Pirate Captain — Naval Saga to El Dorado (3D)
Hoist the colors. Raid merchants. Slay the kraken. Take El Dorado.
What this is
A single-file autonomous pirate captain saga that takes a captain from raiding merchants in open ocean all the way to breaking the Royal Armada at El Dorado Cove. Real shader-driven ocean. 4 named captains rotate. Each saga ends with the chronicle scroll: "THE LEGEND OF
Why this is mind-blowing
The ocean is a THREE.ShaderMaterial — sin/cos waves that the ship samples to bob authentically. Day/night cycle: sun arcs, sky color lerps, lanterns go emissive at dusk. The captain (low-poly humanoid with tricorne and saber) sails between islands raiding merchants, fighting navy frigates, dodging bounty hunters. They put in at port to trade goods and repair the hull. Through fog they encounter ghost ships running with green fire on the timbers. They collect 4 lost map fragments. They slay a multi-tentacle kraken. They break a 6-ship Royal Armada at El Dorado Cove.
Sample chronicle from one saga: "D6: Through the fog at Cutlass Bay sailed a ship without flag, her timbers running with green fire..." / "D7: Four fragments under one canvas. The Iron Wake laid them on the chart-table at Tortuga..." / "D7: Royal flagship 1/2/3/4/5/6 of 6 burns to the waterline. The Iron Wake laughs above the smoke." Final outcome: THE LEGEND OF HAWKE SULLIVAN — victory, day 7, 4/4 fragments, 6 raids, kraken slain.
10 seconds. Reload. New captain. Forever.
Prompt
An autonomous 3D pirate captain saga in a single file. Real shader-driven ocean (ShaderMaterial with sin/cos waves), ship rides the waves, low-poly humanoid captain with tricorne hat and saber. Day/night cycle. Sail to islands and ports. Raid merchant ships, navy frigates, bounty hunters. Trade goods and repair hull at ports. Encounter ghost ships in fog. Find 4 lost map fragments. Slay the kraken (multi-tentacle boss). Final battle: 6-ship Royal Armada at El Dorado Cove. End with chronicle scroll: 'THE LEGEND OF <CAPTAIN>' victory or sunk. Auto-restart with next captain forever.Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.
What I learned shipping it
- ShaderMaterial ocean = the entire vibe of a naval game. sin(time + uvX) + cos(time + uvY) gives 60fps wave motion that the ship samples to bob authentically.
- Captain rotation is the saga payoff — Mira Bloodtide one run, Hawke Sullivan the next. The streamer never sees the same protagonist twice in a row, and each captain has different dialogue tells.
- An act-based saga (sail → fragments → kraken → armada) gates the difficulty curve so a 5-minute autoplay run still has 4 distinct moods, not 5 minutes of one fight.