The Mystery of the Pirate's Treasure

I spent a lot of time on the game, on both (grid) versions I think as sometimes I managed to get all the hints while I think in the first version I possibly never managed to beat governor's wife and discovered in your comments that the difficulty was lowered between the versions. 

The times I managed to reach the right place with the shovel I didn't manage to put the clues together to find the treasure (like the bright colour or the sweet thing I was really not sure what to look for). I expected at some point to stumble upon one generation that I could beat but it didn't happen during my numerous runs. That's perfectly fine.

The game is very fun. Environment is quite detailed and the dialogs are funny, it controls well, I like the silly chicken races and the placement of most objects by hand while the treasure and shovel are randomly placed. The time you get (including the rum of course) feels right to me.

It's funny, and possibly connected, that last year you made a quite easy game and this year a very hard one, I sure prefer the latter but opinions may differ. 

Possibly the one thing I didn't like in the grid version was how the tiles you can sail on were often not obvious enough, I guess it's not relevant anymore as while typing I just got a notification you just removed the grid.

Cool one!

A review of The Mystery Of The Pirate's Treasure:

Presentation: very visually impressive, on-par with commercial products and an impressive number of assets and attention to environmental-design (the lack of music and sound-effects really leaves a void though when the game-world looks this good). Night-time transition is a bit abrupt and too-dark, it would be nice to have a surrounding lantern-halo effect at night.

Controls: I understand this being a mix between a dungeon-crawler; Monkey Island; (and perhaps a bit of Myst) but would be nice to have free-roam controls with mouse-look too. The ship is awkward, including: engaging with sailing; a bug where you have to click the camera-toggle twice; and having to reverse out-of-port (which I love because it's hilarious)!

Game-play: I was surprised to find that the treasure's location seems to be randomized with each new play-through (and logically all clues too)! This is a genius-move both from a design and a player's perspective as it greatly enhances replay-value and challenge with minimal development effort! The game is tough and some aids like a map of islands could help.

Writing: really more of a back-drop here but deserves a mention. The effort put into giving each character some personality; quirky jokes; and an overall vibe to the game does add charm to the experience. Some of it lands; some doesn't but I'm glad it's there because this could easily be just dry; functional text, especially during the crunch of a game-jam!

However, I never managed to beat the game despite putting a non-trivial amount of time and effort into it, mostly because I ever only saw the shovel spawn once in all my play-throughs. I'm pretty sure I know at least one treasure location though and it's a shame I never got to dig for it.

I'll mention also that this is perhaps in a weird-spot for a game-jam entry. This isn't at all a criticism of this project's quality but it's easy to imagine most players would give-up long-before finding 3 clues; the shovel; let alone the treasure... especially with the short time-limit; a restart meaning new clues; and the time needed to first explore the world.

Perhaps the concept would work-better as a full-game instead. A more directed approach where one clue leads to the next rather than the sand-box scavenger-hunt with the ultimate goal of finding the treasure could also make the formula more accessible to some players (even though I very-much personally appreciate the current; tight; almost rogue-like design).