A Pirate's Pleasure Reviews

Good

Game's got an excellent Black Sails vibe going and I love that.

I played this on the Heart's Choice app on my phone instead of Steam so disregard the play time. It was a real pleasure pleasure playing this. The writing was captivating and had me hooked. The romance was steamy, I had a hard time choosing just one. Snagged Eden (swoon!), but honestly, they were all winners. Now I'm back to my boring love life, feeling like I traded a five-star vacation for stale crackers.

There were four characters in this that I wanted to murder, who I had extremely good reasons to kill, who I had insulted and mocked at every possible opportunity, three of whom still seemed to be in love with me despite my extremely clear antipathy for them, and the game didn't let me kill *any* of them. Booooooooooooooooo

Finished a few play throughs and I adore this tale. It seems like whichever combination of pirate you wish to be and who you wish to romance are compatible. As in there are other stories where certain characters will not be in a relationship with you if you're not one way or the other no matter what. This one on the other hand seems to makes it work whichever way you want to (I'm guessing assuming they like you enough) play and frankly I love that. The story is rather interesting and while I haven't played the other pirate themed choice games, this one finally made me want to read one. Not dissapointed in the slightest and it's well written too, honestly one of the better one's I've read.

im in love with these text based romance games, i cant wait for more. this one felt longer than i was expecting, and its definitely worth the price! i love getting to be a pirate <3333 i kinda wished the bartender would have also been an option tho, it woulda been so cute XD

I wanted to be a ruthless pirate, but this is more of a dating sim with not many choices other than who your female character romances. The game seems to steer you towards being lawful and bashful, but that is not who I wanted to be.

I'm not very far in, but I like what I've read so far. The writing is gorgeous and the world is fun to play in. I am playing nice an trustworthy, but there's always the option to be a more ruthless captain and burn ships and hang someone. I like the idea of the protege and the option to shape her.

Taking on the role of a young, female pirate captain in this text-only interactive novel sees the player leading the way in a multi-threaded adventure set in and around the Caribbean during the latter stages of the Golden Age Of Piracy. I admit that pirates of the high seas is something of a personal weakness, so when this game appeared in the listings of “Players Like You Love” on the Steam store page, I was immediately intrigued.. and yet, having looked into it and discovered that it was a story in exclusively text; I still wavered and needed some encouragement from the lovely people in the Otome Lovers' discord (you know who you are ladies, thank you) before making a purchase. The game display defaults to a rather harsh black typeface on a white background, and thankfully has a menu including an option to change it to a much more comfortable white on black. You can also adjust the text size as many times as needs be until you are happy with it. This was a good start. From here on in, the story begins and it is quickly clear that you have a great deal of say in the personality of the lead character, and that the choices you make are going to significantly impact how the adventure develops. Text blocks are never a full screen, so you are not faced with too much information all at once. Many pages end with a choice to be made, which is usually from 3 or 4 possible options. The base text is written in second character, as in “You returned to the deck”, while choices switch to first person mode, eg. “I knocked back the rum and called for more”. I would have expected the differential between these styles to be distracting, and yet it works remarkably well, giving a feeling of having the activity relayed to you, and then being thrust into it personally to decide what must happen next. There is a statistics page to view where you discover just how many personality traits your choices affect – will you be adored or feared by your crew? Are you brutal and unforgiving or a soft-hearted scoundrel? Brazen or shy? A loner or party animal? Romantically inclined? And what about your protege? How will you shape her future? Even your name and appearance are optional, but accessed in such a way that they are chosen as part of the natural flow of developments. And those are just your characteristics. Delving further into the delights in store, you will engage in high seas piracy, competition or co-operation with other pirates, potential mutiny, treasure, betrayal, love, governance.. and more. There are 10 deeply involved and very well written chapters to work through before you reach the end of your tale; and with 44 achievements on offer, replay value is high. I found it impossible to stick with my original intentions for my character, as the actions of others and consequences of my own constantly changed my perspective on what I wanted to do next. There are three main love interest possibilities, at time of writing I have seen two and they are both adorable in their own [i]very different[/i] ways. The narration is certainly romance heavy when you want it to be, although there is an absence of any spiciness in the “alone together” scenes. It is not obligatory to pursue a love interest, you can also play the “not interested” card if you prefer to remain romantically unattached. The game will require some dedication on your part to read it through, and will reward you accordingly. My first play – which I messed up with a bad decision at the end and denied myself the true love ending I was hoping for – lasted for 14 hours and I loved every minute. The game autosaves at each page, and can only be closed via the X in the top corner of the screen. When returning, it will reopen where you left off. This is done in lieu of any kind of manual save, which means that any decision you make is final for that play through. There is no making a decision, seeing how it pans out, and then reloading to try something else. This should not be a problem [b]at all[/b] during your initial experience, but is quite likely to be a bit of a bane in subsequent reads or especially if you are simply going achievement hunting. I want to come back to an admission I made near the start of this review. I almost did not buy the game when I discovered that it was text-only. After all, if all one wants is to read a good story, then buy a book, right? Well, that would certainly sate the desire. But would a book also offer you the chance to shape the protagonist in a myriad of different ways, and then allow you to go back and do it again, but differently? Would the story change each time you read through – indeed, would you even bother reading a second time? The interactivity in this offering is what makes a thoroughly enjoyable read shine. So many fans of visual novels insist that it is the story itself which is the most important aspect, and yet as I construct this review, I note that there are only 3 others already published for a game that has been released for 6 months. Something does not add up, and it is not the quality provided. If you truly believe that the story is the most important thing, and you are not averse to 17th century pirate adventures, then I strongly suggest that you put your money where your convictions lie, and show this game some love. [quote] Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one! [/quote]

One man's "tantric" is another man's "blue balls." I don't care much for pirates, I like to steal and murder with my feet planted on solid ground, so it's a testament to this cyoa that I plopped money on the table after the demo. But this thing is like a Twinkie. The first bite is delicious but after that you realise it's simply hollow and sickeningly saccharine and not something you wanted after all. I was willing to overlook the blandness of the love interests and their baffling contextless attraction to the protagonist. The writing seems to love them but never gives you any reason to. I found your first captain, your first love in Boston, even the man who attempts a coup to be more interesting and worthwhile. Consent is great but it's also fetishised to a hilarious, unpiratelike degree which took me right out of everything and only served to fatigue me. This unending "mother, may I" strangeness is further compounded when you reach scenes where your choices are all out of character and unideal. At one point you collapse and are princess carried away for treatment, which is absolutely fine and normal, but your only choices are being incredibly rude, ungrateful, stubborn or flirty about it. My health is on the line and I have a bunch of people who rely on me, the devil himself could be carrying me, I don't care. The story chugs toward a final battle and depending on your choices, it feels inevitable. I was preparing myself for most of the story to go out in a blaze of glory, for brotherhood and freedom. I was willing to see my character, her crew, her love interest, and everyone die. So when I finally get to the destination and someone says rather uncharacteristically "this is impossible" then I'm immediately whisked to another page that tells me I just gave up without even trying and lived a comfy life, the end, I'm sorry, no. Perhaps there are a series of choices I could have picked that would unlock that final battle but given the swiftness of the end, I doubt the author invested the time writing up a satisfying siege scenario. There is a terseness to the writing that I don't personally mind but looking at it as a whole, the entire thing feels like a first draft. Locations and actions will suddenly change, with your brain feeling confused as it expected a few more scenes in between. Everything in the final chapters feels incredibly rushed. The bones are kinda there, there's just no meat. All of these shortcomings would be tolerable, I guess, if we didn't live in a world where several erotic pirate games exist, ones where you are quite convincingly a pirate who does pirate things, where the romance feels well formed, and where your choices don't suddenly stop mattering. I guess I wanted a raspberry Zinger instead.