Adventure Gamers - Forums

Welcome to yet another community playthrough, my dear washed ashore friends! This time, we’ll tackle beautiful Return to Mysterious Island, with even more beautiful Mina in the main role!

The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne published in 1875., and along with other his most-known novels made him popular all around the globe and placed the foundation of the modern science fiction. While “Michel Strogoff” is his “more realistic” novel, The Mysterious Island might be labeled as “adventure survival”, though elements of science fiction, relevant for the time, are still present. The book revolves around 5 prison escapees during the U.S. Civil War, who rode in a Jules Verne’s favorite transportation device - balloon, and found themselves on an unknown small island it the south Pacific. They named the island Lincoln Island (to honor the American president) and started fighting for survival - using their knowledge and experience in the field of engineering, physics, chemistry, nautical science etc.

The Mysterious Island is sort of “spinoff” to the other Verne’s popular novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” but I better not reveal why.

Return to Mysterious Island

French Kheops Studio, the spiritual successor to Cryo Interactive, during the hard times of our niche genre garnered a reputation for visually appealing and historically/literary inspired games. Return to Mysterious Island is one of their earlier titles, but it had written “quality” all over it, and one can argue that it introduced a totally new concept in adventure gaming, that will be more or less followed in all of their titles - with immense inventory system (you can easily have 20 items in the first 5 minutes of the game) and freedom when it comes to puzzle-solving. But I’m getting ahead of myself - what about the story?

It follows young Mina, who tried to sail around the world in her catamaran in order to break the world record, but she finds herself shipwrecked at the, you guessed it - Lincoln Island. It goes from bad to worse when she finds out that her phone battery is dead, and that the island is out of reach to the exterior signal due to electromagnetic fields. From now on - she’s armed only with determination, just like 5 protagonists of the original story. At the beginning of the game, Mina’s health will be indicated on the health bar on the bottom left of the gameplay screen, and also in the Inventory menu. Later in the game, you will befriend… no, let that stay a surprise! The first order of business is to find some food.

Gameplay

Combining and dismantling items is one of the unique approaches of the game, and since you have freedom to combine items, there’s also times when you can dismantle 2 or more combined items in order to get back the single item needed for a different action. It’s one of the more original aspects of the game that also lets you solve puzzles in various ways. Furthermore, not only that you get points for your progress in the style of Sierra games, but “how” you do it also matters, sort of “style points” for ski jumpers. The number of items (even multiple iterations of the same item) might seem overwhelming and like a scavenger hunt, but the game never steps out of the sane logic, and there are no dead ends. Speaking of inventory screen, it’s adventure in itself, and I will just let you explore all the features, from Phone, Journal… to a special surprise!

The gameplay is a Kheops-typical node-based game with 360-degree scene panning. The sounds, and especially the dramatic interactive music helps bring the island atmosphere to life. The progress is interrupted with book-like drawings of key events.

Where to get it?

Steam,GOG, or hunt down the beautiful boxed versions on Ebay or Amazon:

Playthrough

We will divide the game in 5 acts. You can never be lost (wait, you already are!) in the sense that you’ll be “trespassing” in the next act as there are certain actions needed to be done in order to be there, and I’ll inform you of that. Since the nature of the game is freedom, we can never be at the “same ground” concerning items in possession and certain nuances, but at least plot-wise we’ll be alright.

I’ll give you a few days for you to wave ready from the beach, and some of the players already confirmed they’re good to go in the voting thread.

SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN! Also, I had problems in the sense that the game would sometimes start and sometimes not, and I have simply decided to alt-tab the game all the time until I’m finished. If you have some other technical issues, please write it here and we’ll try to find the solution.

Hey, can’t promise I’ll have the time for this one, but I’m going to try and come along for the ride.

At least I have a working installed version of the game, so i’m waiting for you guys on the beach.

I played some of this game years ago, can’t remember much about it but I’m fairly sure I didn’t get all that far in it. I do remember combining a lot of things in the inventory though.

Looking forward to returning to Mysterious Island soon!

I ordered from GoG and there is no mention of Microids anywhere in the credits. I got the game going and played 10-15 minutes. There doesn’t seem to be multiple save options. I was simply prompted to “save the current” game. The real test, I guess, will come when I try to reload the current game. I’ve got a few things in inventory that seem like they should work together (the rusty nail and the flint) but don’t.

FWIW I’ve not played the game before.

Hi!

I haven’t played this game before. I have got the Steam version, it’s installed and it seems working fine.

When are we going to start playing, diego?

Karlok - 16 July 2023 07:50 AM

When are we going to start playing, diego?

Today, as soon as the Wimbledon final finishes. I’ll post the first part soon.

Act 1: Operation survival

1. You’re here
2. Old boat wreck
3. The cliff
4. The rock
5. The uphill
6. The rocky stairs
7. The plateau
8. The crevice
9. Rocky arch with a pool
10. Sand beach 1
11. Sand beach 2
12. Coconut grove

You notice that your mobile phone’s batteries are dead. There is no way to send out an SOS… and apart from the phone and your clothes, you do not have anything else.

Let’s play some RPG… uh, I mean adventure game, and find some food because the health bar is low. Of course, feel free to search the beach for anything useful. Stop when you free the passage at the plateau, and make way to another set of locations. Let’s have 5 days to do so, if you’re all ready before that or need additional 1-2 days, please say so.

Wow, great map, diego! You and maps.

I played RtMI many years ago and I remember the first two areas best. I’m going to experiment a lot with the inventory objects and try to achieve a high score. I usually don’t care much about scores except when I love a game and want to get as much out of it as possible. Anybody with me?

PS: I don’t believe I have read anything by Jules Verne. Should I?

rtrooney - 14 July 2023 03:57 PM

There doesn’t seem to be multiple save options. I was simply prompted to “save the current” game. The real test, I guess, will come when I try to reload the current game.

As far as I know you can save as many times as you like. Overwriting a previous save is also possible of course. But I would have liked the option to name each save.

Karlok - 16 July 2023 12:39 PM

Wow, great map, diego! You and maps.

I stole it, and just named the nodes. But thanks.

Karlok - 16 July 2023 12:39 PM

PS: I don’t believe I have read anything by Jules Verne. Should I?

Zobraks will be with you in a minute.

Guys, where are you? Feel free to write the progress.

diego - 17 July 2023 10:53 AM

Karlok - 16 July 2023 12:39 PM

PS: I don’t believe I have read anything by Jules Verne. Should I?

Zobraks will be with you in a minute.

Yeah, with a cane. Naughty Karlok!

Jules Verne was my favourite writer when I was a kid (Karl May was the other huge influence) and Mysterious Island was one of the first books I’ve picked in the local library (when my father threatened to wring my neck if I don’t stop reading only comic books and give some genuine literature a try).

diego - 17 July 2023 10:54 AM

Guys, where are you?

I’m here (in the same town where I was born many years ago), simmering in my own sauce. It’s hot like hell.
I almost suffered a heat stroke yesterday when I went for a bike ride.

Oh, wait, you meant participants…

I’ve managed about 45 min of wandering around. I managed to build a fire so I obviously collected enough to do that. I ate three oysters that I cooked over the fire. but still didn’t have enough energy to move the scaffolding.

I collected the egg from the nest but haven’t found a way to get to the nest that’s above it.

Can give a list of the things I have in inventory if that helps. That’s where I am.

@zobraks: I love reading about all kinds of subjects but nowadays I only read one or two novels a year. Don’t know why, I just lost the appetite for it.

@rtrooney: Since you mentioned eggs, I noticed something weird. The game tells us raw eggs are inedible. But when you use the rusty thingy on a raw egg and eat it your score goes up. (Only for the first egg.) Must be because you combine two inventory objects. You can also eat eggs cooked in the fire and then you get no points. 

OK, I have cleared the way to the plateau. I remember the screens vaguely from a long time ago, but the inventory screen brought the memories flooding back!

It’s a good looking game for the time for sure, the animal animations on the title screen are great too. However, something about the sky looks a little ‘Truman Show’…

The music is nice too, fits the scene well.

In terms of gameplay I think I remember being put off by all the scrabbling around for food last time. Having said that, now that I was expecting it this time it felt fine and I foraged and pillaged my way through to a full health bar. Just waiting to chop some logs, mine some ore and build myself something now!

@diego – love the map and nodes, it’s so easy to miss an area with the 3D node based thing.

Karlok - 16 July 2023 12:39 PM

PS: I don’t believe I have read anything by Jules Verne. Should I?

I haven’t read that much Jules Verne, but in short, ‘Around the world in 80 days’ is well worth it for something of a swashbuckling roller coaster ride around the world in Victorian times.

’20,000 leagues under the sea’ is my favourite with one caveat. About 75% of the book is an incredible undersea sci-fi epic with some really great characters and exciting situations. However, the other 25% is essentially descriptions of fish as far as I remember it! (I may be exaggerating). Still well worth your time for Captain Nemo and the Nautilus.

‘Journey to the centre of the earth’ I remember less well, but I think I found it slightly harder to get into. Another fascinating story though. Even if the Adventure Game version of that one wasn’t the absolute best…

Never read Mysterious Island or any of the moon stuff though.