Follow Up : Assassin's Creed Pirates iOS

http://taeles.blogspot.com/2014/01/ios-assassins-creed-pirates.html

Back in January I posted the above article about a great little pirate simulator on our iOS that manages to be entertaining without assaulting our wallets. To my suprise there's been a good bit of support for the game from the development studio so lets go down the patch notes between January and now so we can see whats new to do in Arrr-land. This post won't be going over the entire game explaining how it works and whatnot, this post assumes you read the previous post linked above.

Version 1.1.0
The first actual content patch, 1.1.0 added a new zone to explode named Nassau including 10 new secondary missions and 12 new treasure to persue. A new campaign mission introduced us to Charles Vane and added three new ships. The Brisk Fortune, The Jack Snipe and The Citadel. This update also added a new combat mechanic to ship-to-ship combat which in the previous article I likened to fruit ninja.

Version 1.2.0
The March 6th update introduced new mini games for starters. Whale Hunting and Fishing. I personally havent encountered Whale Hunting yet since I picked the game back up but fishing works well. You toss a line out and tap the left and right side of the screen to guide it to the shadow of a fish. When the fish bites the lure you tap the lure to hook the fish and then reel the critter in. While the game reels the fish in for you its your job to not let the fish escape which it will do if it hits the left or right red borders of the screen. Tap left or right side to pull the fish from those sides if it heads in that direction. Fish reward you with food supply and there are several collections to complete across the zones. Different level fishing holes require different fishing lures and you can upgrade the lures with coin (upgrader timer, can be sped up with coin) to have better chances at spotting rarer fish. Two thumbs up for this mechanic :)

Two new ships were added and six epic historical boss ships wait for you to chase down and engage. My first encounter with a epic was two man-o-wars. Wasn't painful at all to be honest but my second encounter was much more challenging. Two ship combo, one was the epic and the other a sloop escort. The epic itself frequently fires a screen wide undodgeable shot, the sloop does not. The trick? Do your best to keep the epic off you with your normal shot ressetting its attack guage. Leave the sloop alone and let it attack you, dodge its attacks to build up chain attacks, use the chain attacks on the instances where the epic does manage to get a round with you. Very cool mechanic, two thumbs up! I've noticed that after taking down a zones epic, the reds stop persuing you on the map if you get close to them. You are to be feared!

Also added was a new zone and a survival mode.

Version 1.3.0
This is the latest update and comes with it new features, zones, ships and things to do. A new daily challenge system is in place. Each day three random goals are selected for you. Accomplish them to get decent cash rewards. Today I had to catch 30 fish, kill 20 enemy ships without using my heavy shot and sail 5k distance while on the top down map. Made 10k total not including everything from all the killing and fishing.

A new zone "La Boca Del Diablo", new missions, campaign progression, etc.

So, there it is. An example of a solid game, visually a treat, good mechanics and plenty of developer support post release. Hope they keep at it :)

I've also noticed much more respectable timers on treasure ships, I suspect they listened when everyone complained about how much harder it was to kill those ships with the fruit ninja mechanic added. Woot!

o7