Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The new adventure from Deck 13, they behind the surprisingly lovely point and clicker Ankh… haven’t done it again. Jack Keane, developed in a similar manner, has sadly drowned beneath poor puzzle design and an absolutely attrocious translation. Hence my recent appeal.

My review is now up on Eurogamer, and it contains these words.

“Maybe it’s over-confidence. Maybe we celebrated Ankh’s not-awfulness too much. But Jack Keane is a depressingly poor game. A big, elaborate, beautifully drawn game. But one that just doesn’t make a satisfying result.”

Read the rest here.

My fellow adventure fans. As we crawl on our bellies through the arid deserts of gaming, our dry tongues panting for just a taste of unscrewing the battery from the parachute to fix the exploding rabbit so it can open the wristwatch on the arm of the giant statue, the will to carry on can be very hard to maintain.

The scorching sun beats down on our frying skin, with nary a pole from a building site, tarp from the rocks at the bottom of the sea and glue stolen from a vicar to improvise a parasol to protect ourselves. In these hard times, it’s tempting to take just anything.

The makers of Ankh, the rather surprisingly lovely (if not altogether that brilliant) point and click from a couple of years back, are releasing their latest, Jack Keane, very soon. I completed it this morning, with a review to be published soon, so I’ll hold back on giving my impressions. But you can decide for yourselves with a demo. 44.8 Peggles of one.

It looks surprisingly pretty. How’s the translation from the German? Take a look for yourself.