The game is planned to be released in several stages:
- Island Survival
- This game state is simple. Start on an island, survive on it long enough to gather materials and tools, harvest items for building, and build/use a raft (later boat) to explore more islands in the world.
- The world will be selectable by the player in terms of size and composition.
- The world will only have the player, elements, time, and some environmental AI that will be roaming the world (i.e. no human characters that are interact-able other than as an enemy).
- Blackbeard the Builder
- Player can construct buildings
- New ships become available
- Ships start to show customization options
- Guns become available
- First Contact
- Builds upon the first stage by adding in some human AI and some more exciting enemies.
- World will have even more biomes with the world changing in style as the player moves through it
- Moving north/south will change the temperate nature of the world (colder near the poles)
- Moving east/west will change the type of architecture and vegetation
- First interact-able humans that don’t want to kill you (at least at the start).
- Trade and quests start appearing
- Pirate Hunter
- Ship combat starts to take a role in both quests and trading.
- Cities begin to take shape
- Seas start to show who ‘controls’ them
- Ship crew becomes available.
- Hire or recruit crew to help man the braces!
- Merchant Marine
- Cities begin to trade with each other
- Merchants sell commodities in addition to items
- City Governors start to affect the region
- Trade routes, piracy, and pirate havens take shape
- Sea Titans
- Regions take shape
- A region can be divided on biome type, location, or even simple randomization
- Seas are ruled by the ‘Sea Titans’ that are the kings of their respective region
- Player can now attempt to clear a region of the Titan’s forces and claim the region for themself
- Final game is now taking shape. From here on out it is just bug fixes and new content!
- Regions take shape