interstellar travel, with the Entity prolonging his lifespan in order to do so.

The Zombie infection quickly spreads throughout the entire galaxy, with the crew of the Clockwork becoming widely hated and cursed for bringing about the apparent end of humanity. Seeking to save the galaxy, and to get revenge on Gibson, Elsa Young takes command of the Pirates and spends the next 2 years creating a new mothership - Clockwork 2. With the help of Admiral Jamison and other allies, the Pirate fleet fights its way back through Zombie space to the realm of the Dark Entity and destroys it, Gibson and the original Clockwork.

The fate of humanity is left in question, as the Rez it so desperately depended on can now no longer be replenished. Choosing not to dwell on this the Pirates instead devote themselves to destroying every trace of the Zombie infection.

Development[edit]

The game was developed by Andrew Hume and Richard Clifford, who had previously shared an office for five years as technical designers at Radical Entertainment in British Columbia, Canada.^[5] They were working on the unreleased Scarface 2, the sequel to Scarface: The World Is Yours, for two years before the project was cancelled. Following this the pair worked on an undisclosed project for a year, before this too was canceled. On this Clifford stated 'Having years of your life flushed because of a graph projection and watching 60 of your friends get laid off can destroy the magic feeling.'^[6] Soon after the second project's cancellation they shared their ideas for a debut video game of their own making, whereupon they left Radical Entertainment and formed MinMax Games.^[5]

Taking on development of S.P.A.Z. required a full-time commitment from both men. As a result of this, neither received any kind of payment for a period of twenty two months. The project was initially planned to take six months. The self-funding nature of the project eventually required the developers to use the equity of their homes in order to continue. The development of a game through a two-man independent studio as opposed to being part of a much larger team offered both positive and negative changes. Because Hume and Clifford lacked the staff resources of a larger company they were forced to take on tasks which would have been handled by a more specialist staff member should they still been employed at Radical Entertainment. Decision making, however, required short conversations and agreements rather than meetings and risk assessments, simplifying this facet of development.^[5]

S.P.A.Z. was modeled on video games from what the developers consider '..the golden age of gaming..', including series such as X-com, Star Control and Mechwarrior, but given '..a modern twist.' Various aspects of these titles and others were combined to form S.P.A.Z. The top-down perspective space combat aspect was influenced by Star Control, the physics and emphasis on craft design from Mechwarrior was added to this to form the base of the game. The components for spacecraft, it was decided, would need to be unlocked during play. The role-playing game style skill tree of Diablo was combined with the tiered research system of X-com to produce the required effect. The science fiction television series Babylon 5 was the inspiration behind the thruster-based space combat. The in-game universe was inspired by the exploration aspects of Freelancer and Homeworld, producing '..a top down space action RPG'^[5] similar to a simplified descendant of Escape Velocity.^[7]

The game's universe was originally designed to accommodate several different races, however after several months the developers had not progressed far beyond humans. At this point it was decided to retain '..the zombified ship aspect..' and refocus on that. A plant-based race and a crystalline race were dropped from the game. The zombies' organic weapons proved difficult to define, ideas such as egg-laying and infestation from creatures entering the players' ships were considered. The developers decided to produce 'zombified versions' of each human-controlled ship within the game, resulting in the final design of the zombies. The zombies' reproduction was inspired by spiders, some of which '..reproduce and have their offspring crawling all over them.' The developers incorporated this, allowing zombie ships to effectively reproduce by infecting the players' craft similar to Homeworld: Cataclysm's antagonist.^[5]

The spacecraft were originally created by Clifford combining shapes then drawing over the top of the resultant silhouette. Due to his lack of artistic training a lot of the designs '..looked bad at first.' After repeated attempts the craft started to improve visually, resulting in a collection of ships with different areas to deploy weapons. These areas, hard points, were adjusted throughout development. It was decided that each craft should perform a specific role within each size class, additional craft were created to fill any gaps. Weapons from Babylon 5 and Star Trek were added to the game, whenever the team saw examples which were not emulated within the game they attempted to create them. The randomly generated galaxies were not originally intended. After a time the developers discovered that creating the game's world was too time-consuming. Although the creation of the procedurally generated galaxy aspect took time in itself, once it was completed it grew along with the rest of the project. Balancing the randomly generated galaxies would have proven difficult, but because S.P.A.Z. is an open-world game it allows players to choose which tasks to undertake during play.^[5]

Reception[edit]

Space Pirates and Zombies received both positive and mixed reviews and previews from video game critics, covering both the beta version of the game and the final release. In a preview by Jeff Mattas of Shacknews, he stated 'I have no reservations recommending that anyone looking for a solid space-based shooter with retro flair, a ton of customization options, and a lot of replay value.'^[8] In another preview, by Quintin Smith of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, the author stated 'While this is a good game and well worth your attention (and when it emerges from the beta, it might even be a great one), oh my Lord is it irritating.'^[9] Smith also stated 'I think a lot of modern PC gamers would cheer at any dev trying to breathe life into the frozen body of the space shooter genre..', but added '..S.P.A.Z. isn’t simply resuscitating a genre. It’s also following quite an old-fashioned and miserly approach to learning curves and content.'^[9]

Atomic Gamer's Jeff Buckland gave the game an overall rating of 9 of 10. He stated '..while a lot of changes have gone into v1.0, I'd still be recommending the game even without them.' In regards to the update he added 'We get quite a few new accessibility and convenience features, more missions, a specialist system, and more - along with some bug fixes, many addressing specific issues that I and many players had in the beta.'^[10] He summed up by recommending the game to '..serious fans of games like Master of Orion, Star Control 2, Space Rangers 2, or other space-based, genre-bending games..'.^[10]GamePro's Tony Capri gave an overall rating of 7 of 10, stating 'The combat is fun, the controls are solid, and there's ample content -- unfortunately, SPAZ is not actually as expansive as its premise suggests.'^[11] He also stated 'There’s plenty of content already under the hood, and MinMax is intent on offering a steady stream of meaningful updates. Unfortunately, the game at present doesn’t fully satisfy in terms of presentation or variety..'.^[11]

See also[edit]

• Escape Velocity (1996)
• SubSpace (1997)
• Infantry (1999)
• Flatspace (2003)
• Endless Sky (2015)
• Starscape (2004)

References[edit]

1. ^Richard (2014-02-05). 'SPAZ 2 ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER!'. Min Max Games. Retrieved 2014-06-22.
2. ^Steam. 'Space Pirates And Zombies 2 Steam Store page'. Valve. Retrieved 2014-09-25.
3. ^'SPAZ 2 Coming in 2016 (Here's why)'. steamcommunity.com. 2015-09-01. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
4. ^Content, Saving (2017-10-24). 'MinMax Games prepares Space Pirates and Zombies 2 to release in full on November 7th'. Saving Content. Retrieved 2020-01-04.
5. ^ ^abcdefScott Lipowitz (2011-12-24). 'Interview: S.P.A.Z. Creators – MinMax Games'. Dual Shockers. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
6. ^Kuchera, Ben (2011-08-24). 'Feral developers: why game industry talent is going indie'. Ars Technica. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
7. ^Scott Lipowitz (2011-11-19). 'Review: Space Pirates and Zombies'. Dual Shockers. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
8. ^Mattas, Jeff (2011-05-24). 'Space Pirates and Zombies preview'. Shacknews. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
9. ^ ^abSmith, Quintin (2011-05-27). 'Impressions: Space Pirates And Zombies'. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
10. ^ ^abBuckland, Jeff (2011-08-16). 'Space Pirates and Zombies review'. Atomic Gamer. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
11. ^ ^abCapri, Tony (2011-08-18). 'Review of Space Pirates and Zombies'. GamePro. Archived from the original on 2011-11-30. Retrieved 2011-08-20.

External links[edit]

Filled with tales of battle and glory, the world of pirates has inspired many motion pictures, novels and video games. The exotic islands of the Caribbean, the emerald sea and the golden treasures are some of the main elements that come to mind when thinking about a life of piracy, but besides these beauties, there is also war, blood and plunder. If you find this combination suiting, then you might also like our list with 10 of the best pirate games that let you feel like the most daring ship captain that ever lived!

Pirates of the Caribbean
In Pirates of the Caribbean, the player takes the role of Captain Nathaniel Hawk and goes on numerous quests on behalf of any of the countries that control the islands of the Caribbean in the 17th century. This action role-playing video game offers quite a lot in terms of gameplay variety, the player character being able to buy ships, recruit a crew of loyal officers and fight together in complex naval battles, complete with wind mechanics and the possibility of changing ammo type.

Pirate101
This massively multiplayer online role-playing game allows players to assume the roles of daring pirates who set out on various quests to find treasures and fight various enemies. The gameplay is extremely varied, taking command of a ship, engaging in turn-based battles and befriending companions being just some of the available in-game activities. Pirate101 can be enjoyed either as a free-to-play title or a subscription based one, its immense cloud world being open to anyone.

Age of Booty
In Age of Booty, the gameplay mainly revolves around steering a boat around a sea composed of hexagons also called Hexes, the players controlling their ship by selecting a Hex as a destination. With a map design that reminds us of tabletop titles, such as Catan, this downloadable real-time strategy video game may seem a little simplistic but it’s, in fact, quite a pleasant and moderately complex trip across the oceans. With various types of resources, in-game objectives and ship attributes, Age of Booty is a pirate themed title worth trying.

Blood and Gold Caribbean
Based on the significantly improved Mount & Blade: Warband engine, Blood and Gold Caribbean is an open-world RPG with economic strategy elements included. It takes place in the XVII Century Caribbean area and it offers an immense diversity of in-game activities, including but not limited to, leading your own fleet, becoming a mercenary, getting enslaved and working in a mine, declaring war on Spain and rushing into naval battles. So, as you can see, there are definitely plenty of gameplay options to choose from.

Man O’ War: Corsair
Based on a tabletop game, Man O’ War: Corsair includes elements of high adventure, naval combat and exploration, the players roaming freely across the oceans from the Warhammer universe. Your role, as a mighty pirate, is to lead your fleet into battle, plunder as many ships as possible, fight sea monsters and become a real legend in the process. As a captain you are able to buy a variety of sailing vessels, each with its own features, and use them to visit the over 50 ports that are availabe, from Erengrad to Sartosa.

Pirates Vs Mermaids

Windward
A game best enjoyed with friends, Windward is a multiplayer sandbox game that takes place in a procedurally generated world. The player is in control of a ship sailing the high seas, making deliveries for different towns and fighting off the pirates that want to plunder their vessel. By building a fearsome reputation, you will become the most well-known captain and all of your enemies will stay out of your path.

Sid Meier’s Pirates!
Separated into several mini-games that require different skills, Sid Meier’s Pirates! also features a sailing map mode where players navigate around the iconic Caribbean islands looking for missions. The gameplay encompasses a huge variety of actions, including sailing, trading, engaging in naval combat, capturing ships, sword fighting and even dancing. With a very rich list of in-game activities, Sid Meier’s Pirates! is one of the most iconic and beloved buccaneer games ever released.

Blackwake
Blackwake is a multiplayer naval FPS video game that is mainly focused on team work and cooperation, the player being able to join a pirate crew or take up the role of the ship’s Captain and lead his team into battle. Up to 16 real players led by another player have to work in perfect synergy and man the cannons, patch holes in the ship, repair sails, pump out water and fire at the enemy ships that are approaching. Blackwake really offers all the authentic pirate thrill packed up in a highly immersive video game.

Pirate Mermaid Art

Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves is an upcoming 2017 action-adventure video game where the players have the ability to write their own stories using in-game tools and resources, as stated by the game’s developers. The player joins a crew and takes the helm of a pirate ship, steering it around the sea by coordinating with the whole team of sailors. Some other gameplay elements include hunting for treasures, gathering resources to craft equipment and engaging in battles. Sea of Thieves looks really promising and we can’t wait to get our hands on this innovative pirate themed title.

Pirates And Mermaids

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Set during the Golden Age of Piracy and following the story of the notorious Welsh pirate Edward Kenway, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is definitely the most famous title when you think of pirate based video games. Unlike the previous titles of the franchise, Black Flag offers a gameplay focused on naval exploration, Edward Kenway being the captain of the Jackdaw, a brig he captures from a Spanish fleet. The massive open-world is one of the big pluses this game has to offer, the players being able to roam freely across the three main cities of Havana, Nassau and Kingston.

Easy Mermaid Crafts