This is awesome! To offer some constructive feedback: the wind direction could be clearer. More particles flowing across the waters! Especially when the direction is changing. Looking up at the wind teller is unintuitive, even for this old sailor who understands where it comes from. I also didn't always feel like it mattered which direction I angled my sails, only how much I angled them. Like I could angle them for a port wind when in reality I had a starboard wind, and I'd sail just fine.
In the other hand that made it easier, and it was already hard enough lol! I bet it's easier on desktop though...
I was initially quite excited to play it until I read your comment. I'm in the same boat (hurr), been sailing for 30 years and teaching it for at least 20.
There's a vague correlation between wind direction and sailing speed, but there's nothing real here. The mechanics of sailing upwind, downwind, or the cost of tacking are interesting mechanics that aren't explored here whatsoever. The dead angle on a ship with a square rig should be massive. This ship goes upwind like it has a motor.
The use of a ship's wheel to steer is also a little much. The manipulation of the sails had far more impact. The wheel was for fine tuning. Comming about took far more planning than simply spinning the wheel around. A realistic limitation would see a several second delay between large direction changes. And most ships during the golden age of piracy would not have had wheels, not until the 1700s.
Decades ago, Sid Meier's Pirates had a more realistic sailing model, which made you feel the difference between triangular and square sails, in a game where the player had a lot of other challenges to master. And Meier is a designer who always put fun and playability above realism.
There are plenty of sailing simulators (e.g. Windward), just none featuring large square riggers. In any case, my beef is more with the misleading headline.
If a game advertised "real weapons handling", and it turned out to have infinite ammo with no reloads or shell drop, wouldn't you feel a bit lead on?
It's not fun to spend an hour going zig zag against the wind? What about an hour doing it with a boat full of precious materials that can't go through the portal while you're being chased by some ungodly horror from beneath the waves?
Always trying to find a balance of realism vs arcade feel on the gameplay. Let me know how you would handle sailing upwind/downwind instead, always love more suggestions!
At no point should you (nor would it be physically possible to) set the yards in the direction of the ship. At most during sailing they would be turned maybe 45 degrees which would correspond to "close hauled" at which point you may be able to reach about 60 degrees from the wind direction.
Thus, a simple linear function that would show the optimal angle of the yards as a function of the wind direction (0 = wind straight ahead, 180 = wind straight from behind) could be something like f(x) = -3/8 x + 67.5.
And as a slight visual cue, please show the mast when it would be visible before the sails as well. I found that I was often confused whether I had the yards sheeted all the way one way or the other way.
Also I think it would be clearer to show the yard position indicator as 0 degrees when the yards are squared, that is perpendicular to the ship. Then sheeted to the maximum would be 45 degrees either way from 0.
Thank you so much, that function is so simple! I’m going to be updating the sailing realism in a future patch and will be sure to update the sail turning constraints.
I do this to a certain extent for galleons on the Spanish map but should update the rest too
Great! I feel well positioned to say this is great :) I’ve been hoping for something like this.
My ideal: slower, more real time, full maps based on actual locations, replay specific naval battles. Multiplayer (maybe it is?), realistic fog of war. I could go on
Edit: a few more. Sail trim is clunky and seems unresponsive or unclear how it maps to physics. Would be better to have trim on one side and steering on the other. Also to turn off tacking with tap. Steering too sensitive. The battles are great. (All on mobile)
Oh wow thanks for the great suggestions and kind words, glad you’re enjoying the game!
It’s funny, your ideal scenario is almost exactly what I have in mind for the first PvP map coming soon, a slower predetermined map with historic factions/safe zones and ofc lots of combat with bots or people
I can definitely revisit the trim and responsiveness. Buried in the settings in ship logs you can move the wheel to the other side, need to make that more accessible
This would be a different game but I'd enjoy just sailing around semi-realistic maps with realistic wind. I pixellated Hundred Rabbits simulator would be pretty cool.
Very cute and fun looking game, but I found it very difficult. Enemies have perfect aim, and I can't hit anything. I don't think you can even heal the ship unless you happen to stumble upon just the right treasure. Do you have a difficulty slider/setting? Maybe I missed it. It feels like I'm playing on the hardest mode.
EDIT: After playing around some more, yea it feels less like an action game and more like a "sailing around with nearly zero health" simulator.
I thought it was quite the opposite, too easy. Your ship recharges health. Also you can claim and island and heal there. It's so easy to the point it's actually boring, I got 10 kills before I quit, never got close to dying. Hell you can even claim an island, sit there in healing-mode, while shooting down enemy ships that don't heal...
Yea, the difficulty seems to hinge on whether or not you manage to capture an island. If you do, then you can heal your ship, at which point I agree with you--the game becomes super easy. If you fail to kill three enemies (prerequisite of capturing an island), then it becomes a "sail around at zero health" game.
A "difficulty" feature could just be a toggle: Start with a claimed island, or start with no claimed island.
Super fun. How do I 'fire" though given spacebar brings up the map? Is the mouse the only option? How do I see the controls as I see the "s" key does something with the sails?
Shift has the problem of bringing up windows sticky keys dialog box if you tap it too fast. Spacebar was my instinct for fire key as well. For map it would be 'M'.
Whichever you choose, please consider displaying the controls inside the game, at least during the setup screen, don't make the user search for controls in the wiki. :)
Also the hp bar below the minimap is a bit weird, would expect it the same as enemy ships above my ship, so i can see if i'm winning or losing a cannon exchange like in a rts game. Or at least someplace more convenient to quickly glance at nearer the center of the screen.
Very fun game by the way, well done! Scratches the nostalgia itch of 'Corsairs Gold' for me.
> Shift has the problem of bringing up windows sticky keys dialog box if you tap it too fast.
An operator fixes this forever by turning off that "enable Sticky Keys" keyboard shortcut. I've not used Windows 11 or Windows 8, but in every other version that had the Sticky Keys feature, I remember there being a prominent "Don't enable Sticky Keys when you press <whatever> X times in quick succession" checkbox in the dialog that let you configure Sticky Keys and related accessibility things.
Over the years, I've seen so many videogame streamers get screwed over by the "Activate Sticky Keys??" dialog pop up that it became pretty clear that they were all keeping it in reserve for the entertainment value. Maybe regular folks get so flustered by it that they don't bother to read the system dialog that pops up.
As others mention, show the keys in the interface. It took me a while to discover accidentally, by pressing space, that I can trim the sails. You could make a graphical guide, showing a ship with arrows around, some arrows attached to the hull with keys responsible for turning the ship, some arrows attached to sails with keys responsible for trimming them. Yet another key by the cannons fire to show which key... umm... fires the cannons...
If it's only a few buttons anyway you can just show them somewhere as hints while the user isn't giving input or until they used then.
Eg just show a "m for Map\nspace to fire" until the user used each, hiding them each when the m/space is used respectively for that session (session storage so it shows up again if the user comes back later)
Shift doesn't make sense as a main key almost at all tbh.
Space to fire makes more sense than shift to fire
Edit: Shift is a modifier key. Hold shift to go from lowercase -> capitals. In FPS games shift is walking -> running. In RTS games shift is "select one of these units -> select all of these units"
I know your game doesn't have to follow these rules, you can do whatever you want. However it's worth thinking about what "language" each key on the keyboard is speaking when you want to use it.
This actually makes a lot of sense to me. Never thought about shift being a modifier key from a UX perspective, I’ll likely make space to fire and move map to M because of this thread. Thanks guys!
Really want to play this with a controller. Seems to me that a joystick to steer and another to adjust the sail would be really intuitive. Aside from that really fun, looking forward to future updates.
If you have real wind physics, might as well apply realism to turning as well, so that ships can't turn in place. Rudder should only work with applied speed.
I played it for half an hour on a 6.1" phone. Firefox Android, it worked flawlessly. The game is fun. Some ideas to improve the UI.
The wind teller is OK but instead of a line ending with a circle it could be an arrow. Furthermore there is need to have it turn around the center of the teller. It can turn around the center of the arrow and be twice as large or take half the space.
The wheel is confusing and should be removed. I spent minutes attempting to turn it before realizing that I was turning the ship by touching the water where I wanted the ship to go. I know where the ship is headed to (I look at the ship) so the wheel is taking space on screen and cpu for no reason at all.
Every few minutes, maybe 10, a page of instructions opened in front of the game. They were always different. I don't know if I pressed a button or if it's a training mode. The problem is that it happens out of the blue and it's not welcome.
I didn't notice any indicator of how many cannonballs I have left.
The black cannonballs on blue water are not very visible. I also noted 4 circles in the water in front of the ship when I fire. What are they?
Awesome, great execution! This could become a really cool RL environment with a headless sim and procedural voyages. Factorio has something similar with the Factorio Learning Environment SDK.
This is a really fun game, congratulations on releasing it. If I could make one suggestion - it would be awesome if you could use the mouse wheel to change the orientation of your sails rather than having to move all the way over to the right of the screen to use the slider.
It does arrow left/right or a/d for tiller and arrow up/down or w/s for sail trim. If you can manage using wasd, then r will [un]furl sails. I haven't figured out the cannon button yet if there is one.
Edit: r for [un]furl sails [0], also <shift> apparently fires
Love this -- and plays great on desktop and mobile. I am making a different sea-faring game focused on merchant trading in the age of Marco Polo, would you mind if I asked you a few questions to compare notes on sailing and 2.5D graphics? is there a way to DM you.
I’ve been building this since early May with active captains through the last month. I randomly noticed traffic from hacker news a few days ago, turns out somebody had linked tinywind in the comments there. Love to see other people in the space!
the control layout is a bit awkward on mobile. i find myself wanting to adjust both heading and trim continuously, but both controls are on the right so i cant use both thumbs. then the buttons to fire/ board are fiddly. tbh almost gave up then tried with keyboard and saw how it was supposed to go.
I just started learning how to sail, and while trying to memorize all the new terminology I was wishing for an interactive way to play out the basic processes short of being on an actual boat. All of the games I found online were far too realistic, this was exactly what I was looking for. It's already close enough, you could certainly have an "educational" mode with a little bit more jargon. Some easier ramp-up to the game would be nice (thinking a tutorial to get used to the sail controls, or maybe a mode where the sails get automatically pivoted). Overall this is great!
sails perpendicular to the wind for full power? my sailing experience is dated, but that does not seem to be right to me. Don't they want a lower angle of attack? is this a specific of square sails? maybe I am not getting it in the docs
I’m not a sailor at all my I just demo’d this for my dad who is. He had similar feedback
I need to sit down and do a sailing mechanics audit to find a good balance between arcade/realism, I think a beam reach is supposed to be faster than downwind. But my angle of attacks could be more accurate especially for upwind sailing?
Here’s currently how tinywind does it if anyone’s curious:
Have a look at these [1] polar diagrams for tall sailing ships. The radial distance from the center is the theoretical boat speed and the angle is the direction that the wind is hitting the boat, with zero on the nose and 180 from the stern. Each plotted line is the boat speed for a given wind speed. They show how the square-rigged ships can't sail upwind any closer than 55 degrees or so and are fastest on a broad reach (wind from just back of the side). You can also see how longer boats are generally faster, but a smaller boat with triangle sails ("Bermuda rigged") could easily get away from a big square-rigged ship by heading more upwind.
This is really useful, thanks! I’ll be making a sailing realism pass next week and will try to update it to reflect the square rigging dynamics a little better
Interesting for reasons unrelated to TinyWind: What are the numbers on the left edge, boat speed in knots? Also, from what place and time is the technology on which these diagrams are based?
And what is this forum that unfortunately I can't read? Who made these diagrams?
In irons should be a slightly negative number, since the wind drags the boat backwards at that point. Plus it will force the player to tack back and forth, which is a fun part of sailing. I bet A.I. can tell you the angle the sail ought to render at too (unless non-moving sail was part of the cartoon aesthetic)
I did that simply for arcadeyness and feel but I’m not married to it at all
Giving the ship a slight constant forward moment felt nice and forgiving when testing, and user still has to tack back and forth to get meaningful enough speed to strafe a ship. But I’m definitely open to sliding the realism scale here
Hi Tyler, realism and arcade-feel doesn’t have to be a binary thing.
My big effort has been finding tasteful compromises to keep a “real” feel but still simple enough to not be frustrating and put away the game. Hope this helps!
Realism and arcade are not exclusive but I also would say that the headline saying “real wind physics” is misleading. I was disappointed to see that real they are not.
Totally heard, this game is still in early alpha and I’ve been updating the sailing dynamics week by week. This thread gave me a lot of valuable direction to push the realism more. Thanks for checking it out either way!
Hi Tyler this game is in early alpha, we’re still changing physics and simulation dynamics week by week. This is not a final state. Unfortunately you’re not able to have a nuanced conversation and provide actual feedback unlike everyone else in this thread. Hope you have a good day!
You aren’t interested in having a conversation, you’re just repeating the same dismissive thing over and over again and gaslighting people over what the word "real" means.
To be clear you’ve called me childish, gaslighting, a liar, and obnoxious for trying to seek advice in a thread :) this is the gut reaction of someone who is mentally unwell, hope you seek help for yourself
You have to gain some gold first by killing ships, then once you have 3 you can sail to the island and a button pops up to capture it. Took me a bit to figure it out too. Also once you've captured an island, you can lower your sails there to heal!
I loved your game. I'm wondering about the decision of making the game with a registration on your website instead of a more traditional approach of having a standalone game. The friction point for me was having to register to save progress. I would gladly pay in Steam or itch.io for a game that i can download and play locally.
I'm guessing the decision is about making a online leaderboard?
This brings back some memories! I used to play the Ancient Art of War at Sea on my dad's Mac Plus as a kid. Having never sailed, it was fun to learn about tacking while trying to broadside spanish galleons. Years later, I lied about my experience to convince a resort to let me check out a tiny catamaran. I made it back to shore!
One recommendation: make the boats not turn quite so fast. It allows you to outmaneuver other vessels by planning ahead or gaining speed ahead of time.
I still don't know much about sailing, but I have a lot of kitesurfing experience. Do boats really travel that slowly downwind? I assume that crosswind is faster, but downwind should still move at the speed of the wind.
I need to check out that game, I’ve sunk countless hours into the 2004 Sid Meiers games. Also lying to sail a catamaran successfully back to shore is such a pirate thing to do :) you’re ready for TinyWind
Noted on the ship turn speeds, I’ve been playing around with larger ships having slower turn radii but I do want the naval combat to have more of a planning element (setup upwind, strafe run and fire, etc)
Let me look into the boat speeds in different wind conditions. I know beam reach/crosswind is faster than parachuting downwind but maybe my downwind speed is too slow now
If you need help building a backend for it to be multiplayer, please email me and I'd love to team up (sssilver@gmail.com), I already have something that would help.
What a flattering comparison! I’ve gotten so many requests for an auto sail trim I might have to add it in, there definitely is a bit of learning curve to battling with the wind
a middle approach could be a trainer mode where you can say your desired direction of travel and the game gives you a suggestion of heading + trim. think like the driving line in racing sims, it doesn't brake for you but it helps you develop intuition of what to do when. a oldtimey map line drawn on the ocean to show where when to tack at what angle would be so nice. especially for the longer hops between islands.
This is an amazing idea, definitely going to explore this! It could even prompt you to cut upwind and dive ships effectively, there could be a lot of depth here
hmm yeah, take that one step farther and you have your get on the ocean fast tutorial level.. go from point a to point b. fight one ship. capture a small island. then the map opens up an you are just in the first level. ready to take on the rest. it also solves the beginner problem where if you cant kill three ships in one health bar you cant capture the island to heal and you can get stuck roaming the seas looking for places to heal. with a small (but a little far away) starter island you could retreat to heal and try again.
while i have you... what does the bounty hunters thing do? i see it pop up but then nothing really happens. i keep expecting like 5 ships to try and hunt me down but nada.
Played on mobile. Very cool game and would love to have a go at future versions. Seen a lot of comments about realistic wind and sailing mechanics. To add to the latter building speed after you tack/jibe would be cool & realistic depending on conditions!
Gusts is another way and you could have storms! Maybe you do already but I didn’t encounter them.
Good vibes, free things stand out. The direction of wind seems inverted. North wind is wind blowing from north to south. Also, when going into irons, the speed should drop to zero, or become negative given the sail configuration. And turns are impossible without speed.
It looks like you can't just sit there and heal (or it takes an enormous amount of time to do so) without first taking over an island. So once you get hurt down to nothing, you need to sail around looking for castaways, which heal your ship.
I’m also relatively new here so we’re learning on the fly. I’ve been heavily activate in pixel art subreddits early on for feedback and advice especially on the procedural generation. I’ve also found some great cheap pixel assets to get started from itch.io.
Good luck on your pixel adventures, love to see what you build!
I interpreted this as a visual bug with the sprites.
As a sailor, I love seeing ads or other random imagery of sailboats that's clearly photoshopped, with sails in nonsensical orientations or completely backwards with things like flags or hair blowing in the wind.
The illusion (and thus the game) is ruined if you actually know how sailing works. I’d prefer something more realistic, which would make it more strategic- this is just a motorboat simulation with visual-only sails
This game is more Golden Age of Piracy piracy than Barbary Corsair piracy -- in fact, many pirate crews engaged in proto-democracy (well before it was fashionable!) and flatly condemned slavery.