Broken Relic is a point-and-click adventure with a lot of heart and huge potential

Little-known fact about me: I have a massive soft spot for point-and-click games, a la Escape from Monkey Island and the other heavyweights of the ’80s and ’90s like Day of the Tentacle and King’s Quest. I’ve always got one eye open for any new ones that get released, and recently, an absolutely stunning example has caught my eye — Broken Relic. 

Broken Relic is a comedic fantasy point-and-click adventure being brought to life by solo developer Pablo Morales, otherwise known as Sandpenguin. It’s filled with all the familiar humor and sarcasm that Monkey Island has become renowned for, while still managing to be, frankly, exceptional in its own right. It’s fully voice-acted, with each character having a distinct personality and individual quirks, and there’s a demo available to play right now. 

Monkey Island-ish, but not entirely

The inspiration behind Broken Relic is entirely obvious to anyone who has ever played the Monkey Island games of old. Simon Alison does an incredible job as the voice of Tim, the main protagonist, and even the cadence with which he says certain lines really scratches that itch that I’ve always had for more Guybrush Threepwood-style dialogue. “Let’s talk about something else,” and “Ummm… No.” are when this inspiration is most obvious. 

The puzzles and interactions that you need to perform on the world around you are also reminiscent of Monkey Island, but you don’t need fond memories of them to enjoy the humor in Broken Relic. From the very beginning, when you’re berated by a friend for losing their helmet and proceed to hand over an old cooking pot in its place, there are a lot of moments that are guaranteed to make you smile. 

The Nytheris Archive is filled with interactive points, and while most of them contain items of information that you’ll actually need to complete the act, there are also a lot of items that are there just for world-building and for humor’s sake. Plus, there’s the option to press space to show interactive points, so you’ll never be left wondering if you’ve missed any interactions, important or otherwise.

A demo that leaves you wanting more

The demo takes you through their entirety of act one, right up until you finish your first day as the intern at the Nytheris Archive and inadvertently free an ancient villain from where they were previously held captive. 

We’ve all had a bad first day on a job, but I’m sure you’ve never had one quite this disastrous. However, Tim seems to be the typical “lovable-idiot-turned-accidental-hero”, and who doesn’t love one of those?

Once you reach the pivotal moment of the demo, when you’ve tried your best to be a good intern but accidentally ended up as possibly the worst the Archive has ever had, you’ll find yourself wanting to go off on an adventure with Tim to track down the missing three pieces of the Broken Relic itself, a staple plot point of the genre, but the demo ends at that moment with a fully voiced invitation to wishlist on Steam, which is a nice fourth-wall-breaking touch. It really softens the blow of disappointment. 

Room for improvement

The story of Broken Relic and the gameplay itself are utterly enjoyable, and I can’t complain about a single thing. However, that’s a very personal opinion, and while I strongly recommend that you go and try the demo, others have pointed out some points that you may feel could be tweaked. 

The walking speed, for instance, feels a little slow. For myself, I enjoy the pacing, but I can see why others may want to run through the different areas, especially in moments where there is a lot of back and forth between scenes. Others have pointed out that an option to skip through dialogue doesn’t always behave as you might expect. 

However, Sandpenguin has been quick to accept feedback through the Steam Discussion boards, and there is the option to double-click on doors to transition immediately into new areas, which really helps. They are working on these things, ready for when the game either releases or a future version of the demo, and improvements will be made in due time. 

One thing that I did notice while playing was that the game inexplicably closed while trying to switch to windowed mode or trying to load my previous game (which only happened because I tried to switch to windowed mode moments earlier). It wasn’t too big of a deal, considering I’d not even made it out of the first room when it happened, but I’m duty-bound to mention that this happened. 

If you want to try out Broken Relic for yourself (and yes, you should), then the demo is available now on Steam or itch.io!