#volkenfox

The Pirate's Fate is a visual novel written by T.F. Wright and illustrated by Volkenfox. It's not very good. Well, I guess that gives the wrong impression. It's not completely horrible and it's not the worst visual novel I've ever played, it's just . . . a hot mess. Visual novels are primarily story based, usually with player choices leading to branching narratives and the occasional minigame thrown in. As such, writing is extremely crucial for a visual novel, and the story of The Pirate's Fate is severely undercooked.

I bought it on a whim about a year ago, intrigued by the premise. I played it a handful of times then, and a handful of times more recently to refresh my memory. The premise is, in a world of anthropormophic animals, a spice merchant by the name of Mila is rescued by the Dread Pirates, consisting of Darious, Leeko, Morgana, and later Tam-Tam, after her ship sinks. The group then rope her into their quest to find a series of enchanted coins, which have the ability to transform a person into whatever they wish.

(using images off google because I forgot to take my own)

This is a really interesting premise for a story, and one that's very suited to the branching narrative of a visual novel. The problem, however, is that this is used less to flesh out a fictional world, or put our characters in intriguing scenarios, and more so used to show of the creator's barely disguised fetish. The story's too excited to turn Mila into hulking amazon warrior or give Tam-Tam tits the size of Mt. Everest, that many of it's more interesting ideas aren't given room to breath.

To give you a better idea, during the intro, you find a coin inside a griffon's cave. Afterwards the primary antagonist, Rourkie, holds you hostage and demands you hand over the coin. You have a set of three options to choose from, and from there the story branches out. I chose the second option, which I believe was to feign compliance and then attack. My playthrough then went as follows, Morgana died, we recruited Tam-Tam, visited Circe's island, visited a beauty temple, visited haunted house isle, had an audience with the queen, met someone named Steamchaser, visited a matchmakers shop, and finally the story ended in a mysterious library. I stopped early because I realized I was about to get an ending I saw before, so my total run time was about and hour and 37 minutes. Excluding the intro, all proceeding scenes last about 11 minutes, and with the amount of stuff that happens, that's not enough to flesh anything out.

In this route, Darious feels guilty about Morgana's death. Circe then manipulates that guilt and transforms him into a bear. That alone could carry an entire story, it's a strong if tropey character arc. But after he transforms, he has a heart to heart with Mila, and that's it. All of Darious' guilt vanishes in that one scene, and then he gets possesed by a ghost later on in order to keep the plot going. A similar thing happens on other story branches as well. In one of them, Tam-Tam is transformed from a female lizard into a male rabbit, and she's just kind of cool with it. She still identifies as female, and the conversation in the scene afterward posits her views on gender and identity, and that's it. The rest of her crewmates are totally okay with this development after this one conversation, and nobody reflects on their own gender identity beyond this.

In other branches, you find a coin that allows you to go back in time and change the past. When Darious gets possessed by the ghost, you have the option to go back in time to try and prevent this from happening. If you do, Darious ends up dying instead of Morgana, who's declared herself captain. There's a scene between Morgana and Mila discussing what happened, and that's it. Morgana isn't freaked out that her crewmates come from an alternate timeline. Nobody finds this weird. Nobody wonders what happened to the original crew she had, because she clearly wasn't sailing alone. Nobody posits about what they would've done if they were using the coin. It's just 'wow! time travel exists!' and the story moves on. Again, just like with Darious' potential character arc, this could carry the entire story. There's already a shitload of movies, books, and games based around time travel, but here it's just a plot device.

The world building also suffers from this as well. New settings and characters are introduced and then hastily thrown aside to continue the story. At the beauty temple, we get a lore dump about how the religion of the island is centered around beauty and physical appearances, but we never look beyond that. We never get to look at the surrounding town or talk to anyone else except the two characters that give us the lore dump.

In one route, Leeko gets transformed into the world greatest baker, and the rest of the gang concoct a plan to use him to gain access to the queen's coins. He'll be hired as the head baker, then after gaining her trust, then the gang will kidnap her and hold her for ransom. Aside from being a stupid plan (why couldn't you sneak in and steal the coins while the queen was distracted?), we don't see Leeko meeting the queen or gaining her trust, it just skips right over to her being held for ransom. There's also multiple times where character's say things along the lines of 'We've been searching for these coins for months'. Like, no, it's been five minutes, and skipping scenes like these only make that worse.

The other major gripe I have is that characters die for no reason. In one route, Mila, Tam-Tam, and Morgana have been captured by the queen and are going to be executed. While it's not shown, Leeko is meeting up with Steamchaser, and he agrees to use his magic to help Leeko out. A similar scenario happens on multiple routes, and no matter what, Tam-Tam is executed. Why, though? Like, in this moment, it would make sense for someone to die, but from a big picture perspective, was it really necessary? I can't think of a reason why she needed to die, other than dramatic stakes, and I don't think the story would suffer if she didn't. Also, Steamchaser uses his magic like a minute after Tam-Tam is carried off, could Morgana and Mila not have stalled for time?

After playing through 1 of the pathways, I can say without a doubt The Pirate’s Fate is a must-play. With a colorful cast of characters with personalities you can connect with people of the modern day, and an ending tailored to every decision, this game is very replayable, and it's very easy to connect with the characters on a personal level.

The thought I had going in, was “Will the transformations be more of a fetish thing, and detract from the story?” The answer is a big No. The transformations are acknowledged, and it’s very fun to see how the cast reacts to them. They seem more like a spice added to a meal. Something that makes the story better, without completely changing what it’s about.

It was very humbling to see characters from other works T.F. Wright and Volkenfox have produced, but in a new light, or to see credit to people I know and talk to.

To get the full experience, I’d recommend also buying the DLC. The soundtrack is top notch, and the comic included sheds light as to how Mila ends up on the adventure. Of course, the art book is excellent as well.

The Pirate’s fate is 100% worth the price. It is a wonderful game, that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys the graphic novel format of Video Games.

Please, go support everyone who made this game possible, and be sure to play the game yourself!

Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/553480/The_Pirates_Fate/#_=_

Volkenfox: https://volkenfox.deviantart.com/

The Pirate’s Fate Is A Furry’s Dream Game About Choice-Driven Transformations

The Pirate’s Fate is a game about a crew of anthropomorphic pirates who encounter some transformative circumstances… literally. The game is about Mila, a member of the Dread Pirates gang. You’ll join the rest of the crew as they seek out fame and fortune on the sea, encountering various obstacles along the way that puts both Mila and the rest of the crew in harm’s way. (more…)

Allow me to introduce to you all, Scary Mary! A pirate character I designed that’s going to be in @volkenfox and @mytransformationswriter’s video game, “The Pirate’s Fate”! It’s a visual novel game where the main characters can be transformed based off the player’s choices. I was lucky and got a chance to put Scary Mary into the game as a cameo character. I even developed a brief little backstory for Mary to go along with her design.

Originally known as Princess Mary Contrary, she was set to inherit the throne and rule over a large kingdom. However, Mary was not very happy with all the royal duties and repetitive life style of a princess and craved adventure and danger. Yet she did love all the riches and jewels that came with being royalty. One day she suddenly disappeared along with most of her family fortune.  Soon afterwards, a pirate named Scary Mary began roaming the seas and terrorizing all she came across. It was shocking to everyone, even Mary herself how quickly she took to being a pirate and quickly became infamous. While she may still speak politely and eloquently like a princess, she’s a ruthless cutthroat pirate if you dare get in her way. She maybe short, but she’s skilled with a blade. Her family now sees her as the literal black sheep of the family and refuses to admit that their precious princess and that pirate are one in the same. 

I don’t know how much of her backstory if any will make it into the game since it is just a cameo. Still, it’s quite an honor to have my character make it into the game and hearing it’s creators talk about her design with me. 

If you’re curious about the game, here’s it’s Steam page. 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/553480/The_Pirates_Fate/

Welcome everyone to Panda Pause. Panda Pause is a podcast where we take a moment and pause to interview a artist or writer from various communities, interests and backgrounds with an emphasis, but not limited to, the furry community. We upload every Sunday with round-table discussion every Thursday. I'm your host Mickey Bamboo and join me as we listen to everyone's stories.

With as much money that changes hands in the furry fandom, I thought I'd bring my good friend and Lawyer Volkenfox, @volkenfox , onto the show. Do you know your rights as am artist? As a commissioner? Would you like some advice on what you can and can't do with crowd funding? Well we took some of your questions and tried to give them some answers.

Disclaimer: This is not binding legal advice. These are general guidelines for american law for you to follow. If you have any questions, please ask a local lawyer.

Find Volk's Patreon: www.patreon.com/foxwright Find his newest book: https://gumroad.com/l/itsinthecards# Find His Books on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_fapo?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_27%3AVolkenfox&sort=relevancerank&ie=UTF8&qid=1486324810&fap=1

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Join us all here at the new Discord server https://discord.gg/ERMNWeT !

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NEW! Panda Pause is now also on Google Play Music at https://play.google.com/music/listen?authuser#/ps/I56frsrlto5xfbwachcymu3fbtm

You Can find Mickey's book's here at http://www.amazon.com/Mickey-Bamboo/e/B01B83XKUE/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

You can find my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/pandapause?ty=h

You can contact me at my twitter https://twitter.com/Mickey_Bamboo or tumblr at http://mickeybamboo.tumblr.com/

Welcome everyone to Panda Pause. Panda Pause is a podcast where we take a moment and pause to interview a artist or writer from various communities, interests and backgrounds with an emphasis, but not limited to, the furry community. We upload every Sunday with round-table discussion every Thursday. I'm your host Mickey Bamboo and join me as we listen to everyone's stories.

Small Disclaimer! The Review you are about to listen to was recorded just before the current Civ 6 update. Some of the issues we talk about were addressed in this update, thank you.

Just in time for the Black Friday Sales, Panda Pause debuts it's first video game review of the 4X Mega series entry, Civilization 6. Join me, Volken Fox, Vaughn Demont, and newcomer Almeric as they discuss the history, pros, cons, and the differences to this new strategy game.

Find Almeric's Fa here: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/almeric/ Find Volk's Fa here: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/volkenfox Find Vaughn's Website here: https://www.amazon.com/Vaughn-R.-Demont/e/B004FS3S02

Join the New Panda Pause Facebook Page here at https://www.facebook.com/Panda-Pause-678277062326149/

Join us all here at the new Discord server https://discord.gg/ERMNWeT !

Find Mickey and Volks New Book, Furry Fractured Fairytails here at https://www.amazon.com/Furry-Fractured-Fairytails-Transformation-Anthology-ebook/dp/B01HRBUBBC

You can also find all my shows on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/panda-pause/id1073396731

NEW! Panda Pause is now also on Google Play Music at https://play.google.com/music/listen?authuser#/ps/I56frsrlto5xfbwachcymu3fbtm

You Can find Mickey's book's here at http://www.amazon.com/Mickey-Bamboo/e/B01B83XKUE/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

You can find my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/pandapause?ty=h

You can contact me at my twitter https://twitter.com/Mickey_Bamboo or tumblr at http://mickeybamboo.tumblr.com/

Correction!

Join the chat here https://discord.gg/ERMNWeT

I'm pleased to announce the creation of the official Panda Pause server!

There you can find a general chat room, a room specifically for panda Pause Interviews, one for The Wright Stuff, and a room for @volkenfox and TF Wright's, @mytransformationswriter new game, The Pirates Fate which you can help their Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2052836802/the-pirates-fate-a-transformation-visual-novel

There you can find updates, news, chat with other Panda Pause fans, and generally have a good time! Remember to read the rules and just have fun!

Also, you can always find my Patreon here at  https://www.patreon.com/pandapause