The character animation, while more plentiful than in some of Kheops Studio's previous games, is still sparse and stiff in Destination: Treaure Island. The settings are varied and detailed, from jungles and beaches crawling with life, to caves covered with strange inscriptions, to abandoned shanties stuffed with useful junk. The scenes are pre-rendered as 3D, panoramic nodes, allowing the player to look in every direction. Visually, Destination: Treasure Island is pleasing, with many photogenic and exotic settings. Oddly, it is a catchy combination, and it sticks in your head long after playing the game! The theme song uses the "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum" lyrics (from Stevenson's novel), set to the tune of "Hush Little Baby" in a Caribbean beat. The heroes and villains resonate with energetic, if caricatured, voices. Moreover, the game's early stages have 2 alternative paths, depending on the player's actions in the opening scene.įrom the start, it is also clear that the production values in this game are solid. The player may solve many of the riddles out of order. At the same time, the structure is surprisingly flexible. The clear goals of the quests and the explicit foreshadowing are probably partly intended to make the game (like the novel) accessible to a younger audience. The puzzles in Destination: Treasure Island closely follow the same riddles. Jim travels there and continues to follow the clues, in search of Long John and buried treasure. Judging from the cryptic message, Long John is still alive and awaiting Jim in the place called Emerald Isle. The first installment of these poems is delivered to Jim by Long John's parrot, Captain Flint, while Jim is in the midst of an escape from the mutineers. The plot in Destination: Treasure Island revolves around a series of rhyming riddles. Unfortunately, the manual is not usefully illustrated to show the inventory's graphical interface. The game includes a basic instruction manual, which may be helpful reading to familiarize the player with the game's unique inventory system. Destination: Treasure Island fits this successful mold, yet it also raises the developer's own standards by featuring more character interaction and more consistent storytelling qualities in this game than its spiritual ancestor, Return to Mysterious Island - a game also developed by Kheops Studios that is inspired by the work of Jules Verne. The game's developer, Kheops Studios, is a French company best known for creating short adventure games that are packed with nonlinear inventory puzzles set in colorful historical or literary environments. Exactly 4 years after the events in the novel, the teenage protagonist Jim Hawkins is attempting to relocate Long John Silver and untold riches - but the mutineers previously stranded by Long John are also after him and the treasure. They come in their "black ships" to ravage the island worlds of Myst.ĭestination: Treasure Island (not to be confused with Treasure Island released by Radon Labs in 2009) bills itself as the sequel to Treasure Island, the classic pirate novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1881-1882. They are lifelong foes of Peter Pan in Hook (an adventure game adapted from Steven Spielberg's movie of the same name). They inspire the career of Guybrush Threepwood in The Secret of Monkey Island. Pirates conspire to capture Gwydion (Prince Alexander) in King's Quest III: To Heir is Human. Pirates (as in murderous seafarers) have long sparked the imagination of adventure game developers. If Hawkins is stumped he can click the objective button for a reminder of his goals or ask the parrot for hints about his current activity. Gamers must lead Hawkins through the first-person adventure while exploring a variety of exotic environments and collecting items for puzzles along the way. After weighing his options, Hawkins escapes imprisonment on the Hispaniola and crash lands his lifeboat on the Emerald Isle. While Hawkins awaits his fate, Long John Silver's parrot visits and provides him with a treasure map. In Destination: Treasure Island, Hawkins begins his adventure locked in the ship's cabin by three pirates seeking revenge. Jim Hawkins survived the 1883 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and grew up to captain his own ship, the Hispaniola.
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