Title     Jolly Rover Developer    Brawsome Publisher    Lace Mamba Global Platform    PC Genre    Point 'n' Click, Graphic Adventure Release Date    4th February, 2011

Your name: Gaius James Rover. Your ambition: to be a famous clown and have your own circus. Not exactly what you’d expect from the main character in a piratey point and click adventure game, but it’s certainly different. That and the fact you are a dog. A sausage dog. In fact, everyone else in the game is also of the canine persuasion; it certainly is a dog’s life.  Jolly Rover is a cross breed of eighties cartoon “Dogtanian” and the famous “Monkey Island” games that, surprisingly, works very well.

After his famous clown father dies, (from a blow to the groin by an improperly loaded joke cannon), young Gaius goes to live with his uncle. One day, during juggling practice, he accidentally taints a barrel of rum with tobacco, creating a new brew which he dubs “Jolly Rover”. Sales for Jolly Rover soon hit the roof, but poor Gaius doesn’t see a single piece of eight from the profits. His chance soon comes, however, when his uncle is away and a large order for Jolly Rover arrives from the Governor of Groggy Island, Guy DeSilver – with payment in advance! Seizing his opportunity, he uses the money to charter a ship and crew to take him and his precious cargo to Groggy Island. However, it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and things soon start to go a little wrong.

From here on out, it’s up to you to take control of Gaius in a very user friendly 2D third person perspective. The cursor is free-flowing and smooth and the inventory pops up from the bottom of the screen when you roll your mouse over it. Something I particularly like is that, in the options menu, as well as the usual things such as adjusting the volume for music, voice and effects, allows you to increase how fast Gaius walks. I wish more point and clicks would introduce this option as it’s a great time saver. Another handy feature is the ‘hot-spot finder’; by holding down the space bar all the interactive objects on the screen will be highlighted.

As far as puzzles go, there aren’t that many. Not in the usual “crack this safe” or “solve this door lock” sense but more in the way of “find a way through the forest” and “which spell?”. There is one combination puzzle, but it’s not that hard; mostly it’s just about finding stuff, talking to people and working out how to get things done. It’s of the old school point and click era, when all you had to worry about was your inventory, which objects you could use with other objects and whether you’ve exhausted all of your dialogue options. This makes for a much smoother and flowing game with a very natural style of play that is more about the story and characters than about how many annoying puzzles can be squeezed in. Of course, some people like their games puzzle-heavy – I myself am somewhere in the middle, but it does make a nice change to play something light for once. So If you do get stuck, it’ll only be something like “How do I get that bottle of rum off the cook?” or “How do I lure the pig into the trap?”. But in case you do need it, don’t worry, help is at paw…

In-game hints come in the form of “Juan Leon” a parrot that you rescue at the beginning of your adventure. Whenever you get stuck or don’t know what to do next Juan will give you some advice, though not without cost. The first time you ask about something you will get a vague clue. This one’s for free.  Ask again and he will give you a more obvious clue, in exchange for a cracker. Ask for yet more help on the same subject and he will tell you exactly what you have to do (at the cost of another cracker of course).  Be careful though… crackers are one of three collectibles found throughout the game that are used to unlock extras and achievements, so feeding them to Juan not only lowers your score by two points but reduces the amount of concept art that you can see in your log. You will also miss out on three achievements too: one for completing the game without using any hints, one for collecting all the crackers and one for getting a maximum score.

Pieces of eight are another collectible. Harder to find than crackers, but easier to hang on to, these unlock music tracks in your log and add points to your score for each one found. There’s also an achievement for finding them all.  Last, but not least, there are flag pieces. Most of these are quite hard to find, but are yours to keep when you do. There are three flags, each split into four pieces and each one, when completed, will unlock a Captain’s bio in your log, as well as adding to your overall score. And yes, there’s also an achievement for finding them all.

Collectible hunters should beware however, most areas, once left, can’t be accessed again, and because of the way the save system works, there’s no going back. The game saves automatically when moving between screens, so if you accidentally leave an island before you’ve found everything then it’s tough doggie doo.
The game only took around six or seven hours to finish, which was disappointing – I wanted more, but on the bright side, the end didn’t really feel like the end. It felt like the beginning, like Gaius is only just starting his new, adventurous and piratey life. Like this is just the intro and more is yet to come. I genuinely hope so. I enjoyed this game so much that I would definitely spend my time and money on a sequel or, indeed, sequels!

After completing the game you’ll earn the ability to turn on the developer’s commentary in future play-throughs. This is a great addition, and definitely one I’d love to see more of in similar games. When turned on you will see one or more scrolls bearing a red feather somewhere on every game screen; clicking on one will play either a comment from the game’s creator Andrew Goulding or a clip from one of the voice actor’s auditions.

One of my two favourite things about this game is Gaius’s ability to cast voodoo spells. With book in one paw and cheat sheet in the other, Gaius pulls silly poses and chants some vowels to pull off some weird and wonderful magic to enable you to progress through the game. The “drop fruit” spell in particular can have satisfying results when used in the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective!) way.  My second favourite thing about Jolly Rover is it’s humour. It had me chuckling before I’d even started it up; I moved my mouse pointer over the desktop shortcut and, instead of the usual location address in the tool-tip pop-up, it read “Ahoy there matey!” More piratey-ness was to follow when, upon selecting “Set sail” from the main menu, I was asked “What be yer name?” and “Be ye wantin’ to watch the intro?”.

It’s not just the pirate-speak that makes it funny, the dialogue of Gaius in particular is very well written and just a bit strange. In the beginning of the game he converses with (and appears to be in love with) the portrait of a young lady, which he calls Beatrice. He also has a habit of giving names to inanimate objects, like a palm tree that he dubs “Ben Dee”. The game also takes light-hearted pokes at its genre too. For example, when you get given an object by someone, Gaius sarcastically says “What, no magic quests?”

It also pays to keep an eye on the top center of the screen during cut-scenes and dialogue. Where it says “Quest:” you often get something appropriately humorous following it. For instance, during a conversation where you ask a character for some of their blood for a voodoo spell, it goes from; “Talk fast” to “Talk faster” to “Life flashing before eyes” to “Wash pants”. Blink and you could miss it, but it’s great stuff.

The graphics in Jolly Rover are flawless and presented no technical difficulties whatsoever. Everything feels polished, the area transitions are smooth and the cartoony art style of the characters is charming and fits seamlessly into the beautiful backgrounds. The voice acting, for the most part, is superb and many of the cast voice several different characters, yet manage to make each one sound so different that you wouldn’t know it without paying attention to the credits.  I particularly liked Gaius’ slightly posh English accent; it fitted his character rather well. Added to this are great music tracks and sound effects that, when combined with the character voices, give an all-round great audio aspect to an already great game.

After playing Jolly Rover through three times in two days, getting all the achievements, crackers, pieces of eight, flags, hearing all the commentaries and unlocking all of the concept art, I think it’s safe to say that I like this game a great deal and would definitely not hesitate in recommending it to others.

Pros

• Full of Piratey goodness
• A different breed of hero. Literally.
• Great humour
• Developer's commentary
• Concept art
• Achievements

Cons

• Too short
• No control over saving

Summary

Choc full of extras and set in the sunny Caribbean, join Gaius James Rover as he sets sail, bound for adventure, loot, voodoo, trouble and romance. It is a fun-filled adventure, packed full of piratey goodness and wonderful humour, and the charming art style and beautiful backgrounds are complimented by a great soundtrack and top voice acting. The only downside to this game is that it just isn't long enough and will have you begging for a sequel before you can say "fetch".

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