DP Challenge 17/100 - Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

Game: Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

Ranking: 22/100

Score: 86.18%

Zack wants to be the greatest pirate in the world, armed with his motley crew of Sea Rabbits and a weird floating monkey that can turn into a bell and follows him around relentlessly mocking him. For some reason, rich and spoiled Captain Rose sees this as a threat and shoots down his aeroplane. Zack crashes on an island and finds the cursed skull of Barbaros, the most feared pirate on the whole land. Barbaros offers Zack his legendary ship - the ship he says made him the greatest pirate ever known - in return for finding all the scattered pieces of his body and lifting his curse, so he can go back to being the greatest pirate ever known. Zack agrees, thus proving he is the stupidest pirate the world has ever known. Will we need to be smarter to solve all of the game's tricky puzzles?

'To adventure!' Is Zack meant to be a small child?  I just don't know. I do know he spends all his booty on hairspray, though.
(source: CNet)

Intro

The manual has a nice 'treasure map' design and each page is kept uncluttered. The opening story is straight-forward, and the characters we are introduced to are cute and quirky. You start playing relatively quickly; after the brief opening cutscene and some comedic moments between the eager crew, you're straight into the tutorial.

There is no real sense of premise in the manual. The opening cutscene mainly consists of black screens with white descriptive text on them - hardly the most interesting way of introducing your game. Oddly, once you agree to creating a save game file, you are taken to a screen prompting you to select your save file. Of course, you don't have one yet, and it's not explicitly stated what you need to do to continue.

The series of text descriptions could have been placed over the nice animation of your aeroplane flying through the skies (which they bizarrely save for the much longer credit sequence). We could have had some little flashback animations concerning 'Treasure Island' with tantalising glimpses of the place, to make the opening a little more interesting. A minor point, but why even take you to the 'select save file' screen the first time you save the game? It would be nice if you could bypass that altogether, or at least have a little 'press A to continue' message.

Is anyone else weirded out by the fact this rabbit eats meat? Of course, the less well know fact about rabbits is that they don't give a toss about unethical farming methods.
 (source: CNet)

Getting Going

The initial puzzle you are faced with is very obvious, giving you the chance to get the hang of how the controls work and how you can interact with your environment. The game is very good at letting you know when you've done something successfully, cheering you on at every tiny achievement. Although the tutorial level is a discrete one, the puzzles in the first world have a good learning curve so you don't feel overwhelmed by the difficulty as you're getting the hang of what you can do in-game.

The incessant whooping and cheering for performing every task starts to grate after a while; it lessens the impact when you actually do something meaningful. Another slightly irritating part of the introduction level is that you are constantly interrupted by Wiki's chatter to the point that it really breaks up the flow of the game.

The large amounts of explanation given to you by your character's companion Wiki in the tutorial stage are by and large unnecessary; I'd like to have seen these cut down so you can get through the level more smoothly.

I don't think these spirits are expelled by the magical powers of Wiki when transformed into a bell; just the mundane powers of Wiki being thoroughly irritating.
(Source: CNet)

Fun

The puzzles swiftly become increasingly complicated and more dangerous to your character as you progress through the game; there are obstacles and enemies that can kill your character if you don't handle them correctly. You never find yourself in a situation where you cannot complete a level; necessary objects will respawn if they are destroyed and if you die, you can restart from the point you snuffed it. However, the fewer mistakes you make solving a puzzle, the higher your score (or HQ points); there's an incentive to solve the puzzle in one go. The encouragement you get from Wiki (when it's not practically constant as in the tutorial stage) is a nice way of showing you whether you're on the right track.

There isn't a massive amount of 'fear' when going through these levels; there's no time limit and you can repeat every action numerous times. Perhaps this changes further on in the game, but apart from the score incentive, you have nothing to actively make you anxious when trying to figure out the interconnected puzzles.

Perhaps the excitement level could be upped if each level had a time limit where you could continue puzzling once it had expired, but you only obtained the treasure you seek if you complete it within the limit. Or if some of the puzzles had timed elements to get your heart racing a little; such as multiple levels that have to be activated before another one deactivates itself. The puzzles as they stand are fun and thought provoking, but there's no real feeling of stress as you try to complete them.

Anybody got a flamethrower? Or some salt?

Visuals

The visuals are cute, cartoony and very quirky; the design feels unique to the game and is carried over at every point. It's easy to see which objects you can interact with as the cursor changes colour accordingly. Also, the background and useable items have suitably contrasting colour schemes, so it's unlikely you'll find yourself struggling to uncover necessary objects to complete puzzles with. You get useful information through character animations; you'll get a big reward message if you complete a successful action that has helped towards solving a puzzle, and if your action didn’t do anything useful, Zack will have a speech bubble with a grumbly black cloud in it. There are lots of nice little touches, such as Zack chomping on a chocolate bar if he's left idle; if he dies, there's usually an amusing cutscene depicting the result.

There's very little to fault graphically, but a really minor issue I noticed was that when you shake the Wii Remote to use Wiki as a bell and convert creatures into objects, the pretty visual effect can obscure the object you've created. This becomes a bit of an issue when you've created a ticking time bomb and need to get it from one spot to another before it explodes.

Perhaps if converted items were always generated in front of your character and in front of the bell-ringing effect it would prevent this issue, but this is a very minor detail.

Don't know how to perform an action? Fear not; Creepy Naked Guy is always on hand to show you.
(Source: CNet)

Intelligence

The puzzles are well-thought out and generally quite logical. The really interesting thing about each levels is that there appears to be more than one way of solving them - for example, I played an early level where you had to turn a respawning frog into a bomb (just go with it) and send it down a chute to knock out an enemy. From here, you are meant to pick up a worm, use it to bait the enemy's fishing rod and catch the giant deadly fish in the pool below so you can continue. This involves a very tedious fishing sequence that has never been fun in any game ever. However, you can also use the worm to lure the frog down a chute so you can turn him into a bomb in a place where you can drop him into the pool, where the fish will eat it and explode. This implementation of multiple solutions is a really neat idea, and it deliberately rewards you for thinking outside the box and coming up with slightly radical methods to solve the puzzles.

There is an element of pure trial and error to these levels, however. Once you find an item you can interact with or transform, then you know you'll probably need to do so to complete the puzzle. This appears to be deliberate, and it's a little annoying when clicking on an item trumps logical thinking. For example, one of the levels requires you to zipline on an upside-down umbrella. Fair enough. How do you get the umbrella? By clicking on a bat hovering ominously in a cave, which will make it fly towards you, and then using Wiki as a bell. This transforms it into an umbrella. Obviously. There is no way you can work this out without blindly pointing and clicking - and in a level where the only other creature in it will kill you, that's a bit cheeky.

I'd like it if this game gave you the opportunity to get information on an object or creature without actually trying to grab it when you click on it, just to give you a bit of a hint as to what you might be able to do with it before approaching it when it could potentially kill you.

See, told you.
(Source: CNet)

Immersion

The discrete layout of the puzzles make this a point and click adventure which creates lots of opportunities to feel a sense of achievement, as you gain a necessary piece of Barbaros after completing each puzzle level. It's easy to keep playing level after level, as you get multiple stages to choose from. As your progress will only be saved once you complete a level, there is incentive to keep ploughing on until you complete a puzzle, rather than just saving and walking away.

One problem with the discrete level setup is that the game doesn't feel as interconnected as it could. You are conscious that you are completing levels, rather than feeling as though you are exploring an island searching for treasure.

I can appreciate the choice of short, distinct levels with individual puzzles, but I think I'd like to see some longer puzzles that cover greater areas, where you could carry more than one item and save your game progress in the old point and click style. This would allow for more complex puzzles without the annoyance of having to keep going back and forth to pick up and exchange items.

There are some sleeping mushrooms nearby. Let's spike the soup! It'll be hilarious!
(Source: CNet)

Cameras

The camera setup is really comprehensive. You have a standard third person static view, which can be made to scroll by using the 'B' button and pointing in the appropriate direction. On top of this, there is an overview camera that lets you view the entire level in 2D form, as well as zoom into specific areas. You can control your character in this view as well, which allows you to traverse greater distances with a single click onscreen.

There isn't much to gripe about with the cameras, except that you can't zoom in to examine the background or what's behind an object. Generally this is fine as the levels aren't designed to try and hide things from you in this way.

However, it would be nice if you could zoom in on an area when you are in the standard static view, just so you could examine your immediate environment more closely. This would be especially useful when you want to look at something one of your characters may be obscuring when you don't have much room to manoeuvre.

Do as Creepy Naked Guy says!
(Source: CNet)

Controls

The controls are simple to use - point the Wii Remote and click where you want to walk, point the Wii Remote and click on what you want to select, shake the Wii Remote when you want to transform an item or scare off ghosts. Easy. On top of this, there are several other Wii Remote manoeuvres that allow you to handle objects. You can flip objects over by flicking back the Wii Remote, you can turn objects to different orientations by twisting the Wii Remote, you can drop items when interacting with large objects by twisting the Wii Remote. It's all largely intuitive, and you even get a little person in the corner of the screen showing you how to perform any object-specific actions. The Wii Remote is used quite nicely in these games and utilises all of its gyroscopic features. Playing this game, I felt that it would appeal to younger players purely because of the control mechanisms.

The controls aren't perfect, however. Sometimes, you can click on an area you want Zack to walk to and he just won't - you have to click in quite specific areas before he'll move, and often he won't move into completely standard wide-open spaces because of some perceived obstruction. Oh, and let's talk about fishing. I found this aspect just didn't work. There were several times I was flicking my Wii Remote like a trooper only for the screen to register no activity at all. Of course, the moment I stopped as instructed by the game, it registered the movement of me actually bringing the Wii Remote to a halt as flicking it about. Everything else seemed to work fine, but I did notice a rather glaring omission. One of the tips you can get in the hub world chirpily states 'remember, the controls are designed for right hand use!'. So, good luck if you're left-handed and want to play this game; not only are there no options, but the game proudly boasts this fact. Another minor quibble I have is the controls implemented to drop items. You have to click on the item in the HUD and drag it out of its circle. This is fine, but if you want to drop it in a specific orientation (as I did when trying to drop the worm near the chute to attract the frog in one of the puzzles), it proves difficult because your character turns around to follow your pointer, and thus will drop the item in whichever direction he is facing.

I struggle to see why it would have been particularly difficult to have a left-handed option for the controls. Surely it would just be a case of inverting the current controls and allowing the player to select that on an option screen? You need this kind of control option precisely because this game involves twisting and flipping the Wii Remote; whenever you're expected to move the Wii Remote from vertical to horizontal movement (such as when dropping an item onto another useable object) a left-handed player is going to automatically do this the opposite way around. In fact, you probably only need to change the controls for that small subset of manoeuvres. Oh, and I would like a 'drop' button for when I want to place an item outside of the prescribed object interaction areas. Seeing as the game allows and rewards you for doing things outside of these areas to complete puzzles, it should make it easier to drop items in a specific orientation.

You need to flip some items to use them. But not on this screen. How confusing.
(Source: CNet)

Ideas

This game has lots of fun features; chiefly the ability to solve puzzles in numerous ways. Not only does this encourage you to look at different ways to solve a puzzle, but it encourages you to go back and play levels again just to see if there's any other way you could solve it. There's also a fun little sub-game element where you can call up the skeleton of a composer and play a bell-ringing rhythm game; if you get close enough to the beat, you'll win a treasure map. The fact you can use the Wii Remote in so many different ways certainly adds to the fun, and increases the chance that you'll end up looking deeply silly to anyone who walks in on you playing. On top of this, the characters and world are quite funny. You play a ridiculously over the top child-like pirate with an amusingly selfish companion, and you have a rival/enemy character who's like a pirate Verruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Every character you meet is off the wall and has a very distinct personality, and some of the dialogue is genuinely amusing - this is a game that likes to pummel on the fourth wall quite a lot.

Perhaps this improves as you get further into the game, but I found many of the puzzles weren't that involved. They're all rather separate pieces that really don't relate to each other, save for the treasure you're trying to obtain. There's also a weird stab at a multi-player mode. Basically anyone can grab a Wii Remote and start drawing on the screen when you're playing. Apparently this is to allow them to point things out to you, but I can't think of anything more distracting than someone scribbling over the screen when you're trying to look for an item. Also, a minor irritation I had was with the fact that you could only carry one item at a time - even if you had another hand free. The only purpose it seemed to serve was in making solving a puzzle more irritating, rather than more difficult, when you had to keep backtracking to pick up an item you needed.

A game like this doesn't need a huge inventory to over-complicate it, but it would be nice if you could carry two or three items at a time to lessen the annoyance factor of having to backtrack over the level purely because you can only carry a single item. I also think it would be interesting to have a few interconnecting puzzles, where you need to carry items from one stage along to another in order to complete each puzzle.

And nobody's drawn a phallus on-screen with their Wii Remote? Really?
(Source: CNet)

Memory

This is a quirky, addictive puzzle game that allows you the freedom to think outside the box and come up with multiple solutions to solve problems. While this would interest older players, the game's cute and cartoony feel, coupled with its intuitive and novel controls, would easily attract younger players into playing a puzzle game. The graphical information you receive makes it easy to tell if an attempted action had furthered your cause or done nothing at all, and you won't spend ages scrabbling around for necessary items as it's generally clear what you can interact with in your environment. I was definitely left thinking about the puzzles and wondering if there were different ways I could have completed them. The camera views were used really well, too - the fact that you could not only get an overall view of the level, but still move your character I found really handy.

There are niggling annoyances with the game, such as the insistence on only letting you carry one item at a time so you are forced to backtrack over each level purely to pick up different items rather than to solve a puzzle. Also, the cute, quirky style could be quite irritating to players - although I did laugh at quite a few moments, there were several times where I just wanted Wiki to shut up and by the fifth time you've seen Zack fall into the treasure chest once you've cleared the level, you may sort of want him to get stuck in there permanently.

I would have liked to be able to carry items through to other levels and been able to hold a few items at once. It would have been especially interesting if you could carry items from other levels that helped you find alternative solutions.

Oh, fishing. Throughout gaming history, whenever fishing has been incorporated into a game it has been welcomed eagerly. If by 'eagerly' you mean 'bitterly'. And by 'welcomed' you mean 'endured'.
(Source: CNet)

Overall, Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure is a really fun puzzle game which allows you to apply multiple solutions to a problem and rewards you for ingenuity, although the lack of any semblance of an inventory does leave you backtracking in a way that feels counterproductive. The big question on my mind, though, is why Zack sounds like he's munching through a pack of crisps when he eats a chocolate bar?