This is really cool!
I'm a few books into the Aubry/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien (highly recommended! The movie Master & Commander is based on them).
This should help to get a better feel for the ships and the battles!
I'm a few books into the Aubry/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien (highly recommended! The movie Master & Commander is based on them).
This should help to get a better feel for the ships and the battles!
If, like me, you’re unfamiliar with ship terminology I’d suggest not getting too hung up on understanding exactly what bit of the ship he’s talking about. There’s lots of great historical detail - but O’Brian also tells a fabulous story.
I had no idea I would enjoy this film as much as I did. Highly recommend to all explorer and adventurous types.
I can recommend
Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World (Hardcover)
Lots of valuable information, lots of illustrations and schematics and photos.
I had two main questions to answer when making this. First, how does ship physics work anyway; second, what is an appropriate UI that feels like being an officer ordering a couple of hundred people around? I previously worked on a flight sim, where it's appropriate to move a joystick, or a mouse, and have the plane respond straight away. I think that would feel wrong here - it would make the ship feel like a toy.
A benefit of the technical language is that it helps convey the idea that the ship is a big, complicated machine, with all the parts worked by people. It's also fun to see the strange words. So I decided to lean in to technical language and verbal commands. I was starting to work with git, and thought about using a command-line UI for the game; but I went with something inspired by the menus and hotkeys of old roguelikes.