Pixel Piracy

Pixel Piracy
Developer(s)	Quadro Delta[a]
Publisher(s)	Re-Logic[b]
Producer(s)	Alexander Poysky
Composer(s)	Kole Hiks
Engine	Unity
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows OS X Linux PlayStation 4 Xbox One
Release	Windows, OS X, Linux WW: July 31, 2014 PlayStation 4, Xbox One WW: February 16, 2016
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Pixel Piracy is a 2014 side-scrolling action-adventure game with roguelike elements, developed by Quadro Delta and published by Re-Logic. In the indie game, players construct a pirate ship, hire and train a crew, and guide their crew toward notoriety by defeating the four pirate captains in a procedurally-generated world full of islands. The game features several difficulty modes.

The developers, inspired by FTL: Faster Than Light, began their development in 2013. Initially released in early access the same year, the game was fully released on Steam on July 31, 2014 for PC and on February 16, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Pixel Piracy received a major update in 2015; the game's development stopped in 2016 but resumed in 2023. Since then, the developers have published one piece of downloadable content and announced an online version of the game for 2025. The game received "mixed or average" reviews, with the praise going to its graphics, sandbox elements, and soundtrack. The game was criticized for its controls, combat system, repetitive gameplay, and interface.

Pixel Piracy is an open world and side-scrolling action-adventure game that uses 16-bit-styled sprites and 2D graphics.^[1][2][3][4] The game only has a single-player option and combines elements of role-playing, particularly the roguelike subgenre, with platformer, simulation, and strategy genres.^[4][5][6] The goal of the game is to beat four notorious pirate captains, but players are allowed to explore the game as they wish.^[3][5] The game's goal can be completed in approximately 20 hours.^[7] The game includes a tutorial that teaches players the game's core mechanics.^[3][7]

After customizing the player and difficulty settings of the procedurally-generated world,^[8] the player takes control of a pirate captain who spawns on an island, where players can build their own ship using a set of blocks and hire a crew with coins obtained at spawn.^[1][2][5][9] The pirate captain has nearly complete control over the size of the ship and crew.^[5] The pirate captain can upgrade their ship with cannons.^[5][10] The captain can also die by starvation, enemy pirates, or wild animals; the game also has permadeath, which means that the captain does not respawn after death.^[1][2] The game, on the other hand, includes a save point feature that allows the player to continue their progress without having to start again from the beginning.^[2] The game has a day-night cycle.^[11]

While traveling, the player must manage the crew's hunger and deal with equipment requirements.^[1][3][5] To embark, the player can select a destination on the world map.^[1][12] Locations range in population and danger.^[1][13] The computer controls the actual sailing, but the ship will stop for a battle if its route crosses an occupied map node.^[1][11] Ship battles are determined by acquired stats and by choices the player can make.^[1] Winning battles earns the player points and equipment, which they can use to improve the crew's size and abilities.^[1][2] In addition, once the foes are defeated, the player can take over their ship or destroy it.^[2][3]

Upon reaching a destination, the inhabitants may be friendly or hostile toward the crew; the islands could also contain animals, traps, valuables, and taverns that can be adopted as the crew's headquarters.^[1][2][5] The crew can also catch wild animals in cages and domesticate them as part of the crew.^[8][14] Other types of encounters include towns with a mix of the game's four stores.^[5][15] The game features "squirrel-ish" voice acting between the pirates and shop owners.^[5]

Crew stats, including health, morale, and supply level, affect the success of pillaging at a destination.^[1] Taverns provide an infinite supply of food and beverages, like ale, to aid the crew in healing their wounds, as well as armed pirates for crew expansion.^[5] The captain can use books, either found or purchased, to teach the crew new abilities, such as swimming, cleaning, cooking, and fishing.^{[3][5][10][16]} Additionally, crew members may defecate aboard the ship.^[17][18] Pirates can equip melee, ranged, or rock weaponry.^[8]

The game was updated over time, introducing a variety of difficulty modes.^[7] In addition to the standard gameplay, Pixel Piracy previously offered an "arena mode" in which the pirate captain would defend an island that was being invaded by a wave of pirates who progressively increased in difficulty and speed.^[8]

Pixel Piracy was developed by Finnish and Spanish independent developers Vitali Kirpu and Alexander Poysky, collectively known as Quadro Delta, and published by Re-Logic.^{[5][7][19][20]} The game was developed using the Unity game engine.^[21] Poysky said that Re-Logic and their 2011 indie sandbox video game Terraria inspired him to pursue a career in video game development.^[19] Re-Logic actively contributed to the development of Pixel Piracy, assisting with quality assurance and design.^[19] Kirpu initially worked entirely alone on the game, but Mikko Arvala later joined as a maintenance developer.^[19] Poysky worked as a producer on the game, and Pixel Piracy also had its own testing team.^[19] Pixel Piracy was inspired by the FTL: Faster Than Light video game.^[14]

The development of the game began in mid 2013.^[22] The alpha version of the game was released in November 2013, and it was accepted through the Steam Greenlight system.^[6][9][23] The game was launched in early access on Steam in December 2013, and its developers also released a free pirated torrent of the game "in an attempt to compromise with users who will pirate the game regardless".^[23][24][25] Poysky said that the early access system on Steam allowed the team to grow in momentum and fund the game.^[19] During its development, the game regularly received bug fixes and updates.^[15] Pixel Piracy remained in early access until it was fully released on Steam on July 31, 2014, for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux platforms.^[26][27] The game features a custom soundtrack composed by Kole Hiks, including sea shanties inspired by Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.^[5][28] Pixel Piracy has references to the Monkey Island video game series and the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.^[8]

Following its full release, Quadro Delta released the "Enhanced Edition" for free to all Pixel Piracy owners on April 23, 2015.^[19] Poysky revealed why "Enhanced Edition" was released, saying that the team "felt it wasn't up to snuff with our standards" when the game was first launched.^[19] The Enhanced Edition supported more languages and improved items, abilities, and artificial intelligence (AI).^[19] The game was later released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 16, 2016.^[3][7][29] Abstraction Games developed and 505 Games published the games for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.^[2][4][7] On the release date of console editions, Pixel Piracy received crossover content from Terraria.^[30] The game remained available on PlayStation Plus until May 2023.^[31]

Pixel Piracy continued to receive incremental updates until February 2016, when a 7-year hiatus began.^[32] Quadro Delta went bankrupt in late 2017, after which the duo split up.^[33] Development continued with its next patch in January 2023.^[34] Since then, the game has received regular updates.^[34] Its first downloadable content, Pixel Piracy – Shrimp Legacy, was released a month later.^[35] In September 2023, Kirpu announced that an online version of the game, Pixel Piracy Online, was in development.^[36] The game is set to release in 2025.^[37]

Quadro Delta also worked with Re-Logic on a tactical role-playing game named Pixel Privateers, which was released in 2017.^[38][39] The game adopted elements of Pixel Piracy and Terraria while also featuring an online cooperative mode.^[38] It was compared to the Borderlands and Diablo games.^[39][40]

Pixel Piracy received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic and "weak" ratings according to OpenCritic.^[26][41] Initially, during its early access phase, reviewers complimented the game for its potential.^[1][9] Craig Pearson of PC Gamer described it as a "fine example of a cute Early Access title".^[1] With the release of the Enhanced Edition in 2015, the developers issued a formal apology, acknowledging their failures and assuring players that much work had been and would continue to be done to meet all development promises and fix all the game's issues.^[19] After its console release, Francesco Serino of Everyeye wrote, "the final result is so modest and unconvincing that it leaves one speechlees".^[16] Jose Rodríguez of IGN praised the game for its "creative" and "fun" elements.^[42] Kieren Hawken of GameSpew, who reviewed the Xbox One version in 2016, gave the game 6 out of 10 stars, describing it as an "old fashioned real time strategy game".^[2]

Lucio Lorenzino of Enemy Slime, who rated the game 2 out of 5 stars, described it as "shallow" and "unfinished" upon its PC debut, citing missing textures, incorrect character pronouns, and broken AI.^[15] He also said that "the game is not interested in explaining how anything works".^[15] Pearson characterized the map as vague and said that combat could be improvemed.^[1] Thomas Mangot of Gamekult, who rated the game 5 out of 10 stars, mentioned that it had bugs upon full release.^[10] Reviewers described the game's controls as complicated,^[13][42] and the combat system as perplexing.^{[10][14][18][45]} Mangot said that the game's artificial intelligence was "chaotic".^[10] Hawken commended the ability to control both the pirate captain and the crew.^[2] Josephine Lawton of Pure Xbox, who rated the game 5 out of 10 stars, said that "this often doesn't work as expected", explaining that the crew often refused to jump on the enemy ship or walk, and that even after the enemy ship was defeated, the crew would not move.^[3] When compared to FTL: Faster Than Light, Daniel Podgorski of The Gemsbok claims that Pixel Piracy lacks strategic combat.^[14]

Upon its full release in 2014, the game lacked tutorials that explained the game's mechanisms.^[8][9] Lawton observed that the tutorial does not introduce the player to the majority of the game's elements; Hawken regarded the game as "difficult to get into" due to the need to remember a large number of game mechanisms.^[2][3] Pearson was surprised with the 'Plunder' function, which destroys defeated enemy vessels, and claimed that it killed his captain and crew while they were aboard an enemy ship.^[1] Lorenzino observed that the crew would sometimes refuse to leave enemy vessels, and the player could not use the interact option.^[15] The game was nonetheless lauded for its sandbox elements.^{[2][9][10][46]} The game's concepts of building were compared to Sid Meier's Pirates!.^[8][16] The game garnered criticism for its repetitive gameplay mechanisms.^{[5][7][13][18][45]} Scott Craft of Player.One rated the game 2 out of 5 stars, saying that "the game fails to offer players any real incentive to keep playing after their first couple of sessions".^[5] He noted that his "first few hours" were entertaining but that the game quickly "get[s] boring".^[5]

The game was praised for its graphics and textures.^{[1][2][5][8][10][27]} Pearson said that its graphics and soundtrack contrasted with the difficulty of the gameplay, whilst Craft said that "Pixel Piracy's rather vibrant aesthetic lends itself well to the subject".^[1][5] Lawton, on the other hand, disliked that the sprites did not integrate with the backgrounds that she saw as "uninspiring", while Roberto Turrini of The Games Machine found the pixel graphics confusing at times.^[3][13] Podgorski criticized the game's design regarding ships, claiming that there is no effective difference between "a carefully designed warship and a long flat box".^[14] Emmanuel González of IGN described the design of the islands as "repetitive" but "visually very pleasing".^[27] According to Rodríguez, the PC version is more detailed than the Xbox One version.^[42] The user interface was criticized as confusing.^{[8][10][14][15]} Furthermore, the interface's point-and-click nature makes it unfriendly for console versions of the game.^[7]

Reviewers praised the game's soundtrack, especially the use of sea shanties.^{[3][5][7][42]} Lawton, however, claimed that the overall soundtrack is repetitious and annoying, but Lorenzino said that the music is "very fitting".^[3][15] González said that the game's "sound effects are simple but effective".^[27] The voice acting also gained acclaim.^[47] Ramón Varela of Vandal likened the game's voice acting to the Worms video game series.^[7]

Podgorski observed that while playing, his "game had become uplayable" as a result of the crew's constant defecating on the ship.^[14]

• Converse, Cris (March 10, 2016). Pixel Piracy Game Guide. BooksMango. ISBN 9781633237155.

• Official website