First glimpse of The Legend of Skye appears on the horizon

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

New SCUMM-style retro adventure from the creator of The Castle in development for 2024 release

In 2019, Carles Moya of IshtarArts brought us The Castle, a retro point-and-click adventure inspired by Maniac Mansion. For an encore, the indie Spanish developer has announced a slightly-less-but-still-retro new adventure called The Legend of Skye.

There's trouble brewing in the secluded grove that a young druid named Skye calls home. What that trouble is has yet to be revealed, but it's dangerous enough to threaten the grove's very existence. So when the tribe calls on Skye to carry out an "important mission" to confront it, she'll need to gather up her courage, throw on her blue cloak and "leave the safety of the forest behind and go explore a world full of dangers." Still young and inexperienced, with much left to learn from her tribal elders, Skye has two key advantages in fighting the threats to her forest: a magical bag that can "hold all the inventory items in the world," and a forest spirit who will never leave her side, helping to "guide the girl through the most difficult moments with his wise advice."

As with its predecessor, The Legend of Skye features a classic pixel art aesthetic, a SCUMM-style nine-verb interface, and plenty of humorous dialogue and puzzles to solve along the way. This time, however, there are a few key differences. Set in a "fantastic medieval world," the game's art style is noticeably more detailed, although still using a 320×180 resolution, resembling the point-and-click classics of the early 90s. In keeping with that evolution, there will be no dead ends like there were in The Castle, and there will be two difficulty levels available, catering to both beginners and experienced players who want the complete challenge.

It's too early just yet for a target release date, but the developer is hoping to complete The Legend of Skye sometime in 2024 and release it on Steam for Windows PC. For those who'd like an early taste of what to expect, a playable demo is available until June 26th during the Steam Next Fest event.