Captain Cutter's Treasure

Captain Cutter's Treasure (CCT) is an impressive, small game. A pirate's daughter has been kidnapped. The ransom is some hidden treasure. You have to find and return it. There's a map to put together, and ... a bit more. But not too much.

The game has a respectable dialogue system that helps you flesh out as much of the story as you want to. There's even a very small puzzle that crosses genres into (Spoiler - click to show)Sokoban, and while you can put the game into an unwinnable state this way, it's relatively clear what to do without feeling dumb and obvious. I was more baffled with how to open a locked door, though when I thought through it, I realized I missed a few clues.

The game has three possible endings that I counted, and since doing the obvious right thing gets the "only okay" ending, there's some interesting meta/detective work. I think I got lucky (Spoiler - click to show)distracting Barnaby when he was on watch--I understood what to do but didn't have as good an idea of the ship's map as I did of the warehouse. Maybe it was just dealing with fore and aft. But it was pleasing to figure out what should generally happen.

This was a really good experience, well-organized and without a lot of red herrings. I'm not surprised

There are some issues of having to disambiguate more than you should need to for the parser, but I think that's more a function of people getting comfortable with programming PunyInform than any serious shortcomings. Besides, there's always the up-arrow on Frotz. So I think this is worth fighting through, and knowing this in advance will hopefully ensure that if you play CCT, you'll be able to see all CCT has to offer.

The beginning of this game has you waking up in the broom closet of the pub after a brawl. The first thing you see is some kind of nonsensical ransom note about a treasure you know nothing about.

Up to you to figure out what this means.

Captain Cutter's Treasure is a straightforward pirate-themed game which unashamedly ticks a lot of standard boxes. A hidden treasure, a coded map, a damsel in distress,...

Nothing original, but great fun to run around interrogating drunken sailors and exploring the coastal town.

The NPCs have quite a lot to say besides the requisite clues they have to offer. Spend a few minutes with each one to find out what he or she thinks about the rest of the characters.

There is a definite appeal in the portrayal of the coastal town. It feels a bit like a LEGO model of a pirate adventure. All the necessary locations are there, and it doesn't take much to build a much larger world in your imagination from the few morsels of worldbuilding you are given.

The puzzles are easy when taken alone. The harder (but not really hard) part is to figure out how to get the optimal ending. It's no trouble at all to hunt around until you reached all three endings. Once you know the town and have talked to everyone the first time, it's a matter of minutes to do the preparations before trying a new path toward victory.

And now I'm going to rebuild my son's LEGO pirate ship. Arrr!

A puzzle-filled pirate-themed adventure: the local publican's daughter has been kidnapped by nasty pirates. To rescue her, you'll need to uncover the mystery of their stolen treasure. Lots of intricate details implemented here: chatty NPCs who respond to lots of conversation topics, a pirate ship that requires nautical directions to navigate, a very cool imprisonment-and-escape sequence. Everything exudes an appropriate 1700s-era flavour. Puzzles aren't easy: I couldn't get past the crate puzzle in the warehouse, which sadly brought an abrupt end to the fun.