Pirate's Trial : A Scavenger Hunt

Find maps fragments to reach the secret chest !

GOAL

  • Visit the huts, ships or the wise monkey to collect maps
  • Maps will give you hint on the chest position
  • Once you have enough maps, seek a shovel
  • Dig to find the treasure
  • The first pirate to find 2 treasures win the game

CONTROL

  • (arrow keys) Move your tiny pirate around
  • (x) Dig if you have a shovel
  • (z) Show your maps

SCORING

  • The game will keep track of how many game you win in a row.
  • Just submit your titlescreen with the best streak score.

MAP DETAILS

You can get these maps from the huts or ships.
A floating point with your color mark a location you have already visited.

The chest is buried
in high grass
The chest is near a cliff
( 8 squares around it )
The chest is one square
away from a hut ( straight )
The chest is in the same
line of a palm
The chest is not near a ladder
( 8 squares around it )
The chest is not buried
in the mountain

Each rule is excluding the previous one.
For example if a chest is one square away from a sand tile it means :

  • It's not inside a sand tile
  • It's not near a sand tile

Voting results

Overall
1st
8.571
Graphics
2nd
4%
8.214
Audio
2nd
4%
7.214
Gameplay
1st
8.286
Originality
2nd
4%
8.714
Single Theme
1st
8.929
Triple Theme
9th
33%
5.462

This game entered in the Solo competition (24 entries).

Comments (12)

psevrain
 • 4 years ago • 

I'm not too fond of low res graphics, but the game is pleasant to play and the gameplay is well achieved.
There are some little details that give a feeling of complete and well tuned work.
AI enemies seem a bit dumb, but it gives you a lot of time to make a lot of tries… that you need sometimes.

(I had a bug when a shovel spawned on the monkey: I could not get it)

Tipyx
 • 4 years ago • 

It's so cool! It could be a very good extended version :)
I like the way the others move at the same turn as you, so you can take your time for think!
Good job Benjamin ;)

Titaninette
 • 4 years ago • 

Very cool game, I enjoyed it! I had two bugs, the one with the shovel on the monkey, like psevrain, and on the other one, a ship spawned south, near a plain but not accessible by the beach or the plain. The other pirates tried to reach it by the beach all time long and didn't try to search for the treasure as there was a missing clue.

It's still a very very nice job :)

TheGrumpyGameDev
 • 4 years ago • 

I like this one. It is cute, and pretty intuitive.

This could be developed into a full on mobile app i think.

Good job.

brainoidgames
 • 4 years ago • 

Great game. Challenging , fairly original, replayable and quite polished!

I enjoyed it a lot.

Though, THE MONKEY LIES!

thomastc
 • 4 years ago • 

What is it with PICO-8 games? Does PICO-8 magically make games look good, or do only people who know how to make games look good flock to PICO-8? Anyway, this looks (and sounds) excellent :)

The concept is good too, with each individual move looking insignificant but together making a big difference. It helps to think about your tactics a bit before running around like a headless chicken. Once you've gathered all clues, it's mostly a matter of waiting around for shovels to appear, which can be a bit frustrating.

However, I found that the clues are not 100% clear. For example, the "buried inside the beach" map suggests that there are 8 beach tiles around it, and the "near" map doesn't say whether it's 4-connected, 8-connected or just in the general area. Even after reading the game description above, I still don't know if "one square away" could also mean diagonally, or even one hop north and one hop east for example.

How does the AI work? I haven't managed to beat it yet, which is either a testament to its cleverness or to my stupidity… ;)

HonestDan
 • 4 years ago • 

The monkey lies!!

Really original concept (as far as I'm concerned, not played anything like it before). Simple input and rules to the game, but still gave the player a bit to figure out which was nice. I found some of the hints were either wrong or ambiguous, but that ambiguity may be by design.

The art was great! Really set the tone with title screen and the character select. Everything felt like it belonged together! Would be fun multiplayer but I imagine waiting for everyone to finish their 1 turn each step could impact the flow of the game.

benjamin
  • 4 years ago • 

Well, the monkey is NOT lying :-)
…but his master taught him "west" was "east" and vice versa.
I made quickfix to modify this AND the shovel on the monkey bug.
I hope it fits the rules.

@thomastc The shovel is supposed to spawn as long as one of the pirate is shoveless :)
The one square away is in straight line. so only 4 possibilities from a single point.
The AI just keep track of all valid targets, if they have a shovel they will tends to go toward these squares if the remaining targets number if low enough.

@honestDan I'm thinking about making a realtime version of this. To make multiplayer possible.

M2tias
 • 4 years ago • 

This is a really good puzzle game. It's very puzzling to me how you can dig on a mountain! I like the graphics, they are pretty and very clean. They make most of the things clear. There's nothing wrong with the audio side either. The biggest problem I have is that I feel like there's too much guesswork left even if you gather all the clues. I'm not sure, maybe I'm stupid, but I think I gathered them all and I still figured there would be 4-5 spaces it could be in. Maybe clearer rules and less ambiguous island might help? But then you might need more rules in the maps to not make it too obvious. I can see there's a really hard problem here to solve in a 48 hour jam :D
Also, I love to see great pico-8 games. Good job!

DictorDro
 • 4 years ago • 

Super fun game! Liked literally everything: audio, visuals, and beautiful game design.
AI pretty strong though, very hard to win :/ But I had much fun playing this!

HuvaaKoodia
 • 4 years ago • 

Tile based clues and deduction is a classic design. Multiplayer treasure hunting romp is a neat twist on the formula.

My only gripe is with the icons, which don't adequately explain the clue in question. (Not) near to applies in 8 directions, while One tile away only in 4 directions. In sight of X is very nebulous indeed. It really should be called In line with X, as in the description, and the icon should indicate this relationship as well. Using arrows as visualization could work in all of these cases.

Great job otherwise!

oparisy
 • 4 years ago • 

It's kiiiinda disapointing to be repeatedly beaten my the bots, but this gives a great feeling of life to the game.

I like the "superhot like" movements approach, which makes all choices important, but with all the time needed to think them through.

I'm quite astournished by the level of detail you put in maps hints and their interactions.

Great, crispy graphics too!

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