‘RoBoats’ Lets You Use Your Phones to Become Pirates

RoBoats gives you and your friends the ability to become pirates through their smartphones, teaming up and destroying other ships as you move around different arenas.

Using your phone as a controller, RoBoats allows you and up to 11 other people to play the game at the same time. You do have the option to supplement real people with AIs before the game begins, though. You will then be sorted randomly into teams of two, with one person being the caption of the ship in charge of steering, while the other becomes the gunner in charge of attacking other boats.

The captain is able to steer using a wheel on their screen, as well as boost when recharged, moving forward quickly. The gunner, on the other hand, can move a constantly-firing cannon to be at a better angle, and can shoot a few cannon balls off of either side of the ship.

Six ships are spawned in the arena, able to move around and destroy each other. There are portals in each world, as well as power-ups that appear, allowing you to gain an edge on your opponents through movement or increased abilities. Since the pairs are random, you’ll need to trust and communicate with your partner if you want to end up being the best pirate on the sea.

I played RoBoats at EGX 2018, where I had a wonderful time controlling ships and firing cannons with a bunch of strangers! This is definitely a unique party game.

RoBoats is available for free on Itch.io.

About The Author

Jupiter Hadley

Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events.

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