Foolish Mortals Review

So many adventure games take inspiration from some of the genre’s most revered names, yet very few can capture the magic those titles have. That isn’t to say that those that can’t are bad, but there’s something special about playing a game that evokes fond memories. Inklingwood Studios’ debut title Foolish Mortals claims to be inspired by the Broken Sword and Monkey Island series, and not only does it manage to achieve an incredible mix of the two that feels familiar yet new, it’s also one of the best adventure games I’ve played since co-founding WellPlayed in 2014.

The story of Foolish Mortals takes place on the fictional island of Devil’s Rock, off the Louisiana coast, in 1933, where auditor Murphy McCallan has arrived to investigate the mystery of the treasure of Bellemore Manor under the guise of recovering debts owed by the Bellemore Trading Company. The catch though, is that Bellemore Manor is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of a wedding party that vanished 30 years ago, and to find the treasure, Murphy will need to awaken the spirits in the house and uncover the truth about what happened. Naturally, he’s not the only one hunting the treasure, so it’s imperative that Murphy finds it before time runs out.

The treasure lies within those walls, apparently

It doesn’t take long for Foolish Mortals to make it known that this is a point-and-click game built on the love of the genre. From the moment you speak with a fisherman named Ned in the town of Deadnettle, to fully embracing a wild adventure, chasing lost treasure and interacting with ghosts, it all feels warmly familiar. But what also makes it a delight to play is the excellent cast of characters, all of whom are superbly written and voice acted, led by A.J. LoCascio as Murphy. There’s a lot of dialogue in Foolish Mortals, but I never tired of learning more about the characters or seeing what they had to say, especially when a war colonel would let fly at the local priest.

It’s also got the looks to match, with some truly spectacular hand-drawn environments that are full of detail, and fantastically rendered character models and animations. The grounded riverboat – also the home of the island’s witch doctor and the eerie, longstanding church – perfectly encapsulates the vibe of Foolish Mortals. Plus, the mouse cursor is a ouija board planchette, which is cool. The game’s composer Richard Prohm deserves a round of applause for his work on the soundtrack. The score is more than a collection of music, it’s a dynamic part of the experience, elevating moments that matter and reacting subtly to others, creating a level of immersion that a lot of adventure games struggle to do.

Gameplay is the standard point-and-click fare these games are known for. Players will explore a handful of locations around Devil’s Rock and the Bellemore Manor, searching for clues, acquiring items, interacting with characters, and solving puzzles. When it comes to the latter, Inklingwood Studios has done a great job of making the puzzles and their solutions feel logical based on the world. There are some excellent puzzles here, one in particular requires forging a boat captain’s licence, while another involves spooking a couple of gangsters, but there are several standouts.

Amen

Foolish Mortals has one of the best hint systems that I’ve encountered

The puzzles often require items (or multiple combined), with some items having multiple uses, so if you think you’ve been hanging onto something for a long time with no reason, there probably will be one. Being logical doesn’t mean that they’re easy though, with a couple bordering on being a little too obtuse, especially one involving puppets. Luckily there’s a hint system here, and a great one too.

Curse me under your breath if you want to, but any modern point-and-click game should have some form of hint system. As kids, we barely had the Internet until the late 90s, and there was no TikTok or YouTube (until 2005 anyway – I was 18 then), so we had no option other than to tough it out and solve puzzles through trial and error. This often meant that the immersion was broken, and once frustration started to set in, players would give up. But I’m close to 40 now with a full-time job, I don’t have the hours to spend lying in bed thinking about how to solve a puzzle.

Thankfully Inklingwood Studios agrees, and Foolish Mortals has one of the best hint systems that I’ve encountered. If the player is struggling with how to proceed, and after some time has passed, Murphy will give a suggestion about what the player could do next. But if you want to seek hints out, you can do so in Murphy’s journal, which will give you as much information as you request – either prodding you in the right direction or outright giving you the answer if you keep asking. While I very rarely needed the solution (in the interest of time, I may have taken a couple of shortcuts, don’t cancel me), I appreciated the ability to get a hint when I wanted to, meaning that I never felt bogged down and the narrative didn’t lose its momentum.

The locations and art style work together to create a great atmosphere

Like most point-and-click adventures, Murphy will be to-ing and fro-ing between the same locations countless times. This can become a real pain in the arse if the developer hasn’t anticipated how tedious it can become, but luckily Inklingwood has made some design choices that makes this relatively painless.

For a man under the pump to find lost treasure, Murphy walks a little slow. Of course, a double click of the mouse will see him move in a brisk jog or double clicking a new location will see Murphy automatically transport there, but that’s normal for a point-and-click game. Foolish Mortals has some fast travel options to help with traversal. The first one is the ability to move to any location via the map (although, irritatingly, you can only exit the map by travelling to an area), which is pretty common in adventures.

But what impressed me was that on the right-hand side of the UI, players can travel directly to the fireplace inside the Bellemore Manor main hall, which really is a godsend given how many times you’ll be needing to head back to the manor after getting an item from elsewhere on Devil’s Rock. The second design shoutout is that on the screen at any time will be a location that you can double click to move straight to. These couple of quality of life features show that the devs really know their audience and how to mitigate the less exciting parts of an adventure game.

However, I was disappointed that the game didn’t have controller support, which meant that I couldn’t play it on the Xbox Rog Ally X during the review period. I know it’s not traditional, but I do like to use a controller when I have the option.

Gangsters in the house of God

Final Thoughts

Throughout the 12ish hours it took me to roll credits, you can see that this is a developer that understands adventure games and their players. With a story that is engaging from start to finish and is packed full of memorable characters, mostly satisfying puzzles and has a gorgeous art style and immersive soundtrack to boot, Inklingwood Studios has nailed the brief for what it takes to create an outstanding adventure, and to do it with its first try is very impressive. But the real feather in its cap is the quality of life features that ensure the player never loses momentum and spends their time enjoying the good stuff.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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