It's not GTA. It's more like Steal This Book: The Game. You're trying to survive at street level. You're a week away from starving to death, and your morale is even more tenuous. As the name "Pirate" might suggest, there's some resemblance to the old Sid Meier game in that there's no central gameplay. As you move around the map freely, various tasks each appear as their own minigame. The art design combines daringly low-res pixel art with a color scheme that's easy on the eyes. A level structure keeps it from being overwhelming at first. A fun, lightweight game with more relatable conflicts than other sandbox crime games.

Interestingly, a Steam friend gave me a key to this game and said 'my friend is the developer, maybe you will write up a review'. I thanked them and took the key, but realistically thought I wouldn't be reviewing because getting random keys usually ends up in a negative review (I didn't ask for it and lord knows I'm picky). Bottom line is that the outcome is usually bad for all involved. But regardless, I would at least give it a try.

So I load up Urban Pirate, and wow, this is something really unique and special. I am quite impressed. It has some truly fantastic artwork and music, and there is TLC everywhere you look. This title has some great personality.

Essentially, this is a time management game with persistent unlocks and a sort of campaign mode. You play as a hobo/street urchin and need to manage your stats such as health (turns), hunger, and sanity. You can make money, steal, fight, and more. The main game is basically turn-based, but the minigames are not. It's all very well done. I will also add that there is serious meat-on-the-bone here. The in-game manual is basically a book; it's very helpful and really fun to flip through. Lots of care went into crafting this thing. There are also a series of missions that gradually increase new things into the cityscape. It slowly gets more complicated with the more missions you complete.

Pros:
+Really fresh and interesting time management game
+The artwork is top-notch
+The music is perfect
+It starts out fairly simply, but creeps features and adds complexity
+Lots of details and love everywhere you look
+The price-point is too cheap
+Metagame/persistent unlocks in time management games is a brilliant idea
+The writing is good

Cons:
-Why-oh-why do we have to have black bars! Feels cheap
-While there can be a good bit of RNG going on, overall I do feel like I have control

Well worth full price if you want to play a forward-thinking indie time management game.

tl;dr: For me personally, the fun of this game does not outweigh the frustration of the game. Glad to help an indie developer, but not glad to play the product.

PROS:

• 8-bit retro graphics
  
• Fun concept
  
• Opportunities in-game scale to progress

CONS:

• Retro gameplay means frustrating gameplay in some instances
  
• RNG (at least seemingly) based shoplifting, socialization, income, and events

This game frustrates me in a real way. When you get caught stealing, which seems to happen more and more frequently, you then run in a vertical scrolling stage with only left, right, and jump buttons (like this). This seems nigh unwinnable to me, and I've only successfully escaped the police one a couple of occassions. For me as a player, if I roll poorly on the RNG for shoplifting, I almost always get caught. When you get caught, you are fined 50 bucks which you are supposed to pay at the police station. If you don't pay it, because who has 50 bucks in this game, then the next time you're caught shoplifting you go to jail. Jail makes your sanity plummet (it drops -1/day, -2/day if you're starving. 0 = Game Over, 10 = Capped) and sets your action points capped to 3 (from 5). With 3 action points, you can steal for food, so that you can eat, or you can socialize (if the squat isn't being raided by the police which happens far too frequently). Assuming that the cops are not raiding the squat, you can get anywhere from 1 to 3 sanity and 0 to 1 food. Keep in mind that you lose 1 food and 1 sanity every day. So, many days, if you just socialize, your day will be net zero sanity and negative to food. Being that you only have 5 action points a day and lose health and sanity every day, this is really a resource management game with an overzealous dice roll mechanism. If that's your thing, get on it. If it's not, consider another game.

TL;DR - This is a very fun and unique game that's definitely worth checking out, though it does seem to need a bit more polish.

Remember when you were 13 and found the Anarchist's Cookbook on some shady BBS (or website)? I know that it was very exciting for me, because even though I was a nerdy and well-behaved little kid, it was fun to imagine an alternative me putting those tricks to use on the street. Well, this is that game. You shoplift so you don't starve, you grow, smoke, and sell weed, you make molotovs to defend your squat against over-zealous riot police, and you skate in a minigame homage to NES's 'Skate or Die'. I play a lot of games, and this was a real breath of fresh air to me.

It's essentially broken down in to several very simple minigames and a fairly simple meta-game on top of that, which basically boils down to: Avoid cops, don't starve, and stay sane. Action success is usually determined by an RNG. The pacing of the game is nice; it eases you in to new game mechanics just at the right time. This was the carrot on the stick that kept me interested, because there is admittedly some tedium here that is caused by the cruel RNG gods (something that needs to be balanced by the creator, in my opinion). For example, there is a bonus mission objective in which you have to abstain from smoking weed for the duration of the mission. Well, the cops raid the local squat randomly which denies access to it, and staying sane depends upon your ability to visit the squat to socialize. If the cops show up every single day (which has happened to me several times), you are out of luck and must restart. Another bonus mission depends on your ability to shoplift successfully X number of times. Again, if the RNG is unfavorable, you have to restart. Both of these missions took 5+ attempts for me, which is extremely frustrating, given that it was not my lack of skill that necessitated this. Additionally, despite the fact that both of these mission objectives were labelled as 'Bonus', they were anything but, considering that I needed to complete every bonus objective to move past level 5 (There are 11 levels, BTW).

In a weaker game, these points would have been frustrating enough to cause me to stop playing, but I was invested enough to see it through to the end. It was oddly addictive, despite the frustrations, and I quite liked the minimal yet engaging story. This to me feels like a game that is more than the sum of its parts. It has a heart in there, and I can't say that about most games.

As a side note, all of the pirates are blue (none of the other characters in power are), and are profiled by the police and searched without due cause. I assume this was intended as some social commentary on racial profiling.

At any rate, give it a shot. It's cheap, and you know about Steam's return policy right? Just return it before 2 hours are played if you don't like it. It's certainly not for everyone, but to me, it's a little diamond in the rough.

The Intro and music are absolutely awesome, everything from the graphics to the music to the sounds it all works and rocks right away looks like its gunna be great.

Then the game starts....Honestly at first look it looks pretty crappy to be honest.

First of all, I fully suggest reading through the manual they provide HOWEVER, it is incomplete you may notice some pages start randomly.

Once you figure out, the gameplay the game is actually pretty fun, I ended up playing it for hours and really getting in to it.

Smoking Weed, Skateboarding, Shoplifting, Throwing Parties, Killing cops and Dumpster diving this is my life!

My biggest gripes are the cities should connect, some levels you can't make money on unless you get lucky in a dumpster dive and it only happened ONCE to me, The Game needs achievements, some of the skating seems unfair sometimes it seems you fall no matter what.
There are some areas on the map you can't walk where it looks like you should, other than that its a fun game and I do Reccommend it.

Pros:
+ Gameplay is Fun
+ Music is Dope
+ Innovative
+ Trading Cards
+ Cool 8 Bit Graphics

Cons:
- First Impression it looks ♥♥♥♥♥♥
- Cities should connect
- No Achievements
- Sometimes Skating seems unfair


This review is a part of Steamified's Community Reviews program and the credit goes to Steamified for providing the key for review purposes.
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Hobo Simulator: the strategic crime RPG, now with minigames!
Simple controls, mechanics on point and a reasonable difficulty curve.
Cool aesthetic and humour if you like this kind of theme.

Having lived as a part of a punk squatter commune for a couple years, this game hit close to home and my opinion is totally biased, but that should not stop you from taking a look at this game. It's awesome.

A game that reminds me of my youth, but I shoplifted comic books, not food.

I appreciate the dev's patience and effort to provide Linux support

[h1[A Strategic Urban Homeless Survival Game[/h1]
https://youtu.be/fVE_mTWQWLk
+ This game has a surprising amount of strategy hidden within which makes it both challenging and fun. Basically, you are a homeless man and have to survive with little to no money. You go around stealing food from the market, and socializing with squatters to keep yourself from going insane while you camp in the woods.
+ Challenging. Every day you lose a hunger and a social point. If either one reaches 0 you lose. You constantly have to steal food and hope you don't get caught, while also having to socialize or smoke weed to keep your social points up. 1 mistake can lead you down a path to failure especially if the cops take your weed or give you fines.
+ As you progress new mechanics are unlocked which continue to make the game more complex.
+ I personally thought the soundtrack was pretty good and fitting to the theme.

- The graphics are extremely basic... kind of reminds you of something made in MS Paint.
- The gameplay can be a bit repetitive after a while as you repeat the same general actions each day.

I found Urban Pirate to be a very entertaining game with astonishing pixel art and a unique game play!
Ok the first 2 or 3 levels seemed a little repetitive until I got the hang of it, but then I took control over my own life and the days whent by like "go-to-squat-hang-out-sleep" bam next day "go-to-super-market-shoplift-sleep" bam next day... bam bam bam....

After level 3 and throughout the rest of the game it was continuously expanding in upgrades, bonus levels, mini games, new equipment, locations and so on. And being easy and casual in the beginning I soon found myself taking cover under my table as a chopper flew nearby my house. Indeed a very immersive experience with a good humor and reminiscence of old school classics such as the Monkey Islands series, Police Quest and even GTA 1.

This is a Strategic game, dont expect a game like GTAV or NOTGTAV because is a very different game.
In this game you are in the skin of a person that is homeless and needs to survive on the streets with his addiction and the police looking for him.
On the first levels is repetitive but increasing the levels you have too much for do and much territory for cover with actions, is an unique game, very funny and the pixel art style is an extra plus.
Have trading cards, and I take this from a bundle for a bucks, realy cheap.