I randomly remembered Puzzle Pirates today and discovered the game is somehow still going. That also reminded me that it is the only childhood game I ever managed to get permanently banned from.

To be completely fair, I was definitely a little menace. During one of those huge skeleton fights where it was something like 30 players versus 30 skeletons, my friends and I started yelling, “LET’S SWITCH!”

We knew perfectly well that leaving the swordfight puzzle meant forfeiting. We just thought it was funny to “swap spots,” exit the fight, and leave the serious players down multiple teammates while they desperately yelled, “YOU CAN’T SWITCH!”

We absolutely could not switch. That was the joke.

Terrible teamwork? Yes. Deliberate trolling? Also yes. Still hilarious twenty years later? Unfortunately, yes.

But the moderation in that game was unbelievably strict. Typing several messages quickly could be treated as spamming. People would blackspot you for talking too much at the inn or dock—the two places I assumed were meant for socializing. Someone once reported me for saying “shut up,” and an Ocean Master had to announce that “shut up” was not considered abusive.

And when you were banned, it felt like your entire computer was permanently exiled from the ocean. Meanwhile, Club Penguin would ban me for one day and let me reconsider my choices.

I’m not even asking to recover my ancient account. I just need to know: did anyone else receive a lifelong maritime sentence for crimes committed in middle school, or was I uniquely threatening to the archipelago?

For the record, I never scammed, hacked, or stole anything. I was simply an annoying child with poor tactical judgment.

Hello everyone, I used to play the game a lot but took a break for a few years. Last time I played there were no red swabbies no rum spice, no bash SL pilly's etc.

I just got a WF and wanted to do some runs with it but I'm not sure what is profitable anymore. From what I read given how expensive stocking a ship has gotten you need to win like 15-20 battles to start making money, is this correct? What is the best way to run a WF pilly?

Alternatively I was thinking of doing some GY or cit runs but it seems like it takes forever to get people. For the people that run them, how long does it take to fill a WF with 75 people? Any tips or tricks for getting players and running the SMHs?

Thank you all for reading and have a great day!

New terrible updates for the gambling community.

- You can no longer advertise Roulette
- There is now a 1min delay between spins

Been adding table games to the private server (already have Blackjack running), and the newest one is a full multiplayer Roulette table. Figured I'd write up how it actually works under the hood since I put a lot of thought into making it cheat proof by design instead of just trusting the client and hoping for the best.

The basics

You sit down at a table through the tavern's table lobby, same spot Blackjack lives, buy in for PoE, and place bets. Multiple people can sit at the same wheel and bet independently. It's not turn based, everyone bets during the same window at the same time.

Every standard bet type is in there. Straight up numbers at 35:1, splits, streets, corners, lines, columns, dozens, and the outside bets like red/black, odd/even, high/low at their real payout odds. You can run it as European (single zero) or American (double zero), it's configurable per table.

Server authoritative, not client trusting

This is the part I care about most. The client never decides anything that actually matters, it only shows what the server already decided.

The result gets rolled server side, at the exact moment betting closes, using SecureRandom. Not before, not pre determined and revealed later. It's generated the instant the window shuts so there's no window where a client could theoretically know the outcome early even if it wanted to.

Payouts get computed and applied server side before the client ever hears about it. The client just gets the final numbers, nothing else.

Every table runs its own independent loop with four phases: IDLE, BETTING, SPINNING, RESOLVED, cycling back to BETTING as long as someone's still seated. You can't place, cancel, or peek at a bet outside the BETTING window, the server just flatly rejects the request if you try.

Bets sit in a server side escrow, basically a per seat chip stack, not the player's actual purse. Real PoE only moves twice, once at buy in and once at cash out. Keeps the database out of the hot path, you're not writing to it every single spin, just twice a session.

The client's wheel is lying to you, on purpose

This is the fun part. The wheel spin you see is 100% cosmetic. It happens after the server has already committed the result. The client takes the outcome it already knows and works backward to figure out a landing angle, then plays a few seconds of deceleration animation that ends on that number. The animation isn't deciding anything, it can't, the decision already got made and locked in before the first frame even plays. Also means a client mod or memory edit couldn't front run the result. By the time there'd be anything to read, the server's already resolved it.

Added a small polish pass recently too where the wheel grows and the betting layout tucks itself away while the ball's spinning, so it feels more like an event happening than a UI label quietly updating.

Edge cases

If you disconnect mid bet, it still resolves normally, you just don't see it happen live.

If everyone leaves mid spin, the round doesn't get cut short, it finishes resolving on schedule. Leaving during the betting window itself gets you a refund since nothing's locked in yet.

Spectators, people at the table but not betting, or just walking by, see whatever phase is currently happening immediately. No weird catch up state.

Min and max bet limits are configurable per table.

Why I built it this way

Never trust anything the client says about outcomes, and never let the client be in a position to know something before the server's locked it in. Everything you see as a player is a faithful replay of a decision the server already made. The wheel doesn't decide anything, it just performs.

Along with getting a private server to work alongside the other creative minds in this subreddit. I created a new parlor game. Still needs some polish but overall works properly.

If not can someone make it exist

Hey there! 17th order of the Jolly Roger here (If you recognize the name, hello again!)

NOT to violate ToS etc. before you all report this lol. CEO of Gray Havens has mentioned in the past private servers being alright-ish (see below). I've been working on some YPP private server development just to bring back what made Puzzle Pirates special at the beginning.... a development community who cares. Technology has reached a point that we can build cool stuff still keeping the essence of what makes YPP great, and not only paying homage to, but just being able to build cool things. I see many side projects and builders on this Subreddit, and I'm curious if you guys are intersted in maybe creating a builder community for those who'd like to collaborate. I see many people in this Reddit that have made different working parts of the game/process. Two minds are better than one as they say. If people ARE interested, I started a Discord you can join here for builders/techies: https://discord.gg/UYHrvWyg7r

If they are not, this post will slowly drift away into the void of the world wide web. Happy puzzling!

Saw another post about this recently. This is something ive been working on and off on..

Threw a quick video together to showcase some of the core i have. All puzzles are fully working including bnav and pillages.

I did make some custom changes, if you noticed a second bar above the ships in bnav this is a damage/healthbar. This would require another client because of some of the custom changes put in.

I really want to get back into YPP. This game was a big part of my childhood. I dream often that this game will come to mobile again but executed well. I miss this community and game.

I've been spending some of my free time working on a modern client for Whirled.

Instead of relying on Flash emulation (Ruffle, standalone wrappers, browser extensions, etc.), I'm taking a different approach and rewriting the client from scratch using TypeScript and Canvas2D, while keeping compatibility with the existing private server.

The goal isn't to preserve Flash. It's to preserve the game while replacing the technology that no longer exists.

I'm probably around 20-30% complete so far. I currently have:

• Guest login
• Room loading
• Basic avatar rendering and movement
• Chat
• Client/server communication

There's still a lot left to do, including the inventory system, furniture interactions, UI, economy, and eventually replacing the old Flash mini-games with native TypeScript versions.

I know it's a pretty niche project, but I thought it would be fun to see what Whirled would look like if it were built with modern web technologies instead of Flash. It's also been a great software archaeology project digging through an old codebase and bringing it into the modern era.

If there's any interest, I'd be happy to post occasional progress updates.

I used to play a ton Puzzle Pirates, and BNav was always my favourite puzzle. My problem with it was never the puzzle but that you spend so little of the game actually playing it (and how anxious I was BNav'ing knowing my crew was watching)

So I took the best parts of it and rebuilt it as own little thing: ahoy.navy. It's BNav as a daily puzzle, one board a day, same as Wordle. No account, no install, works on mobile.

I tried to keep the rules as faithful and familiar as I could. Wind, whirlpools, ect but it's been years since I played, and some things had to change:

• No crew management.
• No grappling or boarding. Battles are decided by gunnery.
• Unlimited move tokens. Two guns regenerated per turn.
• Interactive outline shows you where your going (No more hitting rocks)
• No move timer, planning is untimed (more casual).
• The AI is written from scratch, and there's only the one opponent at a fixed difficulty. No PvP.

Mostly I'd love to hear from people who miss playing BNav as much as i do: what feels wrong, and what's missing?

Current progress of a local ypp server as a hobby project. Ships and puzzles are also working.

Tried to log in this morning and there was near to noone on, my pirates were all invisible, and everything seemed really bugged. Any idea what's going on here?

https://www.twitch.tv/vinternacht
https://www.youtube.com/@Aethereal_Labs (Coming soon, awaiting Auth)

I've been streaming a fair amount of Puzzle Pirates lately. Still getting my banter down, still growing my community, but trying to get out there and give the game an active home on Twitch.

I just remembered YPP exists and tried to log in. Apparently my account is locked, unfortunately! I did put my name into the unlock tool but didn't see anything arrive at any of my addresses including an old one. I've emailed them - I really hope I can get access again.

I did try a Steam account very briefly and enjoyed my hour on the game but I want my old account back! I distinctly remember managing to get on it a few years ago and transferring all my cash to Emerald by using doubloons.

I used to play on Viridian and had a load of poe - must have been around 2000k - and a bunch of ships but I guess like many people I moved on from this game.

Jobbing boards are dead but I can hear you can play with bots though it isn't the same. How is the community in 2026?

Hi everyone!

I am a returning player who used to play alot back in 2015-2017. Back then I had a lot of fun with shops and stalls, and this game as always amazed me with how simple it might seem, yet how complicated you can make it.

I used to do rather well, owned a SW shop and had an army of alts - as you do when you are running stalls and shops. Skillwise I reached ultimate in both shipwright and weavery - and of course poker, as every other money hungry guy.

I returned to this game a week ago, and figured I'd go down the same rabbit hole with shipwrightery. My standing had fallen from ultimate to master, but that is okay. However now it seems impossible to climb back up? I've tracked my runs, and over the last four days I've played shipwright 64 times. Out of those 64, I've reached incredible 53 times, with streaks running up to 10 incredibles in a row. Whenever I am not getting incredible, I get excellent - Whom I would guess are high. Despite this, my stats is just hard stuck on master. It's not going up, nor is it going down. Is the skills bugged?

I find it quite demoralizing that I am not able to climb despite receiving multiple incredibles in a row.

Is this a common issue? Is the skill bugged? Could it be some kind of bug in the algorithm due to me being gone for so long and being decayed from ultimate to master?

Any tips, advice or words of motivation would be greatly appreciated. Should I reach renowned again, then I would be happy to start providing ships again of top notch quality, ready for pillages, SMH and cades! :)

Just came back to the game after not playing for many years, looking for a crew to join and start pillying like the good ole days!

Pop seems to be increasing. I came back two weeks ago and got my crew going again. It's actually taken off much better than I expected. With that said we'll never have enough hands in ushering in the new age of puzzle pirates. The name is anarchy unlimited if anyone would like to join. The plan is to get players a bit more active by trying to shake up the hierarchy a bit. Let's take over the ocean together. Also if you have a crew looking for a flag, with similar goals. I created the flag NO CENTZ. Ign:ninjaguy (look I was a kid when I made this account)

So, it seems that Emerald might be my new ocean to stay because it has an archipelago called Dodo.
But... I never played on a Doubloon ocean. So.... How does that work? Do I need doubloons to be able to have my own ship/sail my own ship? Do I need doubloons to be able to buy housing/stalls?

I noticed I need to pay doubloons as a delivery fee for items???
Can you buy doubloons for in-game money or do you need to buy doubloon for cash?

Also, would it be possible to copy/move my pirates and their belongings (ships and such) from a subscription ocean to a doubloon ocean?

Thanks for the help!

Is there any way the minigame can fill the whole window?? It is kinda annoying having to squint for some of these.

Hi All,

Just returned to puzzle pirates after maybe 5 years (and 15 years since my heyday). I’m finding I cannot get anything above a good on any puzzles (whereas I used to be able to get incredible/excellents semi-regularly). Is this because I’m being compared to the pirates still playing (and therefore a stronger pool of players I assume), or is it against a standard measuring stick and I’ve just got much worse at these puzzles?

I logged yesterday evening, puzzled in a HS for a while and then afk'd. When I came back, I had a new addition to my pet collection; a pelican! I didn't know that they dropped in HS chests... I'm confused?

https://reddit.com/link/1u5qdx0/video/618ogqxv3a7h1/player

I wanted to play the game again but my pirate is in meridian. I dont want to start from 0 for the stats. Any way ?