The Ghosts Of Vooju Island
This is an adventure game in the Monkey Island tradition, made by Autumn Moon, a small developer in which ex-LucasArts employees are working (a few of them had been working on actual Monkey Island games, too).
It is mostly humorous, with a tiny bit of darkness, but - in my opinion - even less than in Monkey Island itself, which I found - t least in the beginning - much more creepy than this game. Or A Vampyre Story, also done by Autumn Moon, is in my opinion also more "creepy" than the Ghosts Of Vooju Island story.
The basic layout is "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly".
Practically, this is :
The Good - Papa Doc Mystere, a Vooju master
The Bad - Mrs. Jane sterling, a half-pirate half-agent sort of woman
The Ugly - Mr. "Blue Belly", the unfortunate cook of a pirate's crew
There are elements which remind you very strongly of Monkey Island or the Pirates Of The Carribbean layout - which is ot bad.
The game is - in my opinion - mediocre, but good, and its riddles are usually good as well.
Some of the riddles appear to me to be a bit un-logical (at least I couldn't quite understand them, because I couldn't see an "logical path" to the solution, unlike in a few other adventure games I've played).
There is no "pixel hunting" involved.
But what there is, is in some places very well hidden "hot spots". No pixels, just very good camouflaged or simpl "hidden in plain sight". By pressing a key on the keyboard, all "hot spots" should be enlightened, but this didn't work for me, I don't know why. Maybe it was changed last-minute so the handbook wasn't correct anymore ?
But what you *need* to do as well is, showing the pieces each individual has collected to the other members of the three. This also involves items you wouldn't think of showing to others.
Showing items to others acts partly like "drag & drop", but with the difference that you don't need to have the mouse key pressed down while "dragging". (I had to find this out first, because I had believed it would be *entirely* like modern OS "drag & drop". It wasn't.)
What I especially liked very much was the occational banter between the group members, especially, when you show items to the other ones.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often.
Talking is the matter of choice, but in contrast to RPGs, different topics don't lead to different solutions.
You must, however, use every single topic you have, because not using them blocks you from solutions.
In the German-language version of the game, the voice-acting is very good to excellent - except Blue Belly, whom voice I didn't found too good, but still very acceptable.
This leads me to another problem : the "speaking animations" weren't played in some cases (mostly when Bluebelly said something or commented on something), and after longer play I had a small texture error during a cutscene. But this was the only time that happened.
Here in Germany, school grades are from 1 (best) to 6 (worst) (with 1+ being an exception (albeit a possible one) like 6-).
I give this game a 3+
The game is still very good, and I *definitively* recommend it to the occasional adventure games player at budget price.
There are a few walkthroughs on the internet, so finding a solution isn't too difficult, I guess.
Alrik
This is an adventure game in the Monkey Island tradition, made by Autumn Moon, a small developer in which ex-LucasArts employees are working (a few of them had been working on actual Monkey Island games, too).
It is mostly humorous, with a tiny bit of darkness, but - in my opinion - even less than in Monkey Island itself, which I found - t least in the beginning - much more creepy than this game. Or A Vampyre Story, also done by Autumn Moon, is in my opinion also more "creepy" than the Ghosts Of Vooju Island story.
The basic layout is "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly".
Practically, this is :
The Good - Papa Doc Mystere, a Vooju master
The Bad - Mrs. Jane sterling, a half-pirate half-agent sort of woman
The Ugly - Mr. "Blue Belly", the unfortunate cook of a pirate's crew
There are elements which remind you very strongly of Monkey Island or the Pirates Of The Carribbean layout - which is ot bad.
The game is - in my opinion - mediocre, but good, and its riddles are usually good as well.
Some of the riddles appear to me to be a bit un-logical (at least I couldn't quite understand them, because I couldn't see an "logical path" to the solution, unlike in a few other adventure games I've played).
As an example, in the game there is a silver mirror to be cleaned … The inventar also contains Rum, which I would have used at first sight, since alcohol is known to be a relatively good substance for cleaning glass etc. . But instead, the programmers insisted on using soap - which had to be "made" before it could be used.
There is no "pixel hunting" involved.
But what there is, is in some places very well hidden "hot spots". No pixels, just very good camouflaged or simpl "hidden in plain sight". By pressing a key on the keyboard, all "hot spots" should be enlightened, but this didn't work for me, I don't know why. Maybe it was changed last-minute so the handbook wasn't correct anymore ?
But what you *need* to do as well is, showing the pieces each individual has collected to the other members of the three. This also involves items you wouldn't think of showing to others.
Showing items to others acts partly like "drag & drop", but with the difference that you don't need to have the mouse key pressed down while "dragging". (I had to find this out first, because I had believed it would be *entirely* like modern OS "drag & drop". It wasn't.)
What I especially liked very much was the occational banter between the group members, especially, when you show items to the other ones.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often.
Talking is the matter of choice, but in contrast to RPGs, different topics don't lead to different solutions.
You must, however, use every single topic you have, because not using them blocks you from solutions.
In the German-language version of the game, the voice-acting is very good to excellent - except Blue Belly, whom voice I didn't found too good, but still very acceptable.
This leads me to another problem : the "speaking animations" weren't played in some cases (mostly when Bluebelly said something or commented on something), and after longer play I had a small texture error during a cutscene. But this was the only time that happened.
Here in Germany, school grades are from 1 (best) to 6 (worst) (with 1+ being an exception (albeit a possible one) like 6-).
I give this game a 3+
The game is still very good, and I *definitively* recommend it to the occasional adventure games player at budget price.
There are a few walkthroughs on the internet, so finding a solution isn't too difficult, I guess.
Alrik
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