''Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island'' is an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

developed by

Autumn Moon Entertainment Autumn Moon Entertainment is an independent computer game developer founded in 2002 by Bill Tiller. The company specializes in traditional graphic adventure games in the style of the LucasArts classics, particularly '' The Curse of Monkey Island'' ...

and released in 2009. The concept and design were created by William 'Bill' Tiller, who was also responsible for the visual look of ''

The Curse of Monkey Island ''The Curse of Monkey Island'' is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts in 1997. A sequel to 1991's '' Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge,'' it is the third game in the ''Monkey Island'' series. It follows protagonist Guybrush ...

''. The game was released in November 2009 in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, throughout the rest of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

on February 19, 2010, and finally in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

on August 30, 2010 by German publisher dtp entertainment. The game is built on the open-source

Panda3D Panda3D is a game engine that includes graphics, audio, I/O, collision detection, and other abilities relevant to the creation of 3D games. Panda3D is free, open-source software under the revised BSD license. Panda3D's intended game-development ...

game engine. The game had limited commercial success but was nonetheless followed by a small crowdfunded spinoff, '' Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler!''

Gameplay

The gameplay follows standard

point-and-click adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based me ...

s. Having been cursed, the three protagonists -- Papa Doc, Jane Starling and Blue Belly - are able to interact with the world directly or as ghosts. As ghosts, they are capable of moving through walls and manipulating things without being seen or heard. However they are unable to pass through or touch "ghost warding barriers" such as lines of salt. In normal human form, the characters can use individual sets of skills, communicate telepathically and switch player characters to solve certain puzzles. Of the three playable characters, Papa Doc is a "Vooju" priest with expertise in reading hieroglyphics, Jane Starling is a nimble pirate and forger, and Blue Belly is skilled in cooking.

Plot

The protagonists must try to prevent the resurrection of a demon god, which is being orchestrated by Papa Doc's wife, the Vooju witch Queen Zimbi, aided by the pirate crew of Greenbeard and an army of zombies. After Zimbi captures the pirate king Flint and knocks out the three protagonists, they find themselves cursed with their souls separated from their bodies. In the first part of the game, the three protagonists have to find a way to reacquire their bodies, reattach their souls, and obtain a ship in order to leave Vooju island and seek help. They have to do so before they are turned into zombies or before the cock crows thrice, otherwise they are forever lost as ghosts. In the second part of the game, the three have to gather allies and stop Greenbeard's attempt to attack Blue Belly's home port. In the final part of the game the three heroes must defeat Zimbi's evil mother Mama Malidei and stop the demon god's resurrection.

Reception

This game received mixed reviews and had limited commercial success.

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

gave it a 69% based on 12 reviews, and

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave it a 66 out of 100 based on 14 reviews.

References

External links

Official website
{{in lang, de 2009 video games Video games about ghosts Point-and-click adventure games Video games about pirates Video games developed in the United States Video games set on fictional islands Video games featuring female protagonists Video games scored by Pedro Camacho Windows games Windows-only games Video games about witchcraft DTP Entertainment games Single-player video games