Sometimes the high seas get ruff

What do you get when you merge pirates, voodoo, clowns, and a hot dog? Why, it’s Jolly Rover, a point-and-click adventure! Gaius James Rover sails the seas, transporting a shipment until he’s captured by pirates. And so begins James’s jaunty adventure through voodoo, pirates, and romance as he seeks his secret goal…to become a clown like his father.

As you travel across three hand-drawn islands, you can interact with each location with a simple mouse-click. Anything blue has something to hide, and a tap of the Space bar shows you everything you can interact with. An integrated hint system includes a parrot on James’s shoulder. Speaking to the parrot gives you vague information, and feeding him a cracker gets you more details. Eventually he’ll even tell you what you should do next.

“I think I need a better travel agent.”

Items you find are stored in inventory and can sometimes be combined to greater effect. Learning the voodoo spells adds them to a cheat sheet, which means not having to repeat individual spell movements. The spells become an intriguing part of puzzle solving, too. We found that some puzzles were obvious, some took strategic thinking, and the solution to others was pure chance.

The voice actors did a fine job, but the dialogue gets tiresome, especially all the “pirate speak.” The parrot could’ve injected real humor, but didn’t. Fortunately, you can click through the dialogue pretty quickly.

Jolly Rover includes a list of achievements (your loot), and a log of your rank, progress, points, and swag. You can also turn on developer commentary after the first completion for replay.

The bottom line. With its cute story, simple mechanics, and relative family-friendliness (it’s rated 12+ in the Mac App Store for mild cartoon violence, mild alcohol/tobacco references, and mild crude humor), it’s a funny high-seas romp.