Project history, and the bright future ahead. news - Pirates

In the 1990s, I have fond memories of The Secret of Monkey Island.
It introduced me to the awesome genre/theme that is 18th century Piracy.
By the time I stumbled upon a Zelda sequel in 2003, The Wind Waker,
I knew that the pirate genre was an obsession of mine and there was only one thing to do.

My first attempt at a pirate game dates back to July 2004.
Ign.com

The technology in 2004 wouldn't have been adequate, and I was a 15 year old beginner,
hadn't yet become a 3D artist, nor even modded or mapped.
4 years would pass, before the idea for Pirates was entertained again.
By this time (2008) the design idea for Pirates had been polished into what would later be unveiled in 2011.
I was now in the world of modding, gaining skills in game development, and sought to convince modding companions to dump a copyright infringing mod, in favour of an original indie game.
Unfortunately they preferred the copyright infringing mod, so the idea was set aside for another 3 years.

Pirates was announced and production began on March 30th 2011, under UDK.
Web.archive.org
Web.archive.org

The first design document draft was notarised in October 2010, and published online the following May.
Web.archive.org

Development hell is something I become familiar with fast.
I wrote an article about these struggles earlier this year.
Indiedb.com

The lessons I've learnt have caused me to evolve. Giving up was something I couldn't do and just cannot do,
no matter how attractive the idea felt at times.

I've been spending my own money on Pirates, to make sure things actually get done and stay done.
I'm in a better position than I was the previous 4 years, to fund my own project, but I'm still in the low-income class (under 9k). I don't feel sorry for myself and neither should you, it is just a fact that impacts my options. My life has been gradually improving, I may not earn decent money per year yet, but I've been able to do freelance 3D graphics entirely for 9 months without having to rely anymore on an abusive slave labour retail job.

I would like to get crowd-funding into this project ASAP,
So I'm using my own money to fund the alpha build that I think people expect for things like Greenlight and Kickstarter. I prefer to wait till Jan 1st for a large crowd-funding project due to taxes, otherwise alot of the donated money will not have a chance to get spent.
But I am considering small crowd-funding campaigns, like $5,000 to fund early development.
I'm taking as many freelance projects as I can in the meantime so I have my own personal spending money for Pirates.

I've had success with a great coder by bartering with him, offering my 3D skills to his project.
He's become very interested in helping with my project to the point he's put his on hold even.
And I'm paying for friends of mine, even former members who helped in the past, so they can find the time to get the work we need, quickly. Making a game isn't about money, but when you have to survive people can only justify making this game a priority if it pays for their time. Me working on this game, costs me money atm, but it's my game and thats how it goes. My team, I cannot expect them to work for free, I have to pay them, even if its a sub-par rate for now. But I'm doing what I can, and I'm getting positive results for the first time in a long time.

We have alot of great features we are anxious to share after so long, and were working hard to clean up the bugs so it is a nice update. After that follows, I will talk more about crowd-funding, big and small.

Feel free to share ideas, suggestions, or contact me directly if you have any questions in the meantime.