Thanks to Animation Magazine we learned about some new games coming to Steam, based on Brian Jacques’ world-famous Redwall series of anthropomorphic fantasy books. “The Scout Anthology, available now for PC, PS5 and X|S on Steam, is a narrative puzzle-driven action-adventure in three acts following young mouse recruits in Mossflower on a mission to save their home from pirates. For the cute and cozy casual gaming crowd, Feasts & Friends (for the PC, coming soon) savors the peaceful town of Lilygrove as players forage for ingredients, craft recipes, and meet charming characters.” Both of them were created by Forthright Entertainment and Soma Games.

image c. 2024 Forthright Entertainment

Since it began in 2015, yiff.party has been a source of ire for artists whose income has been affected by it. The website uses web scraping software to extract files from Patreon, including those meant to be restricted to paid subscribers only, and made them publicly available, for free.

Kotaku interviewed Kadath and other artists about it in 2018. Although DMCA notices were sent, legal action was threatened by publishers like InkedFur, and Patreon promised to go to bat for its users, the site remained unassailed. Now, it’s closed, but not due to pressure from these sources.

The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper is a collection of seven short stories written by A. J. Fitzwater centred around Cinrak, a lesbian, capybara pirate. It has a couple of strong elements as well as several weak points. I struggled with my thoughts as I read it and, in the end, I would say that, overall, I found it frustrating.

I will start this review briefly talking about politics. It might seem like an unusual starting point but the introduction makes clear that the book is political and it touches on several hot button issues.

Come for handsome, huggable Cinrak in a dapper three-piece, stay for her becoming a house-ship Mother to an enormous found family, the ethical polyamory, trans boy chinchilla, genderqueer rat mentor, fairy, and whale, drag queen mer, democratic monarchy, socialist pirates, and strong unionization.

What I do like about the way politics is handled in this book, is that it is not set up as a conflict between opposing ideologies; the book presents its favoured way of seeing the world and just leaves it as that. Even the religious character (and there is a fascinating take on religion inside) is played off sympathetically. However, by taking the stances it does, the book is also going to be, though it has no regrets about it, alienating for certain readers. If you can not tolerate a heavy emphasis on, and I quote, LGBTQIA characters, then this book is definitely not for you and you may as well stop here. On the other hand, if that’s what you crave, it may be exactly what you want and you should read further.

Earlier this year the artist known as Travis Hanson (creator of fantasy comic The Bean) ran a very successful Kickstarter campaign for his new project, Tanner Jones and the Quest for the Monkey Stone. ” Turns out, he more than doubled what he was asking for! So, the new full-color 60-page book will be shipping this June, according to his web site. So what’s it about? “It’s about a boy named Tanner Jones and his adventure to find the Monkey Stone. Something he just can’t do alone, so he enlists the help of the greatest treasure hunters around: The pirate bears of the Scrawny Duck. It’s a journey to an uncharted isle, full of mystery and danger, but most of all just pure fun and the importance of following one’s dreams.”

image c. 2014 by Travis Hanson

Another discovery from Further Confusion — and we wonder how we missed this before.  Black Beak the Parrot Pirate is a creation of Jennifer Sopranzi, Catherine Van Riper, and Tony Sopranzi, featuring CGI tricked-up photos of real animals as illustrations for their rousing sea adventure stories for young readers.  “In the crystal blue waters of the Southern Seas lies the home of the fierce pirate parrot Captain Black Beak. Welcome to Conure Cove, the beautiful Island home of the brave and gentle beasts and birds who live in this mystic land. These are the first seven tales of Captain Black Beak, the greatest pirate parrot to sail the seas. Long may his tales be told in stories, songs and poems.” Now the first seven short books in the series (all of them available on Amazon) have been collected into a single volume, Black Beak: Pirate Saga, which also includes some new material. You can find out more about all of this at the home page of  Black Beak Press.

image c. 2013 Black Beak Press

Pirate 101 (from Kings Isle, the same creators as Wizard 101) is an on-line multi-player role-playing system of pirate adventure and battle — in the sky, no less. Yep, flying pirate ships.  It’s a decidedly family-friendly game throughout, though it has “adult” and “child” areas as part of it. The interesting thing is this: As you can see from the preview trailer, and in the picture below, there are plenty of anthropomorphic player characters to be had and played, as well as the more traditional human sort. Visit www.pirate101.com to find out how to get started with the game.

image c. 2012 Kings Isle

We don’t look at a lot of board games around here (how anthropomorphic can you get with them, really?), but now and then something catches our interest.  One such thing is Sewer Pirats. It’s a new 4-player board game created by Andreas Pelikan, with artwork by Marina Fahrenbach, and published by Heidelberger Spieleverlag (whew!). Here’s how they describe it: “In Sewer Pirats, deep underground in a maze of domed caverns, narrow tunnels, and piped passages, a motley cast of rodents, insects, and other vermin sail the treacherous waters of human refuse aboard bizarre vessels in search of discarded booty. In order to claim the best haul from the abandoned flotsam, players must make careful use of the unique abilities of their crews’ rats, cockroaches, weasels, and other critters. Don’t settle for less than left-over fast food and dumped toys. Go for your goal to become a true legend among the sewer pirates.” Apparently out for a while now in Europe, the game has only recently become available in North America. Check it out at Board Game Geek.

image c. 2012 Heidelberger Spieleverlag

Here at In-Fur-Nation we’ve covered a lot of pirates, and a lot of werewolves, and a lot of little doggies.  Well, how about a little doggy who fights pirates who are werewolves? Welcome to the world of Mike Norton’s The Curse. In 2009 Mr. Norton, creator of Battlepug (which we’ve also covered here) took up the 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge, which yes, challenges comic book creators to bring about a 24-page comic book, from scratch, in 24 hours. The result was The Curse, in which a small but tenacious pet pug helps his master to defeat an evil band of pirates who’s bite turns you into one of their kind! The response to The Curse was so positive that Mr. Norton returned to it and created Parts 2 and 3 in 2010 and 2011 for the same challenge. Now Oni Press has collected all three sections into a single black and white trade paperback, which is available for pre-order and headed to the shelves this October.

image c. 2012 Mike Norton / Oni Press