PS3 Xbox 360

Age of Booty

Real Time Strategy (RTS)SimulatorStrategyArcade

Space needed: About 44 MB

Overview

Age of Booty is a 2008 real-time strategy video game developed by Certain Affinity and A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Games, and published by Capcom for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. Set in the swashbuckling era, the game puts players in control of a pirate ship with the goal of looting and capturing towns for a pirate faction, while defeating enemy ships on the way.

Gameplay largely revolves around the maneuvering of a boat around a sea. The sea is made up of hexagons called Hexes. The player controls the boat by selecting a hex for a destination. If the ship becomes adjacent to a hex containing an enemy ship, merchant ship, town, or settlement, it will automatically attack it with cannon fire. Cannon damage depends on the number of upgrades, but if more than one enemy is adjacent, the ship will split its fire, firing at a different one each time.

To capture a town the player must be adjacent to it and bombard it until it has no health left; the town will continue to fire on the ship until the health is depleted. A town upgrade applies to both town health and cannon power. When health is depleted a "capture" bar shows, and when full the town will be conquered. If an enemy ship nears the town, the "capture" will be paused until one of the ships sinks or flees. Towns automatically heal adjacent ships of the same party, so a defending party has an advantage.

Designer Max Hoberman admitted that inspiration for the game came from Bungie's long-running April Fools' Day gag Pimps at Sea. An open beta version of the game went live on September 19, 2008 (International Talk Like a Pirate Day).