BLACK KEEL GAMES
FORTUNE & GALLOWS

The people, tools & sources behind the voyage.

Fortune & Gallows is developed by Black Keel Games with AI-assisted design and development, extensive historical source research, and an evolving closed-alpha playtest program.

Credits revision 1.2 · Updated October 14, 2026

Project Leadership
Brian Weimer

Original Concept · Creative Director · Lead Game Designer

  • Original concept and creative vision
  • Game systems and player-experience direction
  • Historical-world and narrative direction
  • Feature decisions, design approval, and project priorities
  • Playtest direction and final creative decisions
  • Historical research direction and source-selection standards
AI-Assisted Design & Development
ChatGPT by OpenAI

AI Design, Development, Research & Production Assistance

  • Game-system ideation, refinement, and integration
  • Prototype planning, coding assistance, debugging, and technical documentation
  • Narrative-development and writing assistance
  • Historical research assistance and source verification
  • QA planning, playtest analysis, balancing, and revision support
  • Visual ideation and AI-assisted promotional artwork development

ChatGPT assists under Brian Weimer’s direction. OpenAI is not the developer or publisher of Fortune & Gallows and does not sponsor or endorse the game.

Development Infrastructure & Production

Software and services used in development.

SupabasePostgreSQL database, authentication, backend services, Edge Functions, storage, and game-state infrastructure.
VercelWebsite hosting, deployment, previews, and production delivery.
GitHubSource control, repository management, development history, and automated workflows.
AirtableEarly historical research registry, world/content organization, and migration staging.
RunwayAI-assisted promotional video generation and editing, including closed-alpha invitation media.
DiscordClosed-alpha community communication and playtester coordination.
Apple Developer ProgramiOS application identity, bundle configuration, and mobile distribution preparation.
SunoAI-assisted music-generation tools used by Brian Weimer to create original Fortune & Gallows songs.
DistroKidDigital music distribution service used to release the Fortune & Gallows music project.
Historical Research

Archives, museums, public-history institutions & scholarly resources.

Fortune & Gallows distinguishes documented history, strong inference, representative reconstruction, and disputed or legendary material. Research used primary sources, archaeological work, institutional collections, scholarly publications, and cross-checking across multiple repositories. The project’s companion historical manuscript and canonical source register maintain fuller citation, provenance, attribution-scope, and bibliography records.

American Antiquarian SocietySupplied digital images of The Boston Gazette, no. 44 (17 October 1720 Old Style), reproduced as facsimile plates in the Historical Companion. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.
Bahamas National Archives / Government of The BahamasNassau, New Providence, government, Woodes Rogers, and colonial-history research.
The British LibraryHistorical books, maps, manuscripts, and printed material.
Library of CongressPiracy trials, colonial newspapers, maps, Atlantic-port studies, and early printed sources.
The National Archives (United Kingdom)Admiralty, Royal Navy, colonial, dockyard, apprenticeship, wage-dispute, salvage, pilotage, and log-book research.
Lambeth Palace Library / Fulham PapersAnglican colonial correspondence, clergy and parish research, including Leeward Islands and Montserrat material cited through archival finding aids and scholarship.
University of New Brunswick — The Loyalist CollectionFulham Papers finding aids and British West Indies archival discovery resources.
National Archives and Records Administration (United States)Colonial and maritime legal records, including piracy-related material.
PARES / Archivo General de IndiasSpanish imperial, Caribbean, administrative, and colonial records.
Nationaal Archief — NetherlandsWest-Indische Compagnie archives, Curaçao personnel and incoming correspondence, and Dutch Leeward Islands provenance research.
Archivo General de la Nación — Dominican RepublicSanto Domingo and Dominican colonial-history research.
Royal Museums GreenwichAge-of-sail ships, navigation, seamanship, rigging, maritime life, and naval collections.
UNESCO World Heritage CentreOld Havana, Colonial City of Santo Domingo, Port Royal, and Willemstad historical/archaeological context.
U.S. National Park ServiceSt. Augustine, Castillo de San Marcos, Spanish garrison and labor history, Blackbeard/Ocracoke, and colonial-site research.
Florida Department of State — Division of Historical Resources1715 Spanish Plate Fleet and Florida historical archaeology.
Florida Museum of Natural History — Historical Archaeology1715 Fleet wreck, survivor, salvage-camp, and material-culture research.
North Carolina Office of State Archaeology / Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck ProjectShip construction, armament, artifacts, equipment, provisioning, La Concorde, and pirate material culture.
North Carolina African American Heritage CommissionLa Concorde / Queen Anne’s Revenge research connecting the vessel’s pirate history with its earlier slave-trading voyages.
SlaveVoyagesTransatlantic slave-trade structure, voyage data, and broader Atlantic context.
University of New Brunswick — Slavery and Freedom LawsBritish Caribbean and Montserrat slavery legislation, including period rules governing movement and control of enslaved people.
William & Mary LibrariesCaribbean newspaper collections and the early regional print environment.
Diocese of St. John’s-BasseterreMontserrat Catholic historical chronology, used cautiously for institutional memory and later date-gates.
Oxford University Press / Oxford AcademicScholarly research on Anglicanism, empire, maritime labor, shipping, and wages.
SciELO / HistóriaScholarly research on the early eighteenth-century Havana shipyard and Spanish naval development.
Charleston County Public Library — Charleston Time MachineCharles Town geography, buildings, streets, newspapers, and local historical reconstruction.
State Archives of North CarolinaColonial North Carolina and piracy-era records.
Colonial Williamsburg FoundationEarly-eighteenth-century material culture, trades, daily life, and interpretation.
Smithsonian National Museum of American HistoryMaritime America, Atlantic-world, trade, slavery, and material-culture resources.
South Carolina EncyclopediaSouth Carolina colonial and regional historical research.
NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological LaboratoryHistorical hurricane chronology, HURDAT-related research, and storm reconstruction.
Bank of England — Historical ResearchCurrency, finance, and period economic context.
UK Parliament — Living HeritageBritish legal, political, and institutional context.
University of West Florida / Dr. John E. WorthSpanish Florida, colonial southeastern North America, and related scholarship.
University of Florida — George A. Smathers Libraries / P.K. Yonge Library of Florida HistoryJohn H. Hann Papers, Spanish Florida document translations and surrogates, and archival access to colonial Florida research material.
National Library of New ZealandDigitized historical publications and maritime source access.
National Historic Ships UKHistoric-vessel terminology, construction, and preservation context.
Founders OnlinePrimary-source letters, documentary editions, and Old Style/New Style calendar cross-reference.
National Records of ScotlandCalendar, year-style, and Old Parish Register guidance used in the project’s chronological safeguards.
Junta de Andalucía / Archivo Histórico Provincial de SevillaSpanish archival evidence for the 1582 Gregorian-calendar transition.
Assemblée nationaleFrench institutional historical reference for Gregorian-calendar chronology.
KNAW Digital History of Science CentreDutch historical scholarship, including provincial calendar chronology before the game period.
Jamaica Information ServiceJamaican historical and institutional context.
Royal Society — Making ScienceHistorical scientific observations, correspondence, and weather evidence.
AGU PublicationsHistorical-weather reconstruction and scholarly hurricane research.
Historical Accuracy & Artistic License

Documented history first; disciplined reconstruction where the record ends.

Fortune & Gallows is a work of historical interactive fiction. Real people, places, events, political conditions, and documented historical developments are represented as accurately as surviving evidence reasonably allows. Where the historical record is incomplete, the game uses period-appropriate reconstruction and artistic license to create businesses, characters, conversations, daily activities, and other details necessary to portray a living world. These reconstructed or fictional elements are designed to remain consistent with the known history of the period and should not be interpreted as documented historical fact.

The project’s historical framework distinguishes documented history, strong inference, representative reconstruction, and disputed or legendary material. Artistic license does not authorize changing fixed historical events or presenting invented details as documented fact.

Digital Research Access

Libraries, databases & discovery platforms.

Community, aggregation, mirror, genealogy, or discovery sources are used as leads or access platforms where appropriate; the underlying author, work, archive, or institution remains the intellectual historical source whenever identifiable. Historical claims are cross-checked against stronger primary, institutional, archaeological, or scholarly evidence before being treated as authoritative.

Selected Primary & Period Sources

Works consulted during development.

Selected Scholarly & Design References

Works that informed research, systems, interface, and historical interpretation.

Donald Harman Akenson — If the Irish Ran the World: Montserrat, 1630–1730Montserrat’s Irish population, Anglican and Catholic life, slavery, settlement, and social structure.
Jeremy Gregory, ed. — The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume II: Establishment and Empire, 1662–1829Anglican institutions, empire, clergy, and Caribbean/West Indian church context.
Ralph Davis — The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth CenturiesEspecially “The Pay and Conditions of Merchant Seamen,” used for wage forms, voyage pay, advances, and maritime labor structure.
José Manuel Serrano Alvarez — “Los inicios del astillero de la Habana en el siglo XVIII y la influencia francesa”Havana shipbuilding and naval-development context during the game period.
Peter T. Leeson — “An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization”Secondary economic interpretation of pirate organization and incentives, used as context rather than as a substitute for primary records.
Steve Krug — Don’t Make Me Think, RevisitedUsability, navigation, clarity, and low-friction interface principles.
Beverly Carrier — Website Design: How to Build Websites That Work on Any BrowserWeb design, calls to action, conversion-oriented presentation, and typography considerations.
Playtesting

Founding Alpha Playtesters

External alpha and beta playtesters are invited to appear in final credits using a real name, an approved display name or handle, or no public credit. Private account names, email addresses, legal names, and other identifying information are never published as credits without permission for that exact display name.

Playtest contributions may include completed playthroughs, bug reports, unusual character approaches, balance or accessibility feedback, narrative feedback, and documentation of important failures, choices, deaths, and system behavior.

Special Thanks

Creative influence & the people preserving the past.

  • Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure Island — high-level creative influence and inspiration for nautical vocabulary, cadence, and period-flavored sailor speech. Fortune & Gallows does not copy its dialogue, characters, scenes, distinctive phrasing, or plot beats.
  • The creators and development teams behind Sid Meier’s Pirates! — for the enduring example of making the pirate age inviting, adventurous, and playable.
  • Michael Berlyn, Jerry Wolper, and Infocom’s Cutthroats (1984) — a key interaction reference for parser-driven interactive fiction, physical location descriptions, object interaction, free-form commands, and a world that responds to player action rather than relying on menu-only choices.
  • The archivists, archaeologists, librarians, conservators, editors, historians, curators, researchers, and public-history staff whose work preserves and interprets the surviving record of the early eighteenth-century Atlantic world.
  • Early testers, feedback contributors, and everyone helping Black Keel Games turn Fortune & Gallows into a stronger game.
Attribution & Independence

Third-party acknowledgment is not endorsement.

Black Keel Games is solely responsible for Fortune & Gallows. References to companies, software, archives, museums, libraries, universities, publications, websites, games, and historical institutions identify tools, research materials, access platforms, or creative influences used during development. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, no listed third party sponsors, endorses, publishes, or is affiliated with Fortune & Gallows or Black Keel Games.

All third-party names and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.

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