Happy New Year™!
We’re here, all collectively staggering and sojourning into 2022 after yet another 12 months of anything but predictability. In fact, the only thing you could count on in 2021, much like recent years leading up to it, was a steady stream of lovingly made adventure games from indie devs — all countering the almost comically dystopian dross that is now so emblematic of the big AAA videogame studios.
Capping off a fantastic year for our favourite genre was Cleo: A Pirate’s Tale, released in December 2020 — and a hugely exciting way to round off another whirl around the sun. After all, we fell in love with the demo, and the finished product does not disappoint in the labour of love that it is!
Cleo: A Pirate’s Tale draws its cues from a number of influences, from Monkey Island to The Legend of Zelda, and it’s drawn and animated like a GameBoy Advance game (high praise indeed, one hopes this is construed as, because your humble writer adores that handheld).
Cleo isn’t afraid to mix up its interface and design choices in ways that both streamline adventure game play and cater to a more intuitive inventory interface. Part of that is in the controls of the game — you can use an XBox controller, but can likewise use keyboard and mouse to great effect.
Cleo herself is directly controlled with the keys, yet much of your interaction and inventory puzzling is done with the mouse. It feels fun, and changes up the adventure game dynamic enough without losing the magic that some early forays into direct-control adventure games suffered.
As my partner and I sat down to settle in for our Cleo-commencing come Christmas Eve just past, we booted up the game beside one another and, without really thinking, began playing with one of us holding the mouse to click, and the other of us using keyboard controls to move our hero around the world.
We didn’t negotiate this before the fact — it just sort of happened. And it just sort of works! While we’re certain it’s not by any means an intended style of play — has there ever been a successful co-op point-and-click adventure game yet? — it’s amazingly intuitive to have one of you clicking through inventory and interactions while the other does all the running about.
We always play adventure games collectively in our household, and have done ever since your humble writer first discovered the genre. But it’s always been a case of someone doing the pointing, the clicking and the general interacting, and everyone else chiming in with ideas, or simply enjoying watching the narrative play out.
Cleo is the first time we’ve been able to, by happy accident, split up the controls of an adventure game and collaboratively control a character. And it feels great! While it’s not going to be for everyone, just the notion of it being possible has enhanced our enjoyment of this title all the more.
We’re still working our way through Cleo: A Pirate’s Tale, and are massively enjoying its blend of old and new mechanics within our beloved adventure game genre. Whether you sail it solo or create a crew to conquer it like us (…accidentally…) — it comes highly recommended!