Game Info
GAME NAME: Chests O’ Booty
DEVELOPER(S): Wildmane Studios
PUBLISHER(S): Wildmane Studios
PLATFORM(S): Nintendo Wii U
GENRE(S): Puzzle
RELEASE DATE(S): October 16th, 2014
Chests O’ Booty from Wildmane Games puts itself in the quantity over quality debate right from the get go. The Wii U version has been ported over Kongregate, a free web-based gaming platformed. The ultimate question is though, is it worth paying for to play on your home console?
There isn’t any story or adventure mode in Chests O’ Booty. Instead, there are three different modes in which you are playing the same game but with different settings. In Casual mode, you can play for as long as your heart desires and nothing really matters. High scores won’t be saved, you can not win or lose and there really doesn’t seem to be any purpose. In Timed mode, you have a minute to get the highest score possible. A way to increase the time to get a higher score, or online leaderboards would have been a great addition. Versus mode is the last mode in the game. In this mode you go against another plunderer in attempt to sink their ship first by winning tokens to pay your crew to take out the other player.
The gameplay is simple enough yet challenging at the same time. You use the left analog stick to control the cursor and then move the cursor over top of a coin and either use the A button to add it to neighboring coins, or the B button to dispose of the coin. From here it is a game of math. Five 1 cent tokens will net you a 5 cent piece, two 5 cent tokens will net you a 10 cent piece and so on up to using five 100 cent tokens to get a gem. Netting 3 gems together in versus mode enables you to buy your crew to reign havoc on your enemy. In the other two modes gems are used for score.
The game’s graphics look identical to the web-based version you will find on Kongregate. It doesn’t look any better then a higher end mobile game which is disappointing for a Wii U title. The sound track does it’s job but I have heard better melodies and catchier tunes in puzzle games.
The Recommendation
Chests O’ Booty from Wildmane Games has a good foundation but the lack of really any interesting modes keeps this game from doing anything special. Casual mode is pointless and timed mode is over before it begins. The lack of any Wii U specific feature except off-screen play (which should be standard) is troublesome. The versus mode is the high point of this title but in the end doesn’t do enough to save itself from feeling like the free web game that it started as.
