Intellectual Pirates of All Ages – Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town First Impressions

Uncharted 4 for the little ones

In addition to the Monkey Island series, to which the developers themselves indicate, Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town recalls the latest adventure of Nathan Drake. In both cases, the plot focuses on “modern pirates”, a traditional treasure and a community founded by filibusters of the past. Only now Naughty Dog created a Hollywood action movie, and imaginarylab – a cartoon for Nickelodeon. But this is by no means a rebuke!

The main character, Willy Morgan, looks exactly what typical quest lovers should look like in the silent majority, a skinny awkward bespectacled man who has his own opinion on literally everything else. However, before us is not just a stereotypical nerd, but practically Sherlock from the BBC series. The protagonist combines a sharp mind, a sociopathic willingness to lie and commit crimes at the first instinct, as well as poisonous causticism in communication with others.

Okay, maybe I exaggerated. Willie goes to all this just to find out the truth about the mysterious disappearance of her father. He immediately returns the stolen property, it does not intentionally spoil property, and it only deceives suspicious adults – obvious villains. So the role model from him is in any case no worse than from Tom Sawyer.

Welcome to the City of Bones

The main events of the game (at least in the preview version) take place in Bown Town – a small town founded by famous pirates of the past: Henry Avery, Edward Teach and others. In it you can even find direct descendants of some of them. It is not surprising that the whole theme of the settlement and the game is connected with buccaneers.

I would like to say that the inhabitants of Bown Town are completely charismatic and outstanding in every possible sense of personality, but, unfortunately, this is not so. Yes, some of them may well be remembered, but solely due to their archetypal nature – a severe priest, a gamer on relaxation, hippies on even greater relaxation, etc. They have no personality, but they are all equally alienated from the world and seem the same absurd. This does not interfere with the creation of comedy, but I would like more variety.

Speaking of humor: here, as in Monkey Island, it plays an important role – often dialogues and puzzles are built on jokes.

For example, in the game you can meet a geek gamer who opened his own pub in the city. That’s just the whole institution – it’s just a cluttered garage, where there is a machine with soda. And what? There are drinks, you can buy them, and there is a roof, which means a pub. Even more fun is the reason the character started the business. He conducted a “serious” study of consumer needs: at the gamer’s first visit to Bown Town, his car broke down, and the mechanic repairing it wanted to drink. Do not understand yet? It’s obvious – the city is dying of thirst, and it needs a pub. A pub that also sells 3D printers, but that’s another story from the life of this marketing genius.

Sharp intellect and craving for vandalism – the face of a modern pirate

The basis of the gameplay is quite traditional for point’n’click quests. The main task of the user is to find useful objects and apply them at the right time. For example, use a jack to lift a loaded table and get a book of interest to us.

At the first level, the global goal was quite simple – to find parts and assemble a bike. On the second, it became somewhat wider: the player was required to find and connect nine parts of the map, and a new puzzle was waiting for him on the way to each. Somewhere it was required to find the details of musical instruments in order to open a secret hatch. Another time, the hero needed to figure out how not to fall asleep from listening to a very boring menu.

This is the declared non-linearity by the developers, which allows solving puzzles in a different order and relatively freely explore different locations of the city. Actually, calling it “non-linearity” is not entirely correct. Usually, this means different ways of performing the same task. Here, all the puzzles are solved only in one way, and the order in which you found the key and the lock does not particularly affect anything.

It is worth noting that this creates another complexity that adds interest. Due to the fact that at first several puzzles and locations are “active” at once, it is often unclear why this or that item is needed. This makes me think, because busting everything in a row is not only boring, but also very long. For the rest, the riddles may seem rustic to adults, but they should be to their taste for children who are bored during the holidays.

For the first few hours, the search and activation of quest items did not bother me, especially since sometimes riddles are solved in a rather funny way. However, the game really needs puzzles and other types, without them it risks becoming too monotonous and quickly get bored.