Developer: Imaginarylab
Publisher: VLG Publishing, WhisperGames
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town – Review
A lot of Indie studios are trying to make their first game and hope they succeed in what they have visualised. Imaginarylab isn’t any different, they enter the game industry with their newest title, Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town. If you are craving an adventure game with ’90s roots where you can join a pirate adventure, this game is definitely one to put on your to-do list.
Story
You start out the game as Willy Morgan, a teenage boy. He lives alone at that time because his mom is working a long way from home and his dad went missing about ten years ago. That peculiar day Willy receives a letter from his dad. But looking at the date he immediately noticed this letter was written on the same day his father disappeared.
The letter tells Willy that his father took precautionary measures so that when his mission went south he could reach his family. It also basically tells Willy to go on an adventure and start at the Bone Town inn, where he should go to Room 09 and solve the riddle: ‘Everything begins there in the warmth of a friendly place.’
The story progresses slowly at the beginning as the makers wanted to make sure the player first learns the mechanics of the game. Aside from the slow start, if you don’t get the solution they got in mind for you to perform, your game gets a whole lot longer. But overall the story progresses at a steady pace with some clever twists in the mix because let us be honest, the story isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.
Graphics
This game has an amazing team of 3D artist behind it. They nailed almost every location in Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town. Although it is not your average art style it is gorgeous to look at. It’s made rather whimsical which fits the gameplay perfectly. Imaginarylab even succeeded in nailing the mood in every scene they present the player with. This couldn’t be easy because of the playful art style they handle in the game.
Sound
The game has a variety of sounds available but still makes it feel a little repetitive after a while. The background music sounds like visiting a town in Runescape rather than giving you the feeling that you are in an adventure. Besides the rather poor choice of music, they managed to fully voice-act the game which makes the game much more enjoyable and immersive. They even managed to nail the voices completely, which is rare for an indie game these days.
Gameplay
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town is a point-and-click adventure with lots of puzzles and mysteries for you to solve. Although they are most of the time not very logical in terms of a realistic solution. Like for example when you put a bike together you won’t easily grab a belt to make your chain… Besides that, they made clever use of all the places in certain environments to hide stuff for the player to use in one or multiple occasions.
The game doesn’t really offer you a questline, it just makes you solve puzzles to progress to your next clue. It blends in with the storyline so well that you don’t even notice how far you are progressing in a short amount of time. This is not as easy as it sounds most of the time, it’s even a little tedious because you haven’t got an indication of what you need to do next to progress.
The player can also make use of the inventory and a button which reveals all the objects you can interact with. Some of those objects will be picked up automatically and others get an explanation of why they aren’t useful to carry around.
Like we mentioned above it is a point-and-click adventure with no support system for anything else than a mouse (or keyboard in some cases). So the mechanics are very basic and only use the left or right mouse button. Left mouse button for interacting with objects and walking, the right mouse button is for examining the objects you have in your possession. The player gets the option to use the scroll wheel or the ‘I’ key on your keyboard to open the inventory and that is about all you can really do in this game. So it is fairly basic in this regard.
Conclusion
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town isn’t the most innovative or best point-and-click adventure out there but still shows a lot of promise. The mechanics of the game are basic but enjoyable and easy to catch up on. The storyline and gameplay blend very well together and although we wished there were maybe a little more conversations, it did pretty well. They also managed to nail the graphical side of the development as the game is beyond gorgeous and shows us that the art in the game can add loads to the overall enjoyment if it is done correctly.
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