BitCraft Online — now with ships

An MMO with an open world and cartoon-style characters, created at Clockwork Laboratories, is creeping toward fame. It launched into early access without a loud marketing campaign, yet within a few months it gathered positive feedback from gamers. Meanwhile, the developers of BitCraft Online keep expanding their project — this time they have introduced wind mechanics, and where there’s moving air, you can set sails and set off to travel the waves.

The game simulates many natural phenomena. Now wind has been added — you can see its direction on the main map. In addition, every strong gust now affects objects in the surrounding world, including smoke from campfires, dry leaves, and weather vanes on boats. Of course, the movement of air masses can easily be put to several other uses, but the key one for now remains sailing. It grants access both to new adventures and to the establishment of trade routes. Again and again on the water’s surface sailors will encounter floating piles of junk — from these they can extract resources that will surely come in handy for heroes’ activities on land and at sea.

As an experiment the developers added mechanics for evolving rafts and dinghies. In practice this progression looks like unfolding: users simply extend their transport by adding modules and stats to it. If the experiment proves successful, the same rules will later be applied to mount progression. Notably, cargo is most conveniently transported under sail, so the update is meant to liven up trade in the virtual universe. Finally, the developers report that from now on the game features a system for dismantling armor and weapons — when these items break, they yield scrap, which can then be used to craft something new or simply sold.