Trading in whip for a pocket knife and Nazis for nefarious tea-takers, Jack Keane is the closest thing possible to a cheeky Indiana Jones adventure. Far removed from the dark and dreary adventures that populate the genre, the game's light-hearted nature goes well with its classic adventure gameplay. What really promises to make Jack Keane a thrilling adventure is its streak of surprisingly good humor. Like the LucasArts adventures of old, the game could prove a pleasantly colorful infusion to a sadly forgotten genre.

Jack's adventure starts off unexpectedly. After being knocked unconscious, he wakes up in an attic high atop London's monumental timekeeper Big Ben. The two thugs holding him threaten to take his galleon, the Charming Princess, unless he pays a debt. Quick footwork and little creative talking get Jack out of the situation, only to find him called upon by the English Secret Service. An uptight agent explains that the crown needs him to act as a courier for an undercover operative tracking an overseas criminal mastermind. England's supply of tea from the Indies has shriveled up and it's the fault of Doctor T, a botanist hidden away on the remote Tooth Island. Traveling to Tooth Island is Jack's only job, but he'll end up taking on Doctor T himself to guarantee the sanctity of the Queen's afternoon tea.

Moving Jack around the static levels takes a click of the right mouse button, which is also used to interact with objects. The cursor changes contextually to reflect how you can interact with an item; for example, mouse over Jack's ship the Charming Princess and the cursor turns into a magnifying glass allowing you to examine it. A moving hand icon lets you know the object in question can be picked up or interacted with in some way. At any time you're not certain what type of action can be taken, a dialogue running on the bottom of the screen displays whatever action is capable regarding the object on which the cursor is currently resting.

Any objects collected appear at the top-left of your screen. Using an item to interact with the surrounding environment is simple, requiring a quick tap of the right mouse button to select the desired item from the inventory and then applying it with another press of the right mouse button. In the first chapter, for example, Jack needs to climb down from a precipice high atop Big Ben; unfortunately, slippery bird droppings make the descent impossible. Finding a dry cloth and the dousing it in a bucket of water proves the perfect things to wipe up the mess. With the cloth in Jack's inventory, selecting it and then soaking it in the water means just right clicking the bucket. The wet cloth automatically goes into the inventory where you can select it and use it on the droppings. It’s old school adventuring.

You won't find hair-pulling puzzles here. Plenty of clues and clear objectives ensure that you won't have too much trouble figuring out what to do. Jack always thinks out loud, letting you know of what needs to be done and potential ways of accomplishing it. When tackling the bird dropping crisis, for instance, Jack made the task at hand easy by saying he needed to find a way to clean it up. (A camera pan to the cloth certainly helped too.) These hints may seem like much to an adventure aficionado, but for more casual players jaded by the ridiculous challenge posed by these games Jack Keane is an accessible reprieve.

Hand-in-hand with puzzle-solving is conversations with characters that shed light on Jack's adventure. A talking bubble icon shows up when mousing over characters that have something to say. Dialogue branches onto various topics depending on your choices; naturally, extracting whatever information you may need requires selecting appropriate options. During the second chapter when Jack stops in Cape Town, South Africa, setting sail is totally dependent on convincing the secret agent to board the Charming Princess. The only way of doing this is to talk him up, answer his questions, and prove Jack's identity as the courier for his mission. Choosing the correct conversational options gets your through, whereas poor choices simply start you over.

Convincing him to do so isn't easy, especially considering the operative has a few loose screws. His disguise while staying in the South African port consists of a sombrero and hackneyed Mexican accent. Interacting with kooky figures like these are likely to make playing Jack Keane worthwhile. During the course of a couple chapters, the game had some undeniably funny moments. At one point in Cape Town, a well-dressed beggar tells Jack to just stop playing the game because "all games do is make people aggressive anyway." Jack Keane is in many ways a throwback adventure game and might be worth a look when it ships in early April.