Trying to think of how to make magic work in a pirate theme

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I can’t find a solution I’m happy with, so I thought I would bring this up here and see if anyone has any good ideas on the subject.

To start with, my game has a pirate theme, and its very cartoony. Colorful, kid-friendly pirate theme. The player collects gold coins that are actually chocolates.
The player gets chased by pirate ghosts, and I’m trying to refine the offensive mechanic used against these ghosts. (The offensive mechanic would be in short supply, only used in an emergency (or for stacking bonus points.))

Since it needs to be something to defeat ghosts, my obvious choice is a magic item. I was thinking something that shoots a magic fireball, but I’m open to other ideas.
But the problem is making that work with the pirate theme. Traditional fantasy magic elements won’t fit the theme; I can’t just pick up a scroll or a generic magic jewel/amulet, those don’t really match the pirate theme.
But what kind of “magic” does fit the pirate theme?
The best I can think of is to call it “Voodoo magic” to bring it closer to a Caribbean theme, but there is a shortage of visual cues I can use to make something look like a voodoo artifact; (an actual voodoo doll has no use in this game, and everything else just kinda looks like generic witchcraft stuff.)

And “looking right” is a big thing here; there’s no in-game text to explain this stuff to the player, so I’m looking for something that the player sees and recognizes as a (thematically appropriate) magic item.

So, the best I have been able to think to use as an item in my game is a small tiki totem that can shoot a fireball. It… kinda works. It has an island theme, even though its the wrong island, but it’s a cartoony theme and we never mention any real-world locations, so… I guess it works?
But I’m just not happy with it.

Anyone got any better ideas? What’s some kind of pirate-themed artifact I could pick up to use to defeat ghosts?

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Depending if it has any real constraint, I would try to play around introducing other culturally known things to the pirate theme. Like IDK, empty rum and gin bottles catch ghosts and they need to throw at them or something or “attack” on time to swing the bottle and squeeze the ghost in it and jamming the cork. Or something like this. And then these bottles can be collectibles. It only works if there aren’t extra concerns about showing alcohol bottles in the game (given that it’s for children and some jurisdictions and organizations are overly psychotic about these things).
But it gives another positive thing: it is not “killing” ghosts, it’s “catching” them. (It’s obviously a kind of play on the genie in the bottle trope)

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Enchanted silver rapier or cutlass. Stab the ghost dead (again). Classic.

If you want ranged weapons, then enchanted pirate pistol, covered with incan symbols.

Mundane items can be made magic through rituals or acquire extraordinary properties through use of uncommon materials. So you could start with normal weapons without means to fight ghosts, then receive an upgrade…

–edit–

The crux of the issue is that pirates aren’t magic. To be more specific, they don’t wield type of magic that shoots projectiles. They’re linked with curses instead. And a curse is an intangible thing.

That means that you need an excuse. A moment in the game where character makes mundane item special, or acquires an artifact.

One very magical thing associated with pirates is a ghost ship. Ghost ship is driven by skeletons, and you can smash them with normal weapons, at least temporarily. The ship should have a captain, and the captain can have your special weapon. Defeat the captain, and the weapon is yours, and the weapon could be anything, starting from shaman staff, to some sort of incan thing. The important thing is that the item should not be pirate origin.

Or you could find a special pistol, special bullets, or a special cutlass/rapier on a skeleton of another pirate, preferably next to a pile of treasure.

This can be done either during gameplay or through a cutscene. Then you can use it to start the plot of the game. For example, see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgdP3IL1Jcs

This is beyond oasis, from sega genesis/megadrive. It is fairly simply done, but very impactful.

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I’d make it a root beer bottle to avoid any issues with featuring alcohol.
Capturing them is a good idea. Actually I like that because they could break their way out after a short amount of time. I was just going to have them “reappear” after a while, but get caught in a bottle sounds more fun.

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I think if your setting involves (Yo ho ho!) pirates and ghosts- if you want something to wring true, I’d lean more toward the Victorian Gothic rules. It fits the overall zeitgeist for the time period. Think of dracula.

Obviously, you want to handle the religious implications indirectly. You can refer to vague terms like “light” and “purity” and “goodness” and such. Combine these concepts with objects associated with the time period and you can create various items like the silver rapier (that neginfinity already suggested) or the brass lamp of pure white light (exposes hiding ghosts in the area).

Another Victorian them is the emergence of technology over superstition, so you could go that route also. Uncover pages of scientific research that destroy ghosts with logic and enlightenment.

I know this sounds like a slog, but I really think the best source of inspiration would be classic literature- both about pirates and ghosts. Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allen Poe.

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Speaking of which there is a game that weaponized that…

9423794--1320803--RootBeer.gif

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You MIGHT be overthinking this, in gamedev generally speaking you want to go with what works and looks great over what you think fits an imaginary world.

Why does mario have a mustache? Because they found that because of the pixel restraints, it just looked best. Mario is an italian plumber who gets big when he eats mushrooms, pulls fireballs out of thin air, and uses stars to become invincible while riding a goofy looking dinosaur to smash goombas. Point is, the logic of it all doesn’t really matter unless you’re building a narrative/ story game. What matters is polish and pizzaz so it’s fun.

So all that said, what truly matters is what theme works best in your world, would read best to the player, looks and functions best.

Here are some water effects I purchased some time back that i’ve been VERY Happy with, I don’t know the creator of these assets, i just know they are very well made, they’re a little pricey, but a steal if you understand the work that goes into creating these packs:

And here are some fire effects:

I’ve had no sorting issues and all the effects are top notch. If you wanted a “voodoo” theme you could adjust the “color over time, start color”, texture colors and material properties for a green/ purplish color scheme.

My only gripe with these packs is if they don’t fit the scale of your project out of the box, you need to go in and set all the individual particles to “scale: hierarchy” mode (it’s my belief that this should be removed as a setting and ALL particles would be set to scale by hierarchy and we’d never have particle scaling issues again, but I digress) , and then tool with their sizing a bit to get them to behave when you scale the parent transform up or down.

You may also want to delete some of the more heavy aspects of the effects if you’re targeting a mobile platform.

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I like the idea of a lantern that can capture their ghost flame, and then fire magical ghost flames back at them. Perhaps as you defeat various important enemies, their ghost flame that you capture can be used to enhance the flame and light and functionality of your lantern. You could even spin it like the lantern is purifying their souls as they are used in service of good while trapped inside. Maybe when you find it there is already one good spirit inside that helps purify the others. They could all be released in a happy ending like Kirby freeing all the animal enemies from mind control when you make it all the way to the end of The Forgotten Land. There’s also a little helper NPC in that game that is connected to the whole plot and the big bad. They can even continue to interact with you and the others as NPCs after defeated or captured. I like the idea of it being able to shoot flames, or shine a light, but also that once defeated their ghost lights then get sucked into the lantern like Luigi’s Mansion, Thresh from League of Legends, or kind of like how the Camera Obscura does damage in Fatal Frame. If you look up Japanese ghost lights, that’s what I imagine being left behind by defeated enemies that then gets automatically sucked into the lantern. Could easily translate as currency like XP to be used in a skill tree for leveling your lantern powers. It’s a useful item in any game mechanically as well.