- Where things stand - 13 May 2026
Hey everyone,I wanted to give an honest update about the state of development. Over the years, my life situation has changed a lot. What started as a full-time project eventually became financially unsustainable and over time I had to return to other work and responsibilities. Since I was the one who originally started the project, I continued working on the game in my spare time alongside a regular full-time job.Since then, life has continued to change, and I now also have two young children. I’m very happy with where life has taken me, but it also means I have far less time and energy available for game development than I used to. Most of my free time outside work is spent being a dad, and by the evenings, when I technically could work on the game, I’m often simply exhausted. Because of that, development has become much slower than I originally expected.I also need to be realistic abo…
- Cursed Crew v0.20.1760 - 27 October 2025
Updated Unity version to 2021.3.45f2 resolve security vulnerability in Unity.
- Cursed Crew Alpha 0.20.1652 - 11 July 2025
Fixed tutorial being force-paused during the 'open spyglass' step.
- Cursed Crew Alpha 0.20 - 26 June 2025
Hey folks, I'm happy to announce Cursed Crew 0.20. I always felt that a key weak point of the game is how brutal and abrupt your playthrough could end, often due to bad RNG (for instance multiple cannonballs hitting your captain). Also the difficulty spike when you encounter the Sea Witch is too high. This update aims to solve these issues, and many more. Here's a list of changes/additions. Major additionsNew death mechanic. If you die, you'll turn into ghost form. Ghost form: if you die in this form, you'll die permanently. You can choose to possess your crewmates. In ghost form you don't need food or sleep. Possess: When you possess a crewmate, you permanently take over their body. If you die with a possessed body, you turn into ghost form again. New ship: The Driftbound. A sturdy caravel type ship with normal cannons and swivel guns that starts off damaged but has a larger health poo…
- Cursed Crew v0.19.1470 - hotfix - 10 January 2025
Fixed issue with saving/loading. This issue was introduced in the last major update.
- Cursed Crew Alpha 0.19 - 19 December 2024
Hey folks, we're happy to announce another major update for Cursed Crew! Read the full change log below. Some highlights are the new creatures, a research bench and a couple of new cannons and a ton of stability/balance improvements. There's still a long road ahead, but I think it's a step in the right direction. We will continue working on updates, but admittedly, the process is not as fast as we would have hoped (more context on that in this post in case you missed it). The upcoming few months we'll focus on adding more story events and since they're relatively easy to add, we hope to release them in smaller, more frequent updates, before moving on to the next major features. Enjoy the update! Major additions Research desk and research job. Researching using this desk unlocks random schematics on completion and gets progressively harder. Fire mortar. Fairly inaccurate mortar that blas…
- Launch retrospective and upcoming update. - 9 September 2024
Hi everyone, The EA launch was quite a while ago and a lot has happened since so we owe you an update. In this post I’ll give you a peek into the update we’re working on, and I’ll also explain why things aren’t going as fast as some of you might have hoped. How did the launch go? I’m extremely happy and grateful that a lot of people purchased, supported us, played the game, and that we received a lot of helpful feedback. At the same time, the reality is that our dream to work on this full time for a living cannot be fulfilled with the current amount of sales. To not starve and to have a place to live, I needed a new primary source of income and luckily I found one. This does mean I can only develop Cursed Crew in my spare time, and the same goes for the other team members. I want to assure you though that Cursed Crew is our passion project and we’re fully dedicated to realize its full p…
- Cursed Crew Alpha v0.18.1281 - Small patch - 5 July 2024
I had a holiday break, but I'm back now and I'm starting work on the next major update. Before fully committing to that I wanted a couple of fixes out so hence this patch. Fixed - Kickstarter DLC not loading - Save corruption issues that could happen when the game is saved while resources are being deleted. - Revealed map nodes (for example the island in the old man's tale event) sometimes not being reachable. - Ability animations not halting properly when game is paused. - Ship movement on screen not halting properly when game is paused.
- Cursed Crew Alpha 0.18.1253 - 7 June 2024
We received lots of feedback about the tutorial, which honestly wasn't great. We've finally committed to make the tutorial much more interactive and thorough. This should greatly help new players learn the ropes of Cursed Crew. We're eager to hear any feedback about this new tutorial. We'll be focusing on adding more creatures and cannons next and we're also working on the curse system in the background. Added - Added much better interactive tutorial - Added loot drop point which can be used to designate where newly looted items should be dropped Changed - Crew now automatically unmans cannons after each encounter. - Better tooltips in trade window Fixed - Ship speed not updating correctly when sailing straight - Issue causing crewmembers to get stuck outside the ship - Issue with threats not being cleaned up after duel - Crew manager layout issues - Issue with not being able to assign…
- Alpha v0.17.1169 - Minor Update - 15 March 2024
This update addresses a lot of player feedback and many bug reports we received. It should drastically improve the game's stability and also a provide more balanced experience. We'll work on at least one more smaller update like this one to ensure the game is a stable and smooth as we can get it before before we start working on larger content additions. Changes/Additions Increased max hull of all ships (including player and enemy ships). Status icons for health, morale and hunger now pulse when they're low. Red vignette effect is applied to the screen when the player's health is low. Improved enemy ship AI. If the side facing you doesn't have any working cannons, they'll turn towards you so their other side faces your ship. Improved how enemy crew handles threats on their ship. They're less likely to abandon their posts to handle threats, especially when their ship is in good shape. Po…
- Alpha 0.17.1155 - Small update - 1 March 2024
This update contains a bunch of fixes and tweaks. Moreover, it adds right click attacking as an addition option for melee combat. We noticed many new players have trouble figuring out how to melee attack. Right clicking to attack should be more intuitive if you're still getting used to the game and it also offers a bit more control if you want to attack a specific enemy. It also helps the players that prefer using the mouse over the keyboard. Holding spacebar to attack is still very useful on its own if you want to attack nearby enemies (and less prone to misclicks) so we made sure both options are available. Features - Added right click attacking for melee. Changed - Changed barrier size so you can put them next to each other without gaps - Increased budgets of second and third areas. - Lowest currency is now prioritized when buying things like crew Fixed - Issue where player can leave…
- Cursed Crew 0.17.1152 - Small Patch - 27 February 2024
This patch addresses issues with the 'hold ground' captain command. Fixed: - Hold ground command button not updating properly. - Issues with ordering crewmembers that have hold ground mode active. - Crewmembers not throwing boarding hooks while hold ground command is active.
- Cursed Crew is OUT NOW in Early Access! - 26 February 2024
Cursed Crew is out now in Early Access! We're so excited to set sail with you into the world of Cursed Crew! Cursed Crew features: You're the captain: Give orders to your crew, manage your resources, and keep your ship afloat when all hell breaks loose A roguelite experience where every run is different. Choose your ship, grow your crew, pick from story events, and fight your way across the ocean Ship-to-ship combat: Command your crew to fire cannons at your enemies, harpoon ships to drag them closer, board other vessels, toss bombs, shoot pistols, and fight for you! Or take out your own sword and fight among your crew. Deal with bloodthirsty pirates, killer crabs, walking sharkmen, floating skulls, and mini-bosses Story events: Choose from story events in your captain's log upon exploring new locations! Pick between different choices to influence the story's outcome Bosses: As you near…
- Early Access Roadmap - 1 day until Early Access release! - 25 February 2024
Mateys! Early Access release is TOMORROW, Feb 26! In anticipation of release, we're discussing Cursed Crew's EA roadmap, features available upon EA release, and what we’re working on next! What features are available in the Early Access release? Story events: Choose from story events in your captain's log upon entering a new location! You'll get to pick between different choices to influence the story's outcome. (We also discussed story events in detail in a previous blog!) Local map and world map: The game launches with 14 randomly generated areas that you can choose to sail through. Each area has a theme that influences the story encounters you experience, and the topology you'll see is randomly generated. Ship-to-ship combat: Command your crew to fire cannons at your enemies, harpoon ships to drag them closer, board other vessels, toss bombs, shoot pistols, and fight for you! Or take…
- Ship maneuvering rework - 2 days until Early Access release! - 24 February 2024
Ahoooy, mateys! 2 days remain until Cursed Crew releases in Early Access! In one of our last feature blogs, we’re going over our ship maneuvering rework since we received player feedback from Steam Next Fest. Ship movement in general was a highly discussed topic among our players and we’ve made some significant changes. Challenges of ship movement Implementing ship movement during combat was among the toughest design challenges we’ve faced. It’s extremely challenging because our game is entirely 2D and ships are shown from the side - so any perspective you see is just artwork trickery. Because of this 2D side view, it makes it impossible to “steer” the ship in any direction because our 2D art doesn’t support that. In FTL (a spaceship sim and one of our inspirations), the 2D art problem was solved by fixing the camera on BOTH spaceships, and never depicting any of the spaceships moving/f…
- World map and story events - 3 days until Early Access release! - 23 February 2024
CAPTAINS! There's just 3 days until Cursed Crew releases in Early Access! Today, we're looking at the world map and progression! In Cursed Crew, you pick your route on a world map and sail from destination to destination until you face the final boss. Read on to learn more! Global map First, there's the global map. It shows you which areas there are in the game, and how they are connected. You use this map to pick your route towards the final boss and it shows you how far along you are in your sailing journey. Local maps Second, there are local maps. For each area on the world map, there's a corresponding local map with all the locations you can visited and the connected paths to them. When you enter an area from the world map, you then sail from location to location within a local map until you reach the end of the area - then you'll be sent back to the global map to pick your next are…
- Bosses & enemies - 4 days until Early Access release! - 22 February 2024
Yarr, mateys! Only 4 days until Cursed Crew releases in Early Access! We're looking at some of the bosses and the enemies you'll encounter in the Early Access release of Cursed Crew. Sea Witch The beautiful sea witch is a mini-boss. She flies around your ship, seeking out crew members and attacking with orb-like projectiles and flying skulls. She switches between hovering and taking a melee stance where she summons knives from her hair to spear you with. Flying Dutchman The legend is true: The Flying Dutchman has come to take your souls. This massive ship is fast, merciless, and manned by undead souls. Armed with devastating triple repeater cannons and skull cannons, the ghost ship can rapidly overwhelm and sink any vessel. In the future, we plan to add abilities for the Flying Dutchman to dive down into the water and reappear at different locations, as well as allow for ghost crew memb…
- Crafting mechanics - 5 days until Early Access release! - 21 February 2024
Ahoooy! Cursed Crew releases in Early Access in 5 days! Today’s dev blog covers the crafting mechanics in Cursed Crew. Early in development, there wasn’t a lot to do between combat encounters, and the next steps were to add crafting to make sure you had things to do and work on. Crafting We designed crafting with the philosophy that we wanted to make the survival experience outside of combat just as exciting as combat itself. We wanted to give the player plenty to do with crafting so there are a lot of strategic choices to make and things to work towards. Start by building a crafting bench, this will allow you to craft ropes, bandages, reinforced planks, as well as weapons and bombs for combat. Next, you’ll want a smithy to let you build additional cannons and their cannonballs. And don’t forget your stove - your crew members can eat things raw, but they'd much prefer a delicious, homec…
- The crew members - 8 days until EA release! - 18 February 2024
Hello, captains! Shiver me timbers - Cursed Crew releases in Early Access in just 8 days! We’re counting down the days with dev blogs covering the game’s features and sharing stories from development. Today, we’re looking at the different crew members you’ll encounter at sea, including humans, ghosts, ratmen, and skeletons. Each crew member type has their own characteristics that sets them apart from the other types. You can encounter these crew members through story events. Perhaps you agree to transport strange-looking passengers, or your ship becomes haunted, or you spot an enemy ship full of horrible creatures in the distance. Humans Humans are the best at ship operations with their excellent hand manipulation. (Those fingers come in handy, unless the scurvy got ‘em…) Humans operate the cannons faster so you’ll want them on the deck, and they’re quicker to fire and reload ranged wea…
- Survival mechanics - 10 days until EA release! - 16 February 2024
Yo ho, there’s only 10 days until Cursed Crew releases in Early Access! In anticipation of Early Access, we'll be doing a series of countdown dev blogs. In each post, we'll discuss features of the game, share stories from development, and answer your questions! In today’s blog, we’re discussing the survival experience in Cursed Crew. As the captain, you’re responsible for both your wellbeing and your crew’s! Taking care of both a ship and a group of scallywags is no small feat. But that’s why you’re the captain. Hunger You and your crew are living, working beings who get hungry, so keep an eye on everyone’s hunger status! You’ll encounter many different types of food, all of which can be eaten raw, but it comes with a penalty. Consider building a stove, collecting raw ingredients like cabbage, eggs, and meat and using them to cook delicious meals. Meals are better than raw ingredients b…
