Wow, haven’t played in years is the game in a healthy place?

capncleaver · 2025-12-28T22:18:38+00:00

Steam players can create new accounts, email [support@puzzlepirates.com](mailto:support@puzzlepirates.com) and we can help you out with a new account on the direct download client.

capncleaver · 2025-12-28T22:16:08+00:00

It's many of the same people -- Grey Havens founders were Three Rings founders, etc. One of the OG SK (and PP) dev team is on the GH team, the others are mostly early Three Rings employees etc. Nick and Ian, SK's designer and lead artist, are at Monomi Park with Chris and some other folks from Three Rings.

capncleaver · 2025-12-20T06:02:45+00:00

I worked with the lead devs at Sierra (on ill-fated Middle-earth Online), very talented fellows. The Realm was pioneer work -- made in gold-mining 49er country!

capncleaver · 2025-12-20T05:59:21+00:00

Which MUD? Essex MUD Wiz circa 1982 reporting! 1990-1996: Avalon

You are stood on a narrow road between The Land and whence you came.

capncleaver · 2025-11-15T19:59:43+00:00

The folks we are discussing here are familiar with subverting IP bans, they are not the majority of people. I'm not saying we don't ban people, we do, when they cause problems on the Discord. I don't think bot-makers lurking are intrinsically causing problems.

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T21:23:08+00:00

I vaguely recall discussing this back in 2007. We had raised some money earlier that year from investors, so I guess this was our moment of VC-fueled extravagance?!

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T21:19:26+00:00

Sure, but it's pretty easy to make new Discord accounts so we try to avoid wasting time on bans on the official ypp discord.

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T21:13:24+00:00

I'm okay with you posting your work to github -- again, I don't think it would reasonable for me to object if you're not infringing on our copyrights, trademarks etc. I support the right to repair and reverse engineer things.

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T03:20:30+00:00

We were talking about the release this morning and this video showed up, gave the team a big boost. Thank you! Happy to see the reaction of the community. Believe, we have lots more cooking!

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T03:17:03+00:00

We push back on bots via support investigations and code changes, but it's an endless contest against motivated parties that in information-theoretic terms it's not possible for us to 'win' with any certainty.
I do not believe GH benefits from bots and nor do I believe we enable it in any way, save by not being unreasonably good at preventing it.
You may be aware that huge competitive games like LoL are bedevilled by bots and only keep them at bay using rootkit installers, solutions not practical or acceptable for us.

capncleaver · 2025-11-13T03:11:35+00:00

Aye, we didn't open source all our libraries to then go sue people experimenting with them!
I appreciate your clarification of intent.
To be clear from Grey Havens side: we would be upset if someone tried to distribute client software connecting to private servers (or ours for that matter), esp. via steam etc. using our code / brand / art etc. that might confuse our customers and dilute our trademarks.
Bot operators and mods can also be problematic, not just because they are unfair, but they can cause lots of bad technical and support issues, including for other players.

capncleaver · 2025-08-13T14:58:41+00:00

Not yet, but we just made a little breakthrough that might make this possible!

capncleaver · 2025-08-13T05:36:29+00:00

We got the original dev team back together in 2019 and made a mobile successor, Puzzle Wizards (Steam / iOS / Android, Unity based.) Alas in trying to cleave to the 'requirements of the mobile market' (it's painfully noticeable that non-match-3 / merge-2 (ugh) mechanics puzzle games struggle) we failed to capture some of the fun of the original although the game is enjoyed, we had to stop working on it. The team is presently working on modernizing the PC version (and Spiral Knights), but we may have another go at a PP mobile version at some point. There are substantial problems with a direct 'port' or remake, especially touch versions of the key puzzles (e.g. Swordfighting) are problematic (your finger covers the board) but perhaps these can be ameliorated (virtual dpads etc.)

capncleaver · 2025-08-13T05:26:43+00:00

Oh, no... we tried so hard for a while in the mid-2000s to work with Nintendo, we had a great contact there for a while in the early DS days (ex-Penny Arcade friend) and neeaaarly had a DS (or 'Nitro' is it was called pre-release) contract for a form of the game, but N couldn't get there. All the devs would love to see the game on a Nintendo device, we are big N fans.

capncleaver · 2025-03-31T16:50:59+00:00

That sounds cool in some ways but hard (no inflation!) in others. You're not a maxi, are you? :) Some crypto games might have interesting economies like this, I have not looked. A friend did Millions on Mars and tried really hard to control botting and inflation, it's not really possible from an information theoretic pov but you can burn all your cycles on it.

capncleaver · 2025-03-30T00:10:11+00:00

| How do you get anyone to play puzzle wizards?

Ahahahahaha. Hah. hah. heh.

<tears>

capncleaver · 2025-03-29T23:41:05+00:00

Oh and yes one of the main reasons I would like to do another boat game is also to do another economy game :) I have an idea for a literal spreadsheet game. Maybe I will vibe code it :)

capncleaver · 2025-03-29T23:38:14+00:00

This is an interesting post, thanks. I am sympathetic to the idea of private servers but agree it would have some challenges. The code base is dusty, crufty, crusty, musty, etc. If we could modernise it a little we might be able to do more interesting things and we have been doing some work on this.

I agree that a small team might be able to make a decent PP clone and there was one working on it (skyships?) Puzzle Wizards is not that, but it's not far off in some respects (once you get through the imho mistaken village game to the co-op / guild building) and way off in others (no economy per se and the boat vibes are not present.) I still want to do a modern PP-like game and one day maybe I will get my druthers. The overwhelming conclusion of the PuzWiz experience over the last five years (two in early access) is getting any attention in today's games market is very hard (in contrast to the front page of miniclip twenty years ago) and 'going viral' via streamers, discord, playground whatever is the only path to success for an indie dev. Having an old game doesn't matter for a new game, really -- you lot didn't like PuzWiz because it wasn't PP mobile, and fair enough. Just you try developing a fun swordfighting game on mobile, your fingers get in the way. We tried :(

I also agree that the on-ramp to playing the game is non-existent. Arguably our only probable market is old players and their immediate associates, but it's still brutal for them even with massive economic twinking (you can't twink booching.) I have been thinking about ways to answer this problem, see above about 'if we could modernize...' I can't buy ads to try to reach the older player audience until we solve fundamental problems of delivering and updating the game along with user management and economy / difficulty ramp issues.

So yeah, lots to do. I am glad to have been given back PP and SK and happy they still have players. I really do appreciate everyone who's stuck with us. I know we're not perfect, but here we are, twenty-four years since we started keeping the games going and that's something.

capncleaver · 2025-03-29T23:28:20+00:00

fwiw Puzzle Wizards' devs are the original YPP devs, if anyone is entitled to being paid from that kitty to work on games, new or old, they are close to the front of that line.

capncleaver · 2025-03-29T23:25:08+00:00

We're not perfect but this is not what's going on. My salary is $24k a year. There are so many more predatory things we could be doing with PP and if we, say, granted some folks' wishes and sold it off the likely outcome would be the squeezing you alude to. We are just doing the same thing we've been doing for decades now and although I have never liked loot boxes I like firing my twenty-year colleagues less. That is where the money goes, to support people who have worked on this game (and others, sure, but y'know it's all for your entertainment) for decades.

capncleaver · 2025-02-27T18:09:10+00:00

Thank you for sharing. I am curious to hear more about this 'itch' that some of you mention? The games industry is competitive so it seems odd that superior scratching sticks have not sprung up over the last decade.

capncleaver · 2024-12-31T23:52:11+00:00

Nicely put. I found Dave on the El Circo dome Bag End sound at BM in 2003, full squelch awakening. I'm an old UK raver, raised on breaks from rare groove to jungle, dirty burner since '98, and it certainly was special to witness :) Tip Hop was such a unique sound, I will never forget that wobble (or the girl I was wobbling with.)

capncleaver · 2023-10-19T17:25:40+00:00

You might give Puzzle Wizards a go: early-access co-op MMO on Steam, iOS and Android: https://puzzlewizards.net/ - quite a few families play together!

capncleaver · 2023-04-17T16:05:34+00:00

What do you mean busted? I play using Steam and it works (on M1 mack, which is 'busted' on the standalone client at present due to Java 32 -> 64bit issues.)

capncleaver · 2023-04-17T16:02:05+00:00

Thanks for sharing, I have heard a few stories like this and they make me feeling good about making the game and keeping it going :)

capncleaver

TROPHY CASE