Jump on board the pirate ship for a massively multiplayer pirate puzzle adventure!

Not a kids game, but children can play, Jan 31, 2010

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Puzzle Pirates, sometimes called “Yohoho Puzzle Pirates”, is not a kids game. For a long time, the focus was solely on 18+ people, with under 13 prohibited. Now, there is a new “Family” ocean specifically for people under 13 to play with their family and older friends.

What is Puzzle Pirates: This is a pirate themed persistent world, where the main activities are some forms of puzzle games. While most people refer to bejeweled-like games—and one of the first introductory puzzles is a “swap-and-match-3” games—there are many different ones. Sailing has been described as “Dr. Mario like”—you are dropping linked pairs of balls (3 different types/colors), building up length 4 clears. While getting 4 in a row is easy enough, the goal is to make combos—where clearing this 4 causes that piece to drop into place to clear another 4. Additionally, there are targets to clear as well.

There are competitive games as well. Swordfight is similar to super turbo puzzle fighter, however the emphasis is on combo size rather than build height, and while there is no “magic gem” at the 25th drop, speed is still essential. There are also approximately 12 different swords that you can purchase or otherwise acquire, so you can match the drop pattern to your fighting style. As an example, the skull dagger is designed for people who drop lots of sprinkles, while at least two others are good for people who make large strikes (fused gems with combos), and others are good for mixed players. A second combat puzzle is “Rumble”, which is like puzzle bobble—shoot balls up from launchers, try to match groups of 3. This time, you have two launchers (left and right), which changes the issue of angles; you have the ability to “charge groups”, which takes a little time, and makes your attack bigger.

The game is free to play. The basic operations needed to sail a ship—carpentry to fix ship damage (like Pentaminoes), bilging to get water out of the hold (like Bejeweled), and two puzzles for increasing ship speed (sailing, described above, and rigging, one of those “you have to see it to understand it” games) are all free, as are both forms of boarding fights (swordfight and rumble) are free. Beyond that, the puzzles and minigames (there are many more) are free at least once a week (some three days a week).

The real gem in Puzzle Pirates is the player driven economy. Almost everything in the game is produced in player-run shops, with puzzle play determining whether you produced basic, skilled, or expert work on the production of goods. A small ship, like the sloop, might not need any expert; a large frig, on the other hand, not only needs a lot of expert, but cannot be made in a cheap stall. You’ll have to get a full-sized shop for that, and that requires either buying one from an island governor (or from someone that already got one from a governor), or getting a flag together and taking an island yourself.

Yes, taking islands. The “raid game” in YPP is an island battle. On the test server, this might be fights of 10 people per side; on the main servers, this might be 300 people per side.

There is a LOT more. Sinking risk, PvP, wars between opposing flags, etc. Housing, furniture, clothing, etc. While you cannot avoid the risk of PvP, you can avoid the risk of sinking. Drastically imbalanced PvP is prohibited by game design, but you can still get lopsided battles.

There are two kinds of servers. A monthly subscription (currently starts at $10 for a month, and goes down for longer periods) lets you do everything with no additional cash payment, using only in-game pieces of eight. Pay-as-you-go servers (called doubloon oceans) do not require any up-front payments. You buy items (swords, clothing, ships, etc) using both in-game pieces of eight (earned by playing the puzzles and winning battles) and doubloons (the real life cash currency). Once you buy an item on these servers, you can use it without any additional fee per month. Doubloons can be purchased from the company for cash, or from other players for pieces of eight. Playing this way lets you play the entire game for free, but it will generally take you 5 or 6 times longer to get items.

My experience: What really holds me to the game is the social structure and finding a good crew and flag. My favorite activities are shopkeeping and battle navigation with a good crew.

I find the game to be fun; after 5.75 years, I’m still playing.

'Puzzle Pirates'- The Pleasantly Piratey MMORPG, Jul 25, 2009

by A.Buchan

Puzzle pirates may be a kids MMORPG, but it has all the features and feel of a great pay-to-play MMORPG (massively multiplayer online RPG)- even though it’s free.
As soon as your pirate is made you are thrown headfirst into a big town with inns, tailors, shipyards and docks. This is good, since long tutorials can really bore you.

It’s a little complicated for a new player like me, but I soon found a friendly pirate from Texas to help me.
Once you learn the basics you’re off, sailing ships, plundering traders and generally being a pirate.

The interface is perfect for a kids game- all cartoony and colorful. But you soon realize that it isn’t as kiddy as you think as soon as you realize you can play poker, and have bar brawls.
One problem is, that there are two currencies. Pieces of eight can buy almost anything, but to buy pets and some clothes, you need doubloons. You also need to pay real money for doubloons. Not Cool.

I’d recommend this game to anyone who wants to play a MMORPG, but minus the blood and gore of more mature games. The battles and fights are done via a series of clever little puzzles, which may get a bit tedious, but all in all better then real time fighting.
I think a 5/5 is a fair rating. It’s definitely for the kids, but it’s not so kiddy that it has happy bunnies and balloons and everything is joyful, if you know what I mean.

All I can say is, Puzzle pirates is a great game.