Maupiti Island (video game)

Maupiti Island is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Lankhor. It was released in 1990 and it's the sequel to Mortville Manor. The player controls Jérôme Lange, a detective who attempting to solve a crime by interacting with various characters and collecting clues while further events unveil a complex plot.

Gameplay and plot
Maupiti Island is a graphical point-and-click adventure game. Time plays an important role in the gameplay. Depending on the time, the various characters switch between the 28 different locations and certain events only occur at a specific time and place. as Jérôme Lange, the player must uncover clues and objects in dialogue with the people present and by examining the various scenes in order to uncover the mystery of the criminal case.

Maupiti Island is set in the year 1954. The premise of the game begins with Jérôme Lange on a trip to Japan from Madagascar but when a hurricane happens, his boat gets on a anchor in a tiny colonial outpost in the Indian Ocean. During the night, a woman named Marie disappears. Jérôme Lange is in charge of the investigation.

Reception
Maupiti Island was a great artistic success in France. A columnist for Joystick praised the game for its "solid script" and "superb execution". Reviews of the game were mixed. While the graphics were mostly praised, there were criticisms of the plot and the pace of the game. At times the title has been compared to Delphine's Cruise for a Corpse. PC Gamer writer Richard Cobbett felt that the game was an attempt to create a more realistic detective plot, and played out in pseudo-realtime, with characters constantly moving around the island. He praised the game's graphics and speech synthesizer.

Cancelled sequel
Sukiya was going to be a sequel of Maupiti Island. The plot was to take place in Japan and was meant to feature a playing interface similar to Maupiti Island's. The game was supposed to be released in early 1993 but the game was never released due to financial difficulties within the company and low sales of their latest adventure game Black Sect. Sukiya was seemingly in an advanced stage when the decision to interrupt development was made. In 2019, a crowdfunding project tried to finance a remake but did not find sufficient financial support.