Muteki Corporation has released their pirate defense game Battle of Pirate Bay [$0.99] into the App store last night.
We previewed the game back at E3 and my first impression was that I loved the concept.
The game places you in command of three different ships to defend your base against incoming pirates. Each of the three ships have a different size, speed, attack radius and ammo supply. The largest ship is the slowest and has carries the least amount of ammo but has the longest attack radius. Meanwhile, the smallest ship is fast but needs to be right up against a pirate ship to fire its cannon. Using Flight Control-like multi-touch swipe controls, you direct your ships to cover their respective areas on the playfield. Incoming pirate ships are automatically fired at when they come within range of your ships.
As you run out of ammo, you will need to start managing your resources by juggling your ships around to get the best coverage. Incoming supply ships will replenish a ship’s ammo if intercepted so you’ll want to keep a look out for those. If a pirate makes it past your ships, it will start bombarding your base with cannon fire and you won’t last very long. Tapping on your base fires an emergency cannon to take out the closest invader, but there is a recharge time before you can fire it again. It’s your last ditch defense option if no ships are close enough.
The game seems to offer a good mix of mild strategy along with fast-paced action that should keep you coming back for more. Deciding where and when to deploy specific ships can become a challenge. I found the emergency cannon to be a useful tool that can be used strategically at critical moments. The game also comes with a global leaderboard system which lets you compare your score to the rest of the world.
The developer’s trailer below shows some of the gameplay, while our pre-release video shows some actual hands on time with an early version of the game.
Muteki has already committed to at least a couple of updates to the game and has started soliciting feedback using an in-game voting system. The first vote asks players what feature do you want next? Options include Ship Powerups, New Battle Maps, Typhoons, and Score Combos. We’ll be interested to see how this voting experiment turns out.
Overall a fun and challenging resource management game that’s only $0.99.
App Store Link: The Battle of Pirate Bay, $0.99
