Puzzle Pirates (2003)

Day #04 (And Final Day.. For Now)

I finally understand how people accustomed to modern MMORPGs feel when they visit some of my classic favorites like Asheron’s Call, Ultima Online, and The 4th Coming. Puzzle Pirates feels painfully dated, like a pirate version of Habbo Hotel with casual puzzle games with a social component like one would commonly find in the late 90s to mid 00s strewn across the Web. The bulk of customization options and gameplay are locked behind paywalls, making the free-to-play experience very limited unless you enjoy playing the same puzzle games repeatedly. Movement is rather awkward but at least it’s not necessary. The core feature — the puzzle games — become rather repetitive after only a short stint in game, with some of the puzzle games being extremely simplistic and boring and many of the better ones basically being a pirate-y reskin of other games.

I hope this game continues to survive in it’s niche. I hope the developers listen to the community about much needed changes to the game and implement the suggestions that would help ensure the larger-scale endgame content is actually playable. Perhaps I’ll even return to check on Big Chicken the rat and play a few puzzles in the future, but this game just doesn’t offer the experience suitable for my needs.

I assumed there would be at least a few games in this series that I would drop out of more quickly than others, and this is one of them. Best of luck to the developers and best wishes to the community! Farewell, mateys!

And now it is on to the next game in the queue.. Furcadia.