What is Caravela — route planning across the Age of Discovery
Caravela sits you at the planning table rather than the tiller. A chart of the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean fills the screen, dotted with ports that existed when caravels crossed those waters, and you build a route by tapping them in turn. The mandatory calls must go in the order listed above the map; every other port is yours to take or leave. Storms drift across the water the whole time you plan, and carry on from exactly that state the moment you press Set Sail. Once the caravel leaves the quay, only the two speed buttons remain.
The score comes from what is still in the hold when you arrive. Each second of supplies left is worth 12 points, each optional port on the route adds 120, and the spice stars and treasure chests floating between the islands are worth 100 and 250. Waiting at anchor costs twice over: 8 points a second directly, plus the supplies the wait burns. Ports are safe harbours, and a storm can pass over one without touching you, so the question is always which detour pays for itself.
How to play
- Tap ports on the chart to build the route. The mandatory calls, listed above the map, must be added in the order shown; optional ports slip in anywhere before the last.
- Watch the dashed lines: on the first four voyages they preview where each storm travels over the next 16 to 20 seconds. Set sail when the gaps line up.
- You can still change speed under way. Slowing lets a storm drift clear of your path; speeding up saves supplies, and leftover supplies are the largest part of the score.
- Reach the final port before supplies run out and the voyage scores. Touch a storm outside a harbour and it ends there, so retry at a different moment in the cycle.
Strategies that work
- Anchoring costs about 20 points a second: 8 straight off the score, and 12 more in supplies you no longer have on arrival. Mid-voyage speed control is nearly always cheaper. Drop to 0.6x for a few seconds to let a storm slide past your line, then push back up.
- An optional port is worth 120 and supplies 12 a second, so a detour pays while it adds under 10 seconds. On the Bartolomeu Dias chart the caravel covers about 48 pixels a second at the starting speed, which makes nearly every island on the way to the Cape worth a call.
- A treasure chest is 250 points and a spice star 100, collected simply by passing within about 28 pixels. A chest therefore justifies a detour of nearly 20 seconds. Bend the route towards the gold circles, and prefer legs that thread two or three rewards in one line.
- The safe bubble around a port has a 26-pixel radius and belongs to every port on the chart, not only those on your route. A storm sitting on a harbour cannot touch you inside it. Where storms crowd a channel, route through the port between them and cross in two protected hops.
- Once the destination is the last stop, nothing can be added after it, so plan the detours first and click the final port last. On the Zheng He and Magellan charts the dashed previews are switched off, so watch the storms breathe for a few seconds before committing.
A little history
Caravela was written for Puzzle-Me, so its family tree matters more than any origin story. It belongs to the genre of route-planning puzzles — a traveller with fixed stops to visit in order — with a layer of moving hazards that turns a shortest-path question into one of timing. The geography supplies the constraint. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera in 1492 and watered in the Canaries; Zheng He's treasure fleets began sailing in 1405. The maps borrow those names and those seas, but they are playable charts, not reconstructions.
Frequently asked questions
Is the daily challenge really the same for everyone?
Yes. The date in UTC becomes a single number that seeds the whole chart: which of the six historical voyages you sail, which optional ports open, where each storm starts and how far it swells, and where the rewards sit. The same water everywhere, on the same date.
Do I need to install anything, and does it work on a phone?
Nothing to install — it runs in the browser, and your captain's name, records and campaign progress stay in your own browser's storage rather than on a server. The chart resizes to fit a phone screen, and since everything is done by tapping, touch is if anything easier than a mouse.
How exactly is the score worked out?
You start from 500, then add 12 points per second of supplies remaining, 120 per optional port visited, 100 or 250 per reward collected, and a voyage bonus of 120 times the voyage number — 720 on the sixth. Each second waiting at anchor takes 8 back off.
