Review: Captain Cutter's Treasure

(The winner of PunyJam #1, where the starting location for all entries was the Broom Closet of The Red Anchor. A short diversion, competently made and fun.
Captain Cutter’s Treasure - Details (ifdb.org))

By golly, Jolly Roger!

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!

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