PIRATES! It seems everyone loves pirates including Ticking Bomb Games and InnoGames, creators of Kartuga, but will this capture your lust for adventure or be gunned down and left to sink to the murky depths? Well read on traveller, lest ye walk the plank!
Recently I had the chance to play Kartuga, a game where you man a vessel of the seas in PVP or PVE team Deathmatch games. The game runs in your browser and is free to play so everyone's a winner! Featuring a persistent hub World which will change as the game progresses, this is the area where you can customise your ship and make preparations for missions in a variety of different areas of the World, inspired by real life places such as the Mediterranean, Mayan civilisation and the Orient.
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| I've got a sinking feeling |
Ships have a large variety of designs that can be changed to fit the play style and look to customise your experience. Each ship also has a skill tree that you can progress with every time you level up. Playing the game will reward you with experience points for literally everything you do, from attacking enemies, to transporting goods or defending your own ports. Using simple controls to steer your ship, the game is controlled using the W (forward), A (stop), S (turn left), D (turn right) keys to maneuver and the mouse used to direct your cannon fire off either side to blast away your opponents. Also available are special attacks, such as a harpoon; fired from the front of your ship, which you can spike into an enemy to slow them down, or repair tools used to fix your teams ships.
On offer to you are three different ship archetypes, the Destroyer, the Engineer and the Protector. Each ship specialises in a certain area, for instance, the destroyer is a smaller nimble ship used for fast, powerful attacks but lacks any kind of defensive properties. The engineer has the ability to heal team mates and deploy drones to attack enemies, like the perfect support class. Finally is the Protector, living up to its name, the protector can block enemy fire to the smaller ships using its large size and huge amounts of health, also while dealing out damage at a good rate. Using a mixed team is the key to winning any game type!
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| To the ends of the Earth! |
Speaking of game types, modes that I got to play were straight up TDM and a game type similar to capture the flag, only with a twist. Rather than flags, a neutral bomb appears in a random place near the centre of the map, both teams rush to pick it up and carry it to 1 of 3 bases in the enemy’s territory. As you sail through enemy waters, turrets will try to destroy you so you have to pick a clear pathway through the environments and deliver the package. Once planted, you must guard the area for a short amount of time and wait for the explosives to detonate, but steer clear as the blast can smash enemy and friendly boats alike!
With only a short time with the game, I really enjoyed what I played of it. The game types were fun and the mix of chasing and escaping on the bombing run levels gave me high hopes for the full version. Hopefully when the game is released, I'll be able to really sink my teeth into it and see how the levelling systems and skill trees can really work to their full advantage.
Katuga will be released on PC sometime this year, with a closed beta available now, which you can register for at
beta.kartuga.com
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