Plunder (XBLA/PSN)

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EGM has info on Certain Affinity's first original game.

"I'm pretty sure the impetus behind doing a game about pirates and sailing ships came from thinking about Pimps at Sea" - Max Hoberman, president of developer Certain Affinity and former multiplayer lead on the last two Halo games.

• Influenced by Settlers of Catan.
• Basically, each player steers a ship and competes to capture the most land. You use a tile based interface where you move spot to spot by pushing around a big red "X", you conquer towns, kill enemy ships, earn upgrades, and figure out the best ways to repeat these actions most effectively. The goal is the first team to capture a set number of towns wins. You will occasionally come across curses that you can use to attack and set traps.
• 4 player split-screen and up to 8 players online.
• Halo-esque matchmaking and party system.
• Map editor and the ability to upload and share your custom maps.
• Published by Capcom and set for a June release.

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Re: Plunder (XBLA/PSN)

Plunder Hands-On and Interview

And the company just introduced us to an upcoming XBLA title that looks extremely promising, a pirate-ship strategy game called Plunder, which is being developed by a fledgling studio called Certain Affinity—a rookie gamemaker that was founded by some experienced development talent.

Had you been wanting to make a strategy game or…

Max Hoberman: You know, I’m a huge fan of a very simple strategy game. My favorite game of all time is actually a Bungie game. When I started at Bungie, I was working on…I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the Myth series—Myth: The Fallen Lords. Favorite multiplayer game of all time. It’s a strategy game, but kind of stripped down to the basics, down to this really simple combat model. It’s the same motivation here: Let’s take a strategy game…in a way, “Settlers of Catan” was a lot of influence; I was playing a lot at the time. It’s a strategy game, but very simple in a way with the resource model. Take that and take elements from other strategy games I’ve played way back in the day—games like Bolo and Spaceward Ho—and you try and come out with a really simple, accessible strategy game as a motivation.

How is the map editor going to work as far as sharing your maps with people?

Max Hoberman: The map sharing is really simple, but super effective. I wish we had time to do a bigger, fancier system, but… The way the map sharing works is, you make a map, when you’re the leader in the lobby, you pick your map, and the simple act of loading that map in the lobby, of just choosing that map before you even start the game, causes that map to get sent over the network to anybody else in the game. They now have that in an automatically tracked “Recent Maps” list, and they can go in there and go in any recent map they’ve played. Pressing the X Button saves it to their Custom Map list.

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Re: Plunder (XBLA/PSN)

Game has got a new name.


Age of Booty Hands-on

What do you get when you combine ex-Bungie multiplayer guru Max Hoberman with the swashbuckling drama of the high seas? For starters, a downloadable pirate-themed strategy game with a barrelful of online cred.

Intrepid PlayStation team editor and pirate aficionado Greg Miller took an early look at Age of Booty (then still called Plunder) back in March, and you can read his impressions here. But Capcom recently swung by the IGN offices for an extended look at Age of Booty's multiplayer mode, and we buckled on our peg leg for a look.

Developed by Certain Affinity, Age of Booty puts you in command of a single pirate ship on a map made of hexagonal tiles, and your goal is to capture towns along the water. And as strategy games go, the controls could hardly be simpler. On the Xbox 360 version we played, we moved our ship with the left analog stick and chose our destination tile with the A button. Then we sat back and watched our vessel head for open water. When you come into contact with an enemy ship, merchant ship, town or native village, just head to an adjacent tile, press the A button on your target, and your ship will automatically unleash a cannon barrage.

Gathering resources in Age of Booty is simple, too. There are three resource types in the game: gold, wood and rum. Rum upgrades your ship, gold upgrades towns and wood is used for both. Simply navigate to a floating crate to gather resources, or capture a town for maximum effect. Towns generate different resource mixes, displayed over their image on the map, so you'll want to target specific towns in accordance with your strategy. Each player has a base which provides healing, acts as a spawn point and allows you to upgrade your ship. There are three ship upgrade trees -- cannon, speed and armor -- and your ship will change in appearance as you move up the ladder. Towns are easier to upgrade; just highlight the town from anywhere on the map and press the X button once you have the necessary resources.

There are also hapless merchant ships plying the waters of Age of Booty, and although they're lightly armed they usually go down without too much of a fight. Take them out and they'll reward you with Curse Cards, which give you extra powers (like bombs and whirlpools) that can really cause trouble for your opponents.

Although there's a huge amount of customization in Age of Booty online, there's only one basic game type: Capture as many towns as possible. Up to eight players can take to the high seas at once, and up to eight teams can be formed, either locally, over Live or a combination of both. That means you and up to three friends can hook four controllers up to one machine, party up and take your group online.

Age of Booty's developers boast that the game has as robust a matchmaking system as the stalwart Halo 3. There's full party support, a playlist system and a full map editor that allows for sharing of original map designs among friends. If you play Age of Booty with a friend using his or her user-created map, that map will automatically be added to your collection, and it can then be shared with any other friend you play with. Too many XBLA games view multiplayer as an afterthought, booting you out of a match at the end and forcing you to recreate a session if you want to team up with the same individual or group again. But Age of Booty takes multiplayer seriously, allowing you to party up in a private match and bring that party into matchmaking if you like.

Certain Affinity has also included a host of AI characters with their own quirks and play styles that can be used both online and offline. Trained Monkey, for example, is easily distracted by any nearby crate; Bloody Mary likes nothing more than to sink ships; and Filthy McScuppers has a thing for cannons. With numerous multiplayer maps, tons of bots, and endless tweakage at your disposal, there should be a lot of variation to be found in Age of Booty.

Although Age of Booty isn't scheduled to set sail until September, Capcom is already talking about the extra downloadable content potential pirates can look forward to. The game ships with 25 multiplayer maps, and 20 more will be released -- two at a time every two weeks -- beginning three weeks after launch. Arrrrrrgggh matey!