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News Index: [ LATEST ][ Feb 08-Oct 08 ]
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LATEST NEWS -
Buccaneer Trading Card Game Revealed
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26th October 2009
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As well as announcing the release of the boxed, retail version of Buccaneer,
we would also like to reveal the
Buccaneer Trading Card Game that is currently in development in the studio.
We have put up a website to function as a developer's blog to show the game taking
shape and to give any fans of trading card games an opportunity to join the forum
and have their say.
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LATEST NEWS -
Buccaneer Goes Boxed
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26th October 2009
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We are proud to announce that Buccaneer is now gracing retail shelves
in Europe. The first copies were released on Friday the 23rd in France and
Spain and we still can't quite believe it ourselves... Buccaneer... in
a box! I just hope we get a couple of free copies to flash around (nudge, nudge) ;-).
We will keep you appraised of any additional territories we release in when
it happens.
The boxed release is courtesy of French publishers
Nobilis, who brought us some
great games like King's Bounty and Fantasy Wars - both favourites of mine,
particularly the latter.
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Scurvy Outbreak!
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30th September 2009
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It appears that there has been an outbreak of scurvy amongst some of our
pirate brethren! If you think you have what it takes to save the lives of
these men, then
follow this link and put your medical skills to the test.
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All NEW Buccaneer Co-op Mode added FREE!
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10th September 2009
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That's right fellow cutthroats and pirate brethren - we at the good ship
Stickman have liberated a new game mode in Buccaneer. Now you can fight alongside
a buddy online or over a LAN connection against overwhelming odds. Join the
battle to aid the Golden Buccaneers overcome their arch rivals The Crown. We
have added 20 new missions of ship to ship mayhem... against the clock! Each level
starts with the Crown having 1000 points of Renown and you, as Buccaneers, with a
mere 100 points of Infamy... and just 10 minutes to turn the tables! So grab your
eyepatch, ensure your powder is dry, roll out the guns and set sail!
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Buccaneer 50% off on Direct2Drive!
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24th May 2009
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More great news for us as the Buccaneer 50% sale begins on
Direct2Drive in their
Indie Game Downloads section and propels is into not only the
Indie Top Sellers list, but also briefly into the PC Top Sellers List.
OK so it was only for a few hours over the weekend, but at one point we
managed to stand at number 2 above both Civ IV and Call of Duty!
Hopefully the sale will continue to see a number of pirates, swashbucklers,
cut-throats, brigands, freebooters and ne'er-do-wells swell the ranks of
Buccaneer players. So if you don't yet have your own copy of the
game and would like to purchase it now at a snip... follow the above link
to Direct2Drive and steal yourself a copy for $9.95!
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Co-operative Multiplayer on the Horizon
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24th May 2009
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As well as us working freelance again, Harvey and I are also currently
engaged in the process of adding a Co-operative Multiplayer mode to
Buccaneer that will come as a free upgrade to all owners of the
game. The new Co-op mode will pit 2 players against over-whelming AI
opposition, forcing them to work together as a team to win. Players
will sail for the Golden Buccaneers faction against their main rivals
The Crown. The action will take place across 20 levels, with 3 levels
of difficulty. The game is similar to the existing multiplayer game but
sees the players beginning with a vastly inferior score to the AI team
and time ticking away. Players will be required to steal enemy treasure
and destroy enemy land targets to boost their own score, while sinking
enemy shipping to reduce their opponent's total.
We will bring more information over the next few days/weeks as we
progress with this mode and begin testing.
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Creeping into the Crypt
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24th May 2009
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We have had quite a number of reviews appear over the last few months and
unfortunately have been a little remiss in our duties of keeping our website
updated. Harvey and I are back doing a spot of freelancing and as such we do
not have as much time as we would like to dedicate to the site. We do, however,
have a link here to a recent
review courtesy of the guys at The Crypt. We like it. Not because it bigs
Buccaneer up into something it isn't, but because it perfectly reviews
exactly what Buccaneer IS. The guys have clearly given the game a chance,
can see what we attempted to achieve and know exactly where we have succeeded and
where the game is lacking. Bravo guys and thanks for the review. :-)
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Buccaneer released on Direct2Drive!
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19th April 2009
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Fantastic news for us at Stickman Studios as Buccaneer is released on
Direct2Drive and is now available to download directly from their
Indie Game Downloads section. It is something that we have been looking
forward to for quite a while - being able to offer players a choice of
whether or not they wished to buy or play our game via Steam. As an added
boost, our recent implementation of new GameSpy matchmaking code means that
new Direct2Drive players will be able to play alongside Steam players in the
same Buccaneer "universe". So with one pool of players from both versions,
we hope to see a rise in the number of multiplayer games running.
Massive thanks to the chaps over at Direct2Drive for providing us with the
opportunity to release the game through their site. Additional thanks is also
due for including the Buccaneer in-game video on the Indie Games home page.
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Buccaneer Fan Site Unveiled
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18th April 2009
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We are also delighted to announce that we have our first fan site!
www.freipirat.com
was set up by Buccaneer fan Michael Fuchs (aka Menschke).
Currently Michael's site is in German, although he also intends to
include an English version in the future. We would like to personally
thank Michael for his support and are very flattered and encouraged to
know that we have people out there who think so highly of our game. We
were also very impressed to see that the site includes a full list of
all Buccaneer's Steam based achievements - something that I am
embarrassed to admit is currently missing from our own site. I shall
rectify that asap and include an achievement page to the main Buccaneer
website.
Thanks again Michael for the site, we really appreciate the support!
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Buccaneer Makes Number One in Steam Indie Top Sellers!
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17th April 2009
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Yes, unbelievably Buccaneer managed to make the number one spot in the
Steam Indie Top Sellers list! Against some pretty hefty competition, we managed
to hit the number one spot over the first weekend of the Easter/Spring Break and
cling on to that position for nearly four days, before being pushed down to
number two by Garry's Mod. We could not have been happier with this remarkable
achievement and many thanks have to go out to the guys at Steam for providing
us the advertising space on their front page during our two week promotional offer
period. It really does go to show what a bit of added exposure can do. Thanks guys!
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Buccaneer 50% SALE now on!
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4th April 2009
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To celebrate a fantastic GDC and to promote the latest changes to our multiplayer game,
we are currently selling Buccaneer for a massive 50% off! The game will be on
sale for the next two weeks on both Direct2Drive and Steam. The Direct2Drive offer will
be valid for two weeks from the 6th to the 20th of April, while Steam's offer is running
from the 4th to the 17th. To take advantage of the sale period, simply follow this link
and get your bargain priced Buccaneer now!
"Yaarrr! Sign me up for a spot of piracy!"
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GDC Success!
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4th April 2009
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This year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco could not have gone much better
for us here at Stickman Studios. As previously mentioned we had a Buccaneer booth on both
the Garage Games stand as well as the GameSpy stand. Traffic to both stands was very high and
the game was very well received. Harvey, manning the Buccaneer booth on the Garage Games stand,
said that for the 3 days that he was at the show he was simply swamped with interest and lost
his voice a number of times while showcasing the game. Much of this interest has to be attributed to
the tireless efforts of Jared Teesdale - a long time friend of Harvey's who spent 3 gruelling days
encouraging passers-by on to the stand to check the game out. Massive thanks go out to Jared for his
help and the priceless contribution he made to our success on the stand.
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Buccaneer at the Game Developers Conference
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24th March 2009
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Other massive news for us this week is our appearance at the
Game Developers Conference in
San Francisco courtesy of our friends at
Garage Games, whose Torque Game Engine Advanced was used to create Buccaneer. Incredibly
we are also making an appearance on the GameSpy stand, as we are one of the first games to be signed
up to the new GameSpy Open. So if you are lucky enough to be one of those who gets to go to GDC...
drop in on the Garage Games stand and you will see Stickman's own Harvey Greensall manning a pc with
Buccaneer running. He will be the one red-faced and sweating, trying not to get his high score
beaten by a 10 year old child. :-)
If you're not going to GDC, then I will be posting news here as and when Harv can grab 5 minutes to
let me know how it's all going. Unless of course a hitherto undiscovered bug in the Buccaneer
code manages to take out the power at the conference. In which case we shall both be changing our names
and disappearing to South America.
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NEW Buccaneer Demo Powered by GameSpy!
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24th March 2009
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Very big news for us this week as Buccaneer becomes powered by
GameSpy!
We have a new demo version of the game available including access to ALL of the
multiplayer levels. With GameSpy's incredible matchmaking facility, ANY player is
now capable of hosting a multiplayer game! Gone are the days of needing to know
how to "port forward" your router to allow other players to find your hosted game.
Now any player can challenge all their friends to a game online and vie to become
the most infamous pirate captain.
The demo is available from both Direct2Drive and Steam and features not only all of
the multiplayer levels, but also 8 levels from the 56 mission, non-linear, single
player campaign game. Demo players will also be capable of battling against buyers
of the full priced game, but will only have access to 4 of the 24 multiplayer ships.
The full priced version of Buccaneer will be available from the 4th of April, for a
bargain price of $9.99! (Limited period only - get it while it's hot!).
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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
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2nd February 2009
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Well our "drum beating" seems to have had the desired effect and we have now had a
number of reviews posted. As you would expect the reviews themselves
vary wildy between those that understand what was intended from Buccaneer
and really dig it, to those who simply don't know what they are talking about. Joke.
Obviously the game was never going to be to everyone's liking and opinion is divided.
Fortunately for us the vast majority of reviewers who have played the game really like
it and there are very few that don't - no game is ever going to please everyone.
We have posted links to all of the reviews here, good and bad:-.
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Buccaneer Down Under
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18th January 2009
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With the New Year underway and the Christmas period now behind us, we at Stickman are
hoping to raise awareness of Buccaneer and try and get a few more websites to
post reviews of the game. Being a VERY small fish in an extremely large ocean means
that we are all but invisible to the gaming community. While the hard work of actually
creating and releasing the game has been done, getting gamers to find the game and
perhaps check out the demo seems even harder. Unfortunately most industry websites that
review new releases are simply not interested in the plight of the small, indie studio
and focus all their efforts on the AAA, multi-million pound titles. Undeterred, however,
Stickman has been knocking on a few doors and Harv has been "spamming" hundreds of sites
in the vain hope that our "drum-beating" might attract some attention. And slowly but surely
it does appear that there is a growing level of interest in our game. At least a dozen
sites have now promised a review of Buccaneer, the first of which has just appeared
courtesy of Jan Valjean at Gameplanet NZ - Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy.
We have also recently had a copy of a Buccaneer video posted on GameTrailers.com, that has
already received nearly 9000 hits!
Hopefully over the coming weeks we shall see more reviews of the game and will post links
to them from our website.
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Happy New Year!
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7th January 2009
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Perhaps a tad belated, but a Happy New Year's wish goes out to all our Buccaneer visitors! :-)
The New Year is ringing in with some good news on the Stickman Studios front. Firstly, congratulations
are in order to Harv for becoming a proud father over the break. Charlie Norton Greensall came bouncing
into the world on the 30th of December and has been keeping Harv awake ever since (and covered in
various baby waste materials). So good luck to the Greensall family!
We have also have our first press article courtesy of Keith Stuart at the Guardian, which we are
particularly pleased about. Huge thanks go out to Keith for the coverage! Read the article here entitled
Stickman, Buccaneer and the whole future of indie game development.
We are hoping to follow up the coverage received here with an appearance on a stand at this year's
Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, if Harv and I can somehow scrape together the funds to
make the trip. If we do, the next step will be finding tranquilisers powerful enough to permit me
to get on a plane. I'm not sure that they exist, but if they do they are probably only ever used on
thoroughbred racehorses, so a trip to the vets may be in order!
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Buccaneer's First Review
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23rd December 2008
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Buccaneer has now been available for a couple of weeks and
we are pleased to announce that we have just had our first official
review of the game. Hear what GameCyte reviewer Brendon Lyndsey
had to say when he posted his article -
Indie Games Corner: Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy Review (PC)
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Single Player Demo Available
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15th December 2008
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We've uploaded a single player mode to our demo today, consisting of
10 missions from the campaign game. In the demo you will take command of
the Kraken's Fancy and sail for the Golden Buccaneers, facing off against
the Freebooters and the Scarlet Corsairs. You will have access to a number
of different vessels at the Shipwright, as well as the Dockyard repair and
upgrade facilities. We have also unlocked the save facility at The Tavern
and the Hall of Infamy highscore table, displaying the current league leaders
in piratical cunning.
Visit our demo page on Steam and download a free copy of the
Single Player Demo
to give yourself a taste of Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy.
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Buccaneer Available on Steam
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11th December 2008
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What a week! Buccaneer has now been available on Steam for the better part of a
week and the response in general is very positive. As with most PC games, a number
of issues have come to light since release, that we are now busy ironing out. Most
have been due to outdated versions of DirectX or Firewalls denying Buccaneer
access to the server to update in-game highscores.
Our next task is to raise public awareness of the game by getting it reviewed and played
by journalists and other Indie game devlopers. One of the latter has already had a chance
to play the game and delivered a quite...
unbelievable review on Garage Games. And no... we don't know this guy and haven't paid him a penny! :-)
We also recently entered the
IGF (Independent Games Festival) with the
hope of perhaps gaining an honourable mention. The number of entrants is up by 30% on last year, so
competition itself should be quite fierce with a total of 226 Indie games competing this year. Games are
judged across 8 or 9 different categories and to get nominated for any one of them would be a massive achievement
indeed.
(The Stickman crew hold their breath and cross their fingers tightly).
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!!!GAME RELEASE VIA STEAM!!!
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5th December 2008
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Avast me hearties! The day long awaited is finally here as Buccaneer
sets sail on PCs across the seven seas! The game will be available for
download from Steam on the 5th of December from about 4pm (PCT) for the paltry sum of $19.99.
Two versions are available for download - a multiplayer demo as well as the full Buccaneer release.
The demo gives access to a multiplayer map and offers a choice of 10 different ship classes to give
players a real feel for the game, while the full game includes a 56 mission, non-linear campaign and
10 multiplayer maps to battle over. A total of 26 ships are available in the full release, including
13 customisable single player ships.
It's been a long and difficult task here in the studio to get the game to where it is today. If
you would like to know more about the development process, then check out our
Developer Interview with
Garage Games.
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The Blitz 1UP Initiative
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15th November 2008
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Well... it seems like a long time since the last testing session and while the
news page has been sleeping, the Stickmen certainly haven't. We both have dark rings
under our eyes to rival the best Hollywood zombie effect makeup! All worth it though,
as there are a number of exciting news items to mention, so this will be quite a posting.
Firstly we want to talk about our involvement with the
Blitz 1UP Initiative, which has provided us with vital assistance
in transforming Buccaneer into a more professional product and getting it ready for market.
It started many moons ago while we were doing a spot of outsource work for Blitz Games Studios and
were given the opportunity to show off the game as it stood then. Blitz were suitably
impressed with the progress we had made on our own and were eager to help realise our
dream and get Buccaneer finished and "on the shelves".
Blitz Arcade Business Development Director Chris Swan was given the unenviable task of taking our
grubby little Stickman hands and moulding us into a more professional outfit. :-)
The 1UP Initiative included invaluable financial, legal, PR and QA support,
with the latter in particular driving the game forward and ensuring that the finished
article is a polished and professional product. Having the game in Blitz Arcade's QA
department has generated a great deal of fresh and unbiased feedback (as well as a
number of new bugs to fix ;-) ), which has been absolutely vital in the development of the
project. Sitting as close to the game as Harv and I have for nearly two years makes it
difficult for us to take an objective view and without this assistance, essential gameplay
improvements would never have been made.
Another massive area of support from the 1UP Initiative has been with industry networking.
While our own "cheeky charm" might land us a free ice cream, Blitz Games Studios are a large and
highly respected developer and their connections and influence within the industry are
considerable. Already this partnership has secured Buccaneer a release
(pending signiatures) with one of the world's leading digital distributors, as well as
interest from a number of more traditional distributors for a boxed version of the game for
2009.
Last week during the
Game Connection Europe in Lyon, Business Development Director Chris Swan
had the opportunity to showcase Buccaneer to a number of other industry veterans and had this to say:-
“We were focused on showing 5 games at GC Lyon, with Buccaneer featuring prominently in the list.
The game went down brilliantly well with every client I met – even those it didn’t fit with still gave
praise for what the Stickman guys have achieved with the game. I’ve come away with loads of positive
take up on the game in a wide number of territories, so it couldn’t have been better from my perspective.”
Add to this our noteable mention in this month's Develop Magazine as part of the first
article (on page 5) and it's fair to say that the exposure generated by our involvement
with the 1UP Initiative so far has been incalculable.
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Drink Up! with our new Swashbuckle video
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15th November 2008
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Yaarrr! Some of you may have noticed the video link already below the buttons
on the left and wondered what on earth it was all about. Well... a bunch of
fine and upstanding gentlemen from the New York area approached us with the
idea of collaborating in a spot of piracy. We were of course delighted, but
immediately perplexed as to how we could somehow marry a computer game set
in (probably) the 18th Century with a bit of 21st Century pirate heavy metal.
It was no easy task, but I hope you enjoy what we came up with... as the band
Swashbuckle play a gig in our very own Cutlass Bay tavern.
We have placed links to a number of different resolution videos on our
Screenshots and Movies page. So check out our video and "Drink Up!"
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News Index: [ LATEST ][ Feb 08-Oct 08 ]
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