Thanks EPIC for featuring Land Ahoy! on the weekly spotlight! That’s beyond awesome! <3
Now for the update, we’ve reworked the characters to be a bit more detailed and polished. Also added quite a bit of customization options. We still need to add many more hair styles, beards and features and stuff but you can already make pretty varied characters.
(The eyes and body types are all done using shaders inside Unreal)
I’d like to present to you the game we are currently working on called Land Ahoy! A cute cozy town builder game set in the 18th century Caribbean landscape. The game takes inspiration from amazing games like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Animal Crossing.
There is a nice blend between relaxing gameplay on your island where you are free to build, farm, gather and craft at your own pace and more action packed gameplay on the high seas and other islands.
There will be lots of islands to explore, towns to visit and missions to complete.
The game can be played solo or with up to 4 players in co-op.
Here’s a short early teaser.
The game is being developed by me and my brother in Unreal Engine.
If you want to follow the development more closely and get a chance to be invited to the closed tester team head over to our Discord server (First 200 members get closed tester role)
I love the art style of Land Ahoy! - and the cute, big heads of the characters! However, there’s nothing cute about what can take place on the high seas, argh! LOL!
Relaxing games are very refreshing to get into, and the freedom offered to the players to play at their own pace is a win!
In you and your brother being siblings, how testing has it been (if at all) to work together? How do you find balance and stay focused? Are you working remotely together or physically in the same space?
Oh wow hadn’t noticed, thanks for sharing that! That’s awesome!
@Get_DOVAH_it Thanks! We have actually changed the characters a bit now. They are still cute but a bit more more detailed and polished. We wanted to steer away (pun intended) of the Animal Crossing character look and go for something more unique.
I’ve also added a whole lot of customization options as well now.
In terms of working together it’s going really well so far. He does all of the art except the characters and I do all of the programming.
In case anyone is wondering, the body types and stuff are achieved in-engine with bone transforms and materials. We use one single androgyne body that we morph into the shape we want using a mix of bone transforms in the animation blueprint and height masking in the material (using vertex offset)
What a delightful and endearing art style! The UI is clean, the environment is colorful and filled with useful items that explain the game, and the pirate theme is perfect. It’s clear that a lot of work has been put in since the last video and I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Thanks for continuing to give updates. Happy developing
I’ll try to keep this thread updated every once in a while to show the progress on the game. Lots of exciting new features are in the works at the moment such as detailed NPC conversations with emotion based animations and facial expressions, fishing, house renting, town decorating, boarding combat and more!
