Each month we take a moment to talk with you about the development process and progress from the past month, while also highlighting contributions from the Ahoy community.

This month we're taking a deeper look at Imogen's interior, along with another update on our Kickstarter campaign progress. Not to mention a few new ship clues...

Kickstarter Update

As we announced last month, we are very excited to say that Ahoy will be heading to Kickstarter in June of this year.

Work is coming along well on the contents of the campaign, especially around the details of reward tiers and the re-write of our (Not So) Frequently Asked Questions list which will support the campaign in providing answers to most of the questions we imagine you and the future Kickstarter audience might have for us.

We're looking forward to debuting the entire 500+ question FAQ, along with more information regarding the reward tiers planned for the campaign in next month's journal.

June 2025 represents a huge milestone for the project, and an even larger potential for change. Until now, the project has operated on a fairly restricted budget, either being financed by myself (Tyler), some of the team's own investments, and of course the amazing support from our Patreon and Ko-fi contributors.

As of June, (assuming we are successful of course!) the focus will be on a far more stringent budget based around the value of our campaign's success. This means that priorities within the team will likely shift as new funds become available to support areas of development we've previously struggled to explore ourselves. Additionally, it will mean that a lot of the work we have done towards the Sea Trials and Arena releases will likely become significantly expanded through careful use of those funds.

All of this is to say that the most important priority for us today is to maximise our success on Kickstarter and ensure we hit our 100% goal as soon as possible to enable further growth of the campaign over it's 30 day lifespan.

Many of you have asked how you can help in this effort, and this has been so lovely to see! It means a lot to us that the community is behind us in this journey. We never expected we'd go the crowdfunding route.

In truth, the clearest way you can support Ahoy during it's Kickstarter campaign is to donate to the Kickstarter itself. We realise this is not possible for everyone, and we don't want to obligate you into doing so. There are a number of other ways you can support us which are completely free!

• Get involved on Discord. Help newcomers to the server with answers to common questions, welcome them with open arms and maintain our friendly atmosphere. Being active in Discord and encouraging others to join both increases the potential audience we can @ when the time comes, and also encourages those that join to be more active within the community as well.

• Share our Social Media posts. If you see us posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky, and others - Share them far and wide! Interact with the posts with a like, or repost them if you can. Getting the word out is the most important thing.

• Share with your friends. When the Kickstarter is live, share it with any friends who might be interested in Ahoy. We expect you may have already done this in the past, but a little nudge towards the Kickstarter could make all the difference!

• Join the Newsletter. In recent months, we started a newsletter signup on the main Ahoy.gg welcome page. This signup is specifically to increase the number of people we can notify about the Kickstarter campaign when the time comes. It would be fantastic if you joined that newsletter or joined our Discord space for the latest updates.

• Did they wishlist? Many people have so kindly wishlisted the game on Steam already (26,000 of you!). Steam makes it very difficult for us to engage directly with wishlisters, as there is no way we can send out a notification to all 26 thousand of you. This means we are relying on word of mouth to get the word out to those people once again. Steam community and news posts are the main way we will achieve this, but if you got your friends to wishlist the game in the past, perhaps remind them of Ahoy and it's Kickstarter campaign in June :)

• Timing. The biggest thing that counts here is timing. Telling your friends today that something might be happening in June is likely to be forgotten long before it really counts. The key moments for Ahoy's campaign success will be the first hours of the campaign itself. During those first hours we need to maximise impact across the board to ensure as many eyes fall on the campaign page as is physically possible. If you're wondering about sharing and don't want to over-do it, perhaps wait until that moment has begun to send out the messenger pigeons!

We're also taking our own steps to maximize the number of people looking at the Kickstarter campaign. We've secured a spot at a large show also happening in June which will showcase the Ahoy trailer to the largest audience we've yet seen.

Additionally, we'll be running targeted advertisements on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit to secure additional eyes on the project. How successful these ad campaigns will be - we're not entirely sure, but we feel it is worth dipping our toes into that process around the time of the campaign's launch to increase traffic.

Finally, we wanted to talk about numbers. If 50% of the current Discord member base (3,200 total) were to support us during the Kickstarter campaign, we'd be over our 100% initial goal instantly. If everyone that wishlisted Ahoy (over 26,000 of you) supported Ahoy on Kickstarter, we'd be one of the highest funded Kickstarter campaigns in video game history.

While we are absolutely not expecting these sort of numbers going in (it would be a fools game to do so), it is encouraging to us that if the Age of Sail community as a whole really steps in to support us, we're well on our way to a lasting success for Ahoy.

Overall, we're feeling cautiously optimistic about our chances on Kickstarter. We really do hope June begins a long and productive journey towards a public release!

Imogen's Interior

Last month we showcased our first Dutch ship based on the lines of Mars. This month we wanted to share another look at Imogen's interior.

Imogen boasts ten private bed places, with a variety of fixed and hanging beds to distribute among your player crew and NPC officers as you see fit. Historically, each bed place would have been designated to a specific role within the crew, such as the surgeon or first lieutenant.

Among the various cabins we see the distribution of firearm storage that would be called upon in the event of an engagement. Firearms are stored under lock and key when not in use to avoid situations where rising tension could cause a member of crew to use one of the firearms in an act of murder or mutiny.

During the down-time at sea, it's important to have a comfortable space for your officers to spend their allocated free time. Whether it's sharing a game of cards, playing a game of chess, or simply sharing good conversation over an evening's meal, the officer's mess is a fantastic place to whittle away those long hours at sea.

The crew's quarters, by comparison, lack much of the fine furnishings. The crew keep their personal belongings within enormous storage trunks which we can see lined along the exterior of the space. Hammocks would be slung between the hooks shown on the ship's timbers to enable a regular rotation of crew to sleep in preparation for their own time of service.

Next is the ship's galley. A vital instrument in the operation of a ship of this size. The galley resides within the crew quarters and must have provided some serious warmth during it's operation. You can just imagine the crew crowding around in anticipation for their next meal.

Then we enter the danger zone... The ship's magazine is far below the waterline to reduce the chance of a direct hit during combat. No open flames are allowed anywhere near this space - for obvious reasons. So we see a small glass window that allows minimal candlelight through into the magazine proper. This separate space is accessed through an entirely different stairway, reducing the chance of human error when entering the magazine.

That concludes our interior tour of Imogen.

Next month, we'll be showcasing our latest addition to the fleet. She's a beauty for sure, and we're excited to close an important gap within the fleet.

The Ship After Next

We did promise two more ships, though. Some of you will have seen we teased another ship in our Discord server...

The ship after next!

We're interested to see whether you can guess which ship we will be adding in May/June alongside the Kickstarter campaign.

Here is your next clue...

My lineage murmurs of a storied stone,
While a roman glyph voices my thunderous tone.
Four years hence, I dropped my moorings,
Leaving slow-running home, I began my tourings.
Beneath a flag of red, white and blue,
A year-long voyage to O'Sullivan grew.
Yet shortly thereafter I saw such shame,
For I sustained much damage to my frame.

Who might I be?

Answering Your Questions

Each month we ask some of the community questions asked since the last Journal update. We're really enjoying this process of Q&A, and we would love to hear your thoughts on this month's Journal.

On melee & ranged combat:

• How will the character's melee and ranged combat be implemented? Will there be any fencing techniques:? For example: Lunge, trompement, pressing, derobement, engagement, appel, riposte, arrow.

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

Melee combat remains a very open area of development. At the moment we're taking inspiration from other games that have managed to create engaging first person melee combat (Kingdom Come, Mordhau, Chivalry, etc.) but we're also looking to expand more on some of those representations to include the fencing styles of the late 18th century.

The current design accounts for a directional attack, parry and riposte system. You'll indicate your direction of strike prior to engaging in an attack, and the enemy can similarly prepare for an attack from that direction to defend against it.

In addition to this, the idea would be that we explore methods of attack and defence that work in tight, enclosed spaces. This might allow us to explore less formal methods of fighting which fall outside the traditional fencing handbook and lean closer to a concept of brutal reality/brawl that no doubt existed during difficult moments of boarding action. We're also not sure whether we'll be able to capture all eight of the classical parries within our system, but it is something we'd love to explore.

We'll be taking a lot of feedback from the community as melee combat is developed. We don't expect to explore this area of the game until after we're finished with Sea Trials (which contains no combat), and after the initial versions of Arena (which will start with naval combat).

On management & reuse:

• Can you tell us the ratio of how many assets gets re-use from ship to ship vs unique assets specifically made for every individual ship?

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

An interesting question! Most of the structure of the ship is entirely unique from ship to ship (except in cases where a ship might be considered a separate vessel due to having an alternative rig).

As for the interior décor of ships, we try to reuse assets as much as possible to ensure a reduction in overall scene complexity, and to preserve the feel of Ahoy's ships between each iteration. In cases of furniture, guns, paintings and bedding there is very little to benefit from creating these assets each time a new ship is added.

You can think of it like this: Almost everything you can see from the outside of a ship is unique each time, but almost everything you can see occupying space within the ship is usually shared across all ships for the reasons above.

On Sea Trials timelines:

• In the February Developer Journal, you announced that June would see the launch of the much-anticipated Ahoy Kickstarter. In previous journals, you have indicated that the plan is to launch a demo-type experience (Sea Trials?) at or shortly after the time of the Kickstarter campaign. Is this still the plan, and can you provide any further details on the scope of the experience, timing, etc.?

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

Absolutely! To clarify, our intention was to have Sea Trials prepared to release alongside the Kickstarter, but due to other amount of work necessary on both the campaign and the Sea Trials release, we've decided to postpone the Sea Trials release until after the Kickstarter campaign. We're currently operating on a 1-6 month estimate after the Kickstarter campaign closes. This really depends on the success the Kickstarter campaign sees, and whether or not that success allows us to either speed up that timeline, or is potentially enough to consider delaying for the added quality that financing would provide.

At the end of the day, Sea Trials will be many people's first impression of Ahoy, and if we can see a benefit to taking a bit longer to have a more stable opening experience, we will always take that decision. Equally, if the available funding isn't quite as much as we might hope the time it takes to prepare the existing Sea Trials plan could be longer due to limited resources. Ultimately we're aiming for a Q3/Q4 2025 release of Sea Trials, but that could become Q1 2026 under very specific circumstances.

As for what Sea Trials will contain, it is a non-combat sailing experience focused on sailing around a contained area of the West Indies with friends and without NPC crew. The Sea Trails experience will then expand through regular updates to add features (combat, Port Royal lobby, progression, etc.) until it reaches a pre-Arena state, at which point we will look to release Arena in early access to the public for further (more widespread) testing, and then a release. We don't have an estimate for what that might be, and we are strongly in favour of taking as long as it takes in the Sea Trails period to ensure Arena launches in the best state possible.

On special weapons:

• In historical stories like Master and Commander and Hornblower, characters such as Captain Jack Aubrey carry a sword from the Lloyd's Patriotic Fund, and a revolver flintlock pistol is featured with Dr. Stephen Maturin, who examines the weapon while in captivity in France. Am I allowed the opportunity to acquire a similar special weapons?

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

Special weapons are certainly planned among the cosmetic rewards you'll unlock during Ahoy's gameplay. We're already exploring the inclusion of presentation (ceremonial) swords as part of the progression and reward structure within Ahoy's open world and Arena releases. We expect that capturing special swords might go against the modern concept of game cosmetics, where you want your achievements to be represented through what you wear. If anyone can get the special sword for completing a certain mission, perhaps completing that mission loses it's importance for those that did complete it.

That being said, there will certainly be equipment and other items that you'll be able to capture as part of your plundering of an enemy ship. We'll keep an eye on what makes the most sense to include in this regard and make sure to consult the community to avoid situations where their hard work within the game could feel reduced as a result.

On mercantile gameplay:

• Since trade and mercantilism (being a merchant) will be a thing in this game by trading goods between ports. Will trade conglomerates/chartered companies also be a thing. For instance the WIC (Dutch West India Company), since it went defunct in 1792.

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

Trade companies will exist within the game as NPC-ran organisations which you can trade with, attack, or work for. They don't present quite the same relationship opportunities as the playable nations will, but they are a great way for us to integrate the goods and resources from the wider world without requiring us to expand the map outside of the West Indies.

We have no current plans for player-owned trading companies, but it is definitely a late game concept we can explore for mercantile players, as opposed to the larger fleet engagements that the navy career would perhaps offer.

On uniform:

• When serving as a commander (but not yet a full captain), should I wear an epaulette on the left side? Furthermore, upon promotion to captain, is it appropriate to wear an epaulette on the right side? Also, are there plans to include awards such as the Order of the Bath and other medals, and if so, will I have the opportunity to display these on my uniform?

- Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.

Uniform varies massively between nations, and we'll be following the realistic requirements on uniform where possible. Epaulettes at the time of Ahoy were a distinctly French introduction to the uniform. Uniform at this time was paid for by the officer in question, and so a large amount of variety could be expected from tailor to tailor.

That means we can allow for some variety in uniform, both inside and outside of the regulation uniform of the time. As for awards such as Order of the Bath, we have no plans currently to explore these much higher accolades, but never say never!

On epaulettes specifically, some British captains showed distain for those in the Royal Navy including epaulettes within their own uniform. In fact, Nelson spoke briefly on his perceived value of those including epaulettes within their uniform in his letter to his friend and mentor, William Locker, in 1783 as shown below:

Please do keep sending in your questions about Ahoy. If you have more questions for the team and would like them answers next month, please submit your questions below.

Submit your questions:
https://forms.gle/1w9MRgU3qrvTNkqn7

Until next time, good day!

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Sincerely your most humble servant,

Tyler - Project Lead