As we all know, the adventure genre has seen better days. Gone from the genre are pioneers like LucasArts and Sierra, but there are still developers out there that are keeping the fires burning. Germany’s Deck 13 is one of those companies and it had a bit of success with its first entry, the Egyptian adventure Ankh.

Now the company is back with Jack Keane, a game based in 19th century England and India that bears a striking resemblance in feel to Guybrush Threepwood’s adventures in LucasArts’ Monkey Island games. Much like an animated Disney movie, this game is built for both adults and children; there will be jokes that only adults understand, but kids will still enjoy the overall game.

This game revolves around a ship captain named Jack Keane. It opens with him tied up facing a couple of people for which he owes money. With your help Jack escapes and he takes a job commissioned by the Queen to go to Cape Town, South Africa to pick up one of her agents. From there your destination is Tooth Island near India where a mad scientist is hording all the tea leaves for some master plan. England is rightfully afraid of the tea leaves not getting to them because of the daily high tea that they so enjoy. The English without their tea is a recipe for disaster! Jack of course takes the Queen up on the deal simply to get away from the guys chasing him for money and the adventure is on.

This game is a breath of fresh air for any of us that miss the old style adventure game. Controls are simple since this is basically a point and click engine. The left mouse button will give you information on your highlighted option and the right mouse button is used for actions related to the highlighted option such as using Jack’s knife to cut a rope.

The story itself is well done, even though there are some jokes that fall flat. The plausible excuse for this is that the game was originally done in German and was translated and voiced in English. The translations probably lost a lot of the cadence of the jokes in the process or how the punchline actually is delivered.

For some reason Jack is voiced by an American while the rest of his crew and every character around him throughout the game talks with an accent, whether it be British, Indian or otherwise. It is strange that Jack isn’t voiced by a British actor because it is shown in flashbacks that Jack is a born and bred Englishman. It’s quite baffling.