The Treasure of Drunk Island

An amateur adventure game inspired by LucasArts' classic Secret of Monkey Island, Treasure of Drunk Island is a noble effort that unfortunatelly falls short due to poor interface. You are Willy, a hapless bloke who's just been fired. Luckily, you found a bill in your office that shows where to find a map that is hidden somewhere in the company. Once you find the map, it will guide you to Drunk Island, a small island somewhere in the Caribbean where a treasure is supposedly hidden.

The game sports decent graphics that are a cut above most other amateur adventure games, and some interesting puzzles. What seriously impairs the game, though, is the lack of description of any kind on both inventory items and on-screen objects. There are only two commands: USE and TALK, and no EXAMINE command. This makes the game quite frustrating, especially since the graphics are not good enough for you to be able to tell what the object is, or which object can be taken into inventory. The only way to know what you are carrying is by clicking the USE command on an object to get its name-- hardly an intuitive concept. You'll have to resort to furious clicking on every screen to make sure you're not missing any collectible object. Fortunately, most puzzles in the game are not very difficult, and the plot is interesting enough to move things along.

In the end, though, Treasure of Drunk Island falls short of the Top Dog status due to the inexplicable lack of descriptions and hotspots. They would have made the game much more enjoyable, and less of a pixel-hunting exercise. As it stands, the game is still better than your average amateur adventure, but is still far from the quality and fun of the best games in the genre, e.g. Larry Vales. A commendable effort, though.

Review By HOTUD