Games Like Pirate Twist

Build your ship. Brave the seas. Come home richer — or don't come home at all

Pirate Twist is a top-down 2D naval roguelite where your ship is a mobile base. Cannons on the sides, hull plates in the center, repair station at the stern, storage up front — a 5×8 grid where every layout creates a different playstyle. Sail out, fight pirates, collect resources, return to port to upgrade. Die, learn, run again.

Your Ship Is Yours

Place 11 module types across a 5×8 grid. Light cannons fire fast and cheap. Heavy cannons punch holes. Mortars arc over cover. Reinforced hull plates trade weight for survival. Repair stations let you patch damage mid-fight. Crow's nests extend sight range. The grid expands as your run progresses — by the boss fight, your sloop has grown into something the pirates fear.

Every Expedition Is a Choice

The expedition map branches Slay-the-Spire style. Safe trade routes with merchants and calm seas. Dangerous pirate waters with elite ships and richer loot. Storms that batter your hull but reward the brave. Unknown nodes that roll a surprise outcome on the way in. You pick your path through every expedition.

Three Layers of Progression

Combat Is Naval

Enemies don't stand still. Sloops circle-strafe and pepper your flanks. Brigantines and Galleons tank hits and barrage broadsides. Fire ships charge and explode. Every third expedition climaxes in a 3-phase boss fight that asks the player to read patterns, not just out-DPS.

Mouse aim. Cannons auto-fire on the broadside facing the cursor. Easy to learn, hard to master.

Roguelite Loop

A run is 5 expeditions, ~30 to 60 minutes total. Permadeath per run, but captain XP / skill points and unlocked captain archetypes persist across runs (1-of-N pick at the start of every fresh run from your unlocked pool). Five captain archetypes to unlock, each with a distinctive buff and signature crew. Replay is the loop — different captain, different route, different ship.

At a Glance

Module types: 11

Enemy types: 5 + elite variants (Sloop, Brigantine, Galleon, Fire Ship, Boss)

Encounter types: 5 (Combat, Merchant, Storm, Salvage, Calm)

Captain archetypes: 5 (Rourke, Reyes, Voss, Sable, Marisol)

Captain skills: 9 across 3 branches

Crew types: 6 (Gunner, Carpenter, Navigator, Cook, Quartermaster, Lookout)

Resources: Gold, Wood, Iron + Supplies

Expedition length: ~10-15 min

Session length: 30-90 min (a full run is 2-4 expeditions)

For Fans Of

If you've sunk hours into FTL's decision-density, Slay the Spire's map-branch tension, or Hades' "one more run" pull — Pirate Twist sits in that lineage with a naval twist. Solo-dev Unity 6 project built for Steam (Windows + macOS) and Steam Deck.