The Rise of Captain Longbeard

The Rise of Captain Longbeard
Developer: Colopl NI Publisher: Colopl NI Platforms: Windows Released internationally: October 19, 2016 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden developer credits. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused music. This game has debugging material. This game has a prerelease article

The Rise of Captain Longbeard is a pirate adventure game for the HTC Vive in which you play as the young pirate, Robert Longfellow, and explore the seas to collect pieces of a magical medallion to overthrow the evil Captain Firebeard. It was tragically abandoned soon after release on Steam Early Access due to unfortunate circumstances out of the team's control.

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Prerelease Info

Unused Sounds Lots of early and unused audio clips, mostly for cutscenes.

Hidden Developer Message

On either controller, press these buttons in the following order:

Menu, Menu, Menu, Grip, Touchpad, Touchpad, Trigger, Touchpad, Menu, Grip

There is no timer, so they do not need to be pressed quickly. These only register when pressing them down. To reset the combo, press any button out of order.

If done correctly, text will pop up in your view saying:

 Thomas Deeb
   Programmer
 Thanks for playing!

Unused Music

All of the songs from Joel Studler's Pirate Music Pack are contained in the game, but only Perilous Plunder, Scurvy Sea Dogs, Ghost Ship, and Walk The Plank (included in v.03), are used. While the splash screen at the start uses Ghost Ship, only the section from 0:18 to 0:26 of the song is played, rendering the rest of the song unheard under normal circumstances.

Unused Ship Boss Fight

The game contains leftover code referencing some type of boss fight with an enemy ship. The class definitions containing the bulk of this code are BossShipAI, BossShipCannonBall, ShipCannon, BoatAI, and BoatSpawner:

• According to the code, the ship shoots cannonballs at the player, and the cannonballs hurt anything in a certain range of where they land.
• The ship has checks for its cannons being damaged, though it's currently unknown exactly how the player would've done this. What is known is that the cannons are vulnerable only when they are aiming to fire at the player, so there was likely some timing involved in damaging them.
• Each time the cannons are damaged, it'll spawn a boat with a number of enemy pirates on it that navigates its way to the land. For every two hits done to any cannon, one additional boat will be spawned, with a 5 second delay between each boat to prevent multiple from spawning at once. This behavior also goes unused, as there are no boats that move in the final.

The only boss fight present in the final game involves a sea monster.

Oddities

Punching Feature

There is an obscure punching feature in the game. To perform it, hold the Grip button on a controller to make your hand form a fist, then move it forward swiftly in a punching motion. If you punch an enemy, it will take damage. Note that the punching motion is pretty finicky and you must physically walk close to the enemy for it to work, as most enemies are a considerable distance away from you even when they stop.

Parrot Move Behavior

Throughout the game, the helpful Parrot is encountered in four locations:

1. The dock where Longfellow washes up and meets it
2. Near the Warp Scope chest
3. Anytime you get on the ship after defeating the Kraken
4. In the Captain's Quarters after obtaining the ship, in a gold bird cage

The Parrot instantly appears and remains in one spot whenever it's encountered except for one instance. After the cutscene where you meet the Parrot, travel one zone away then travel back to the zone you just left. The Parrot will get up from its perch and fly to a specific location very close to the perch, then rotate to look at the player.

Since there's no reason for the Parrot to leave its perch in this situation, this indicates that the Parrot may have initially flew to more locations around the island.

Revisional Differences

The version number can be found at the lower-left corner of the game window. It's not visible in the headset.

Version 0.02 (October 21, 2016)
-A bug where the map covered the areas you've already been to after dying was fixed
-The ship stops automatically after sailing too far and respawning
-In one of the islands, the shells in the key-shell puzzle were moved to be easier to reach
-The teeth for the pirate grabbing a rope in the opening cutscene are no longer purple
-A bug where monkeys wouldn't fall over after dying was fixed
-The giant boulder now starts on the switch instead of rolling onto it again if the puzzle was already completed
-A nasty bug that kept your view permanently black sometimes after entering an island, sailing too far, or using the Warp Scope was fixed. The black fade also looks slightly different
-You can now take a path to the Crow's Nest from the wheel of the ship. You can take it to get a good view of the ocean to see where you're going
-A sound when the captain opens the door in the opening cutscene has been added
-A low-quality gunshot sound when trying to walk back towards the ship from the plank in the opening was updated
-The chest containing the medallion piece was moved further from the wall to avoid clipping
-The plank covering the medallion chest now poofs away in a cloud of smoke, like every other object, when disappearing after the boss is defeated
-A plank of wood was added to the wrecked ship, to "fix" a floating piece of the ship
-Paths showing where you can go on various islands were improved
-The "puzzle complete" fanfare's volume was increased, and the "tutorial step complete" sound's volume was lowered
-When sailing too far into the ocean, the ship wheel's momentum was reset so it doesn't go crazy after you grab it
-The cloud of smoke after an object respawns was fixed to not fly away when you're on the ship
-Some floating rocks on the shell island were fixed
-The completion percentage shown on the books in the title screen was changed to be more accurate (albeit still not completely accurate)
-When dying, you now immediately respawn. Previously, the game played like normal (allowing multiple deaths) after dying until respawning you slightly later
-The sound that plays when shooting a target plays more consistently
-The sounds for the enemy birds, enemy spiders, and parrot were made 3D

Version 0.03 (October 27, 2016)
-The overall lighting in the game was improved
-A bug involving collecting golden hearts and dying would cause the game to not save that you collected the hearts, yet their chests would stay opened, was fixed
-The completion percentage shown on the books in the title screen was changed to be completely accurate. Collecting everything in the game now shows "100%" on the books
-The respawn time for the explosive barrel in the giant boulder puzzle with the spiders was significantly reduced
-The text for the scrolls showing developer credits on the rum bottle in the title screen no longer renders above literally everything else
-A new music track was added to the island with the shop
-A new, more intense music track plays after coming out of the captain's quarters in the opening cutscene
-Music was added to the splash screen when the game starts up
-The fade out and fade in times of the current and new music track, respectively, were reduced drastically
-A bug causing the wrong music to play after dying was fixed
-Lots of floating objects, especially in the captain's quarters, were made to no longer float
-You can't punch the medallion piece in the opening cutscene to make it go flying anymore
-The paths for the shell island were greatly improved, and new paths were added to make navigating the island easier
-The small boat on the shell island had collision added to it