crowalt is a piratey point & click adventure, something that's not seen often outside the monkey island series. hugh, our hero, finds himself in crowalt after a bumpy ship ride, in search of a colony that disappeared 150 years earlier in roanoke, with only a sign remaining and pointing to where he is now. then he has a nightmare with graves of people he just met and himself, indicating things might not go as smoothly as he expected. nor is the game itself a smooth experience.

typical point & click fare, you'll talk to people, find and use items to solve puzzles, keep track of things in your journal, even if the journal doesn't keep track and always opens on the first page. there are a ton of fetch quests, everybody wants something before doing something else so you can do that other thing. also, artifacts to find for some extra lore, but after getting the second one, all the others unlocked, probably shouldn't work like that. and despite one being a map, there's no fast travel. graphics aren't exactly pretty, audio is unintrusive. the former doesn't matter much, except it's a bit too dark sometimes, the latter beats annoying, but the writing and grammar are subpar, the characters and the story aren't anything to praise either and that's a much bigger problem in a game like this.

controls are mostly as expected and described on the help screen. left click to move very slowly, twice to move somewhat faster, can't double-click on exits to leave the area instantly and with everything so zoomed in, there's a lot of tedious clicking just to get around, that's why an actual map would be handy. click the bag for inventory (mouse wheel should open it as well), drag items to use them, interact with things in the usual fashion. esc for the menu (no icon to click), space for a buggy or inconsistent hotspot indicator (people never, exits almost never, other stuff mostly, including things that can't be interacted with, and again, no icon). click on text to display the full sentence. no annoying text display sounds, but no toggle for instant display either, have to wait or click. every. single. sentence. it's incredibly annoying, as always, yet developers keep doing it for some inconceivable reason.

there are also annoying mini-games. bartending (or 'cheatending', as the game calls serving watered beer) is all trial & error, despite the instructions claiming guests will tell you what they want. at least I have no idea how I was supposed to figure out the beer-water ratio based on 'I had a really long night'. then I pegged 'my arms fell off from working all day, make me forget this pain' as a full beer order, but it wasn't. there are 10(!) guests to serve, each multiple times, you have a limited amount of beer (hence the need for water) and if they reject it, that amount is lost, if you run out of beer, have to start over. and this 15 minutes into the game.

you can refuse the job offer during a conversation, but I was sure I'd get railroaded into it anyway, and when I wanted to change my mind, I had to press alt+f4 because you can't bring up the menu during a mini-game. and to add insult to injury, the last autosave was after bartending had already started, so I lost some progress as well. and even if you refuse, clicking the bartender again instantly triggers the mini-game, no dialog options or confirmation. it's ridiculous. and no, it's still not over and remember, this is still about 15 minutes into the game.

I thought an alternative to bartending (because you still need money) was dealing with the pirates. that means 10 instances of qte without making a mistake. I managed in a single go, but qte in a point & click adventure is just as bad as trial & error puzzles. of course it turned out to be just an optional thing with no financial gain and bartending was mandatory after all. not that it paid the bill, that was another guy. I was on the verge of stopping completely but it was really early in the game, despite feeling like an age, so I looked the beer stuff up to see a bit more, hoping for no more nonsense like this. then inevitably found more nonsense, like a timed and randomized lockpicking mini-game. why would a lock on a barn in the 18th century have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ timer? seriously... finding each piece of the puzzle resets the timer at least.

a bunch of languages are available, they might be better or worse than the english version. settings include separate volume sliders and nothing else, plus there's manual saving over 3 measly slots on top of regular autosaves without any indication (I think they happen after entering a new location). can't name them but the date and time are shown. more slots would be better, another baffling decision to limit it this much. and one more thing that doesn't work properly: the new journal entry or artifact notification disappears slowly and you can't click anything until it does, as it removes every ui element. why not just put an exclamation mark next to it, like when there's a new item in the inventory?

it's done somewhat competently in a few areas, but I can't speak highly of anything to balance the minor and major bugs and annoyances, so I have to go with a thumbs down, it's just not worth the 5-6 hours to see it through. I shouldn't have either, especially without fast(er) travel to cut back on the extreme tedium of all that walking from one end of the town to the other. there's a demo if you want to try it for yourself.

[b]crowalt[/b] is a piratey point & click adventure, something that's not seen often outside the monkey island series. hugh, our hero, finds himself in crowalt after a bumpy ship ride, in search of a colony that disappeared 150 years earlier in roanoke, with only a sign remaining and pointing to where he is now. then he has a nightmare with graves of people he just met and himself, indicating things might not go as smoothly as he expected. nor is the game itself a smooth experience. typical point & click fare, you'll talk to people, find and use items to solve puzzles, keep track of things in your journal, even if the journal doesn't keep track and always opens on the first page. there are [b]a ton of fetch quests[/b], everybody wants something before doing something else so you can do that other thing. also, artifacts to find for some extra lore, but [b]after getting the second one, all the others unlocked, probably shouldn't work like that[/b]. and despite one being a map, there's [b]no fast travel[/b]. graphics aren't exactly pretty, audio is unintrusive. the former doesn't matter much, except it's a bit too dark sometimes, the latter beats annoying, but [b]the writing and grammar are subpar, the characters and the story aren't anything to praise either[/b] and that's a much bigger problem in a game like this. controls are mostly as expected and described on the help screen. left click to move very slowly, twice to move somewhat faster, [b]can't double-click on exits to leave the area instantly[/b] and with everything so zoomed in, [b]there's a lot of tedious clicking just to get around[/b], that's why an actual map would be handy. click the bag for inventory (mouse wheel should open it as well), drag items to use them, interact with things in the usual fashion. esc for the menu (no icon to click), [b]space for a buggy or inconsistent hotspot indicator[/b] (people never, exits almost never, other stuff mostly, including things that can't be interacted with, and again, no icon). click on text to display the full sentence. [b]no annoying text display sounds, but no toggle for instant display either[/b], have to wait or click. every. single. sentence. it's incredibly annoying, as always, yet developers keep doing it for some inconceivable reason. there are also [b]annoying mini-games[/b]. bartending (or 'cheatending', as the game calls serving watered beer) is [b]all trial & error, despite the instructions claiming guests will tell you what they want[/b]. at least I have no idea how I was supposed to figure out the beer-water ratio based on [i]'I had a really long night'[/i]. then I pegged [i]'my arms fell off from working all day, make me forget this pain'[/i] as a full beer order, but it wasn't. there are [b]10(!) guests to serve, each multiple times[/b], you have a limited amount of beer (hence the need for water) and if they reject it, that amount is lost, if you run out of beer, have to start over. and this 15 minutes into the game. you can refuse the job offer during a conversation, but I was sure I'd get railroaded into it anyway, and when I wanted to change my mind, [b]I had to press alt+f4 because you can't bring up the menu during a mini-game[/b]. and to add insult to injury, [b]the last autosave was [i]after[/i] bartending had already started[/b], so I lost some progress as well. and [b]even if you refuse, clicking the bartender again instantly triggers the mini-game[/b], no dialog options or confirmation. it's ridiculous. and no, it's still not over and remember, this is still about 15 minutes into the game. I thought an alternative to bartending (because you still need money) was dealing with the pirates. that means [b]10 instances of qte without making a mistake[/b]. I managed in a single go, but [b]qte in a point & click adventure is just as bad as trial & error puzzles[/b]. of course it turned out to be just an optional thing with no financial gain and [b]bartending was mandatory after all[/b]. not that it paid the bill, that was another guy. I was on the verge of stopping completely but it was really early in the game, despite feeling like an age, so I looked the beer stuff up to see a bit more, hoping for no more nonsense like this. then inevitably found more nonsense, like a [b]timed and randomized lockpicking mini-game[/b]. why would a lock on a barn in the 18th century have a fucking timer? seriously... finding each piece of the puzzle resets the timer at least. a bunch of languages are available, they might be better or worse than the english version. settings include separate volume sliders and nothing else, plus there's [b]manual saving over 3 measly slots on top of regular autosaves without any indication[/b] (I think they happen after entering a new location). can't name them but the date and time are shown. more slots would be better, another baffling decision to limit it this much. and one more thing that doesn't work properly: the new journal entry or artifact notification disappears slowly and you can't click anything until it does, as it removes every ui element. why not just put an exclamation mark next to it, like when there's a new item in the inventory? it's done somewhat competently in a few areas, but [b]I can't speak highly of anything to balance the minor and major bugs and annoyances[/b], so I have to go with a thumbs down, it's just [b]not worth the 5-6 hours[/b] to see it through. I shouldn't have either, especially without fast(er) travel to cut back on the extreme tedium of all that walking from one end of the town to the other. [b]there's a demo[/b] if you want to try it for yourself.