MISSING ON LOST ISLAND

A mystical adventure that will take you into the mysterious world of pirates, where honor meant more than life and blood flowed more often than rum.

• A non-linear story with many branches that will lead to one of four endings.
• A fun adventure game with black humor about the pirate Yeltsin, played by Jiří Labus.
• More than 100 game locations in beautiful hand-drawn graphics.
• A huge number of animations (over a thousand).
• Two types of music (Modern rock and electronic music, or classic pirate rhythms).
• Suitable for everyone from 9 to 999 years old.

~ badly translated from the back of the Czech box

 

I love a good old-school point-and-click adventure. So much so that I'm forever on the hunt to re-discover classics I may have missed. If, like me, you want to relive the golden days of early-90's point-and-click absurdity - with a healthy side of shirtless British humor and inexplicable sci-fi nonsense - Missing on Lost Island is just the ticket. Except it wasn't released in the early 90's. This pixel art adventure came out in the year 2000! The same year as Escape from Monkey Island! What gives? Proudly wearing the design sensibilities of 1992 like a badge of honor, this quirky little title somehow manages to be both a throwback and a head-scratcher in equal measure. It feels like someone unearthed a forgotten floppy disk, gave it a digital polish, and said "Let chaos reign!". And you know what? I kind of loved it.

The game begins with a bang - literally - as our earnest protagonist Tim watches his girlfriend Diana get zapped into another dimension by a trench-coated villain wielding what can only be described as a space-age cattle prod. Tim, naturally, charges in to save her and ends up getting zapped himself. He wakes up naked in a smoking crater, and your first job is to restore a little modesty. Once your bits are behind bitmaps, it's time to embark on a journey filled with drunken pirates, aliens dressed like Egyptian gods, and plot holes wide enough to steer a cruise ship through. The story makes no logical sense -  taking obvious inspiration from Hollywood movies like The Terminator, Stargate and Indiana Jones - and yet it's charming in its sheer audacity.

Right-click or tap Inventory to access your items (left).

Sometimes a kick in the groin is the best way to win a fight (right).

Despite its German box art (I couldn't find evidence of an English release) and Teutonic-sounding title (Verschollen auf Lost Island, to give it its original name), the game is entirely in English - and voice-acted too! The performances are understated, with Tim's mildly Liverpudlian accent seemingly recorded on a sleepy Sunday afternoon over a cup of camomile. Somehow, the calm reactions of the characters - no one screams, no one panics - only makes the whole thing feel even more surreal.

Graphically, the game looks like it stumbled out of a time machine set to 1992. We're talking lovingly pixelated 640x480 backgrounds and characters that wouldn't look out of place in Flight of the Amazon Queen. It's not much to look at, sure, but it serves its purpose: to place you in a bright, oddball world full of puzzles, pirates, and poorly explained plot twists. The game isn't trying to wow you visually, it's just trying to make you grin, and more often than not, it succeeds.

There are few mini-games, but it doesn't matter if you win or lose this Battleship inspired one (left).

The bane of any adventurer: mazes. This one is particularly confusing in its design (right).

Let's get the ugly stuff out of the way. Yes, there is a maze. A terrible, logic-defying, rage-inducing maze. And you'll have to go through it more than once. Forget mapping it - just study the individual screen backgrounds and use trial, error, and your growing sense of dread. Also worth noting is a massive game-breaking bug between chapters one and two. If you don't patch the game before this transition, you won't be able to save or proceed. Ask me how I know... Once that bug is squashed the game runs surprisingly well. Even on modern systems (though I used a bit of dgVoodoo just to be sure). The only issue I couldn't solve is the opening video file wouldn't play correctly, but as this is just company logos it's no big deal. 

Stability aside, the game does stumble in other areas - namely, its bizarre soundtrack. In the options menu, you can choose between two different soundtracks; "Modern" and "Pirate". No matter which one you choose, the music changes genres like a malfunctioning jukebox. One moment you're listening to vaguely Caribbean steel drums, the next it's spooky theremin warbles before transitioning to full-on trance. It's never tied to the action on screen, but perhaps due to the sheer variety, it never really got on my nerves either. In all honestly, I rather liked it. 

Puzzle-wise, this is your classic inventory-based adventuring. They're straightforward, mostly logical, and occasionally require you to combine items, but overall it's an easygoing challenge. There's no death either, so you can experiment without fear. And that's perfect for a game with a tone as ridiculous as this ones. 

The multiple paths are varied and interesting. Do you impersonate a wolf-headed

prison guard (left), or sneak past one to enter a spaceship (right)? Both are good choices.

The interface is also pretty simple. A smart cursor shifts automatically depending on context - no verb menus, no right-clicking - but I do miss the ability to 'look' at things. Aside from giving opportunities for comedic asides, it would've also been useful to decipher that jumble of pixels that takes up a slot in your inventory. As for the game screens themselves, they are neatly drawn and designed, refreshingly uncluttered and don't overwhelm you with red herrings or decoy items. The LucasArts classics have obviously made an impression to the background artist. And it's serves them well. It's lean and clean, which lets you focus on solving puzzles, reading Tim's wry commentary, and wondering what fever dream inspired the game's final act.

And speaking of endings, there are four of them, all hinging on a final decision you make late in the game. Save right before that moment, and you can enjoy every permutation - from a touching reunion to comedic disaster. This is not the only time the game diverts either. There are two moments that can lead you down altering paths. No matter which one you choose, they both end up at the same place but they each offer a wildly different journey. Do you succeed in attacking an enemy galleon allowing you to board in the ensuing fight, or do they sink your vessel leaving you swimming in the open ocean? Do you sneak past a prison guard or beat one up and impersonate them? A not-insignificant number of unique screens were created for each so it's well worth a replay just to see them all.

From its occasionally nude protagonists (with epic abs), highly expressive cutscenes and a plot that veers from pirate adventure to epic sci-fi by way of frat boy comedy, Missing on Lost Island may be a mess, but its a beautiful, baffling mess that's undeniably entertaining. It's short, silly, and surprisingly sweet with more effort put in than the initial fanmade preconceptions would have you believe. If you've got a soft spot for classic adventures, this one's worth getting lost in.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses dgVoodoo to run on modern systems. The presence of a real or virtual CD drive may be required to play. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 183 Mb.  Install Size: 443 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Missing on Lost Island is © Mayhem Studios & Riki computer games
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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