A review of The Mystery Of The Pirate's Treasure:
Presentation: very visually impressive, on-par with commercial products and an impressive number of assets and attention to environmental-design (the lack of music and sound-effects really leaves a void though when the game-world looks this good). Night-time transition is a bit abrupt and too-dark, it would be nice to have a surrounding lantern-halo effect at night.
Controls: I understand this being a mix between a dungeon-crawler; Monkey Island; (and perhaps a bit of Myst) but would be nice to have free-roam controls with mouse-look too. The ship is awkward, including: engaging with sailing; a bug where you have to click the camera-toggle twice; and having to reverse out-of-port (which I love because it's hilarious)!
Game-play: I was surprised to find that the treasure's location seems to be randomized with each new play-through (and logically all clues too)! This is a genius-move both from a design and a player's perspective as it greatly enhances replay-value and challenge with minimal development effort! The game is tough and some aids like a map of islands could help.
Writing: really more of a back-drop here but deserves a mention. The effort put into giving each character some personality; quirky jokes; and an overall vibe to the game does add charm to the experience. Some of it lands; some doesn't but I'm glad it's there because this could easily be just dry; functional text, especially during the crunch of a game-jam!
However, I never managed to beat the game despite putting a non-trivial amount of time and effort into it, mostly because I ever only saw the shovel spawn once in all my play-throughs. I'm pretty sure I know at least one treasure location though and it's a shame I never got to dig for it.
I'll mention also that this is perhaps in a weird-spot for a game-jam entry. This isn't at all a criticism of this project's quality but it's easy to imagine most players would give-up long-before finding 3 clues; the shovel; let alone the treasure... especially with the short time-limit; a restart meaning new clues; and the time needed to first explore the world.
Perhaps the concept would work-better as a full-game instead. A more directed approach where one clue leads to the next rather than the sand-box scavenger-hunt with the ultimate goal of finding the treasure could also make the formula more accessible to some players (even though I very-much personally appreciate the current; tight; almost rogue-like design).