Pirates of First Star is available on Xbox One. The adventure/RPG/puzzle is a throwback to old school game design.
The king is broke. He summons his (now adult) children and tasks them with finding a legendary treasure that once disappeared into thin air right under his nose. They all reject his proposal, except for one. Zach, the youngest, decides he’s got nothing better to do, and heads out with absolutely no clue where to begin his search. He’s quickly met by Chelsee, who feels like getting in on those while treasure thing might not be a bad career choice. They embark on a bizarre journey filled with twists and turns and a positively silly cast of characters. There’s a bridge bully, a witch (at least that’s the rumor), a chili cook-off champion with a horrible secret, a pirate who’s in a hurry to get back home because he has prime seats for Turtle Fights XIV, a giant rock monster who is sad that children stole all the pretty seashells on his beach, and an estranged coconut family that you can help reunite.
“Pirates of First Star borrows heavily from classic games. There’s no map. There’s no arrows pointing you where to go. The game is 3D, but it keeps the view narrowed without 360 degrees of visibility so that the world can be memorized quickly – but also there are a ton of secrets hidden – even in plain sight. What I really want is every player to – at least one time to say ‘I can’t believe I didn’t find that sooner.’
“The characters are claymation. My artistic skills are lacking, and my budget was lacking even more, so I had to figure out a way to pull this off. I built a stand out of popsicle sticks that could hold a model and the camera. I had no idea what kind of clay to buy, so I just went to Michaels and bought the cheapest clay they had. I used yarn for the hair. I still think cutting the scalp off of dolls and plopping it into a clay head would have been the best method, but have you seen how much dolls cost nowadays!?”