I made another game! This one is a card game where you play as a pirate captain, attacking other ships to plunder their loot and equipment, then using that to outfit your (now stronger) ship to attack other (also stronger) ships.

• Rules
• Github Project
• Tabletop Simulator Mod

Since first watching streamers play Escape from Tarkov, I’ve been in love with its unique mechanic of the “stash”. Players have a collection of gear in their stash that they use to equip their character before a raid. If the player dies, they lose everything they brought in. But if they live, they get even more stuff to put in their stash for future raids.

It becomes like poker, where a player can decide how much they’re willing to risk. If you want a relatively chill experience, or you’re doing a quest that is safe, you can pick some basic gear that won’t protect you well but isn’t worth much if you lose it. On the other end, you can bring in expensive, top-tier gear and feel like an unstoppable tank. But a few mistakes, or one well-placed shot by an opponent, can still cause you to lose it all.

I wanted to see how this felt in a card game, where you can physically grab all of the cards that you loot from a defeated ship (and vice versa). It feels pretty good! As long as it happens relatively quickly. During playtesting, we found that it takes several winning turns to gather enough good loot before a player even considers using anything other than their starting ship. I kept trying to speed that up (e.g. by making loot worth more) but never got it to the point where I’m really happy with the pacing.

That said, it’s in a state where I’m pretty happy with it. I’m calling it “done” for this reason and another: I realized during this project that it wasn’t satisfying what I want out of a personal project. I initially had the goals:

1. Make a game with that Tarkov-like stash mechanic (done!).
2. Make a card game, so I work with my hands and not a screen (oops, notice all of the ruby code and tabletop sim…).

But I realized two things:

1. I’m tired of Euro-style board games. Which Plunder strongly takes inspiration from.
2. I currently don’t have (but I crave) collaborative, creative projects, either in personal or work life.

So I have a few project leads that should address that!