Back in July, I had the opportunity to preview Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town. I’ve been covering the game a lot earlier than July but the preview copy arrived last month and I really liked the concept and the direction of the game. Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town is a point-and-click title that takes its inspiration from titles such as Grim Fandango and Monkey Island. Both of these titles are one of the best titles in the genre and marking them as your inspiration is certainly a big deal. Developed by imaginarylab and published by VLG Publishing, this is our review of Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town in which we try to solve some puzzles in a town full of modern pirates and find treasure.
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town is set in the pirate town of Bone Town however you start the game at the main character Willy Morgan’s house. Willy Morgan is a normal teenage kid with a family filled with treasure hunters. You start at Willy’s house where you must find and assemble his bike after he receives a letter written by his dad 10 years ago. Willy’s father has been missing for 10 years and now Willy has found a clue in the shape of the letter sent by his father. Willy sets immediately for Bone Town to find his dad.
The first level also acts as a tutorial level as you are thought different in-game mechanics and how you will be required to explore your environments and looks for clues and useful items later in the game. After you figure out how to assemble your bike, you arrive in Bone Town and then the game really begins. Bone Town is essentially a pirate town however it has certainly lost its core ‘pirateness’ and is now more modern, thanks to the advanced age. Willy arrives in Bone Town and right from the start, starts to create a buzz in the town as he finds clues about his father and the mysterious past of the town where his father disappeared lost 10 years.
Now, this is where all the true point-and-click genre really kicks in the game. The whole town is open for you and you can freely move around different areas to meet with the local people and collect clues. You will also find different items that you store in your inventory for later use. All of these items come in handy during certain parts of the main story so everything you pick in the game is vital to the story. If an item is not required for the story, Willy will simply refuse to pick it up making it much easier for you.
If you’ve played Monkey Island or Grim Fandango, you would remember the open-world exploration pretty well. The same exploration mechanic is present in Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town as well. Instead of a single locked arena, you have the whole town to explore and you never know where you might find the item used in the current puzzle. You will be required to explore plenty of areas before you find the required item or speak with the correct person. This is the core of any good point-and-click adventure and this is what makes it special too. It literally feels like that you are playing a modern Monkey Island or Grim Fandango game with a new theme.
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town also features animated cutscenes. While they are not too much, they are still a pleasant surprise every time they pop up. During my earlier playthrough of the preview build, much of the dialogue was missing from the game and it was all text but now in the full release, each dialogue is accomplished by proper, audio for each of the characters in the game. I am also a big fan of the location design in the game as well. Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town features a large number of locations that you will visit in Bone Town and each location has its own unique touch and aura. Some locations are bright and give you a lively feeling while as you explore the much darker, side alleys of the town, the game becomes much darker and gloomy.
Although there is not much to do in the game after you are done with the main story of the game, the main story will take up quite a good chunk of your time during your first playthrough as you try to figure out how to solve different puzzles, finding items and speaking with different colorful NPCs around Bone Town. I greatly enjoyed my time with the game and I will certainly return later for another playthrough of the title. For a dying genre, Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town is a breath of fresh air and it is great to see that developers are still trying their best in keeping this long-forgotten genre alive.
Final Verdict:
Most of the modern players have only seen the point-and-click genre through the titles by Telltale Games however in my opinion, they are too easy to play. Everything in them is straight forward and somehow, they failed to deliver the true complexity of the point-and-click games of the past. On the other hand, Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town might not have a fancy developer or publisher name attached to it: it somehow manages to bring back a genre that has been long-forgotten. It is witty, it is complex, it encourages exploration and it forces you to use your mind in order to solve different puzzles and progress in the game. It does not spoon-feed you on every step that modern point-and-click titles do. I am extremely happy to see that this game has lived up to the legacy left by the titles on which this game takes its inspiration from. If you are a fan of this genre or if you are a player who really wants to experience what modern point-and-click titles should be like, head over to Steam and give this a shot. There’s a free demo as well.
Final Score: 9.0/10
