Bent Oak Island growing closer to release

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Retro point-and-click indie adventure starring fraternal twins coming this year to Windows PC

Summer vacations can be great for relaxing, but they're so much more fun when there's a mystery to solve. The twin protagonists of Banefire Games' upcoming Bent Oak Island will find that out for themselves soon enough, although the fact that the fate of a whole island – and perhaps even the entire world – hangs in the balance raises the stakes a whole lot higher than usual.

Bent Oak Island sure isn't what it used to be. It was once a popular tourist destination until 15 years ago, when "a fire burned through the town square and turned everything to cinders." Revenue dried up and the entire island withered in the aftermath, and now it's nothing but "a shell of its former self" with no hope for the future. The remaining residents share rumours of a "strange, hairy creature" seen "stalking through the forests of the nature preserve," and a grad student from the mainland university has measured "the beginnings of disturbing tectonic activity ... the same activity that happened 15 years ago on the night of the fire." Probably not the best time for Archer Oak and his twin sister Sam to come spend the summer with their "eccentric uncle," but as it turns out it will be up to them to uncover the secrets of this mysterious island and save everyone from "certain doom."

Inspired by the early 1990s point-and-click classics, Bent Oak Island features a distinctly retro pixel art style that falls "somewhere between NES and SNES graphics." There will be over a hundred different scenes to explore, from "mountain peaks to underground lakes, from abandoned factories to townie bars." The island is populated with a wide variety of locals, including the karate dojo owner who's lost his headband, and a fisherman who "swears the fish he catches are talking about him behind his back." You'll need to collect items and solve puzzles along the way, all while uncovering the rich lore of a "fully fleshed-out world" in a story that "starts out as a simple adventure [but] turns into something much wilder and weirder." A single playthrough is projected to take 6-8 hours, but there will be two main endings and even a third secret ending that "requires numerous optional puzzles to be completed."

There's no firm target release date just yet, but Bent Oak Island is already in a "fully playable" state and its solo designer CJ Shields is aiming to release the game on Steam sometime before the end of this year for Windows PC, with a demo and Kickstarter coming in the interim. To learn more about the game, be sure to drop by the official website for additional details.

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