After five years in the making, Bolt Riley: A Reggae Adventure Game, is debuting today on multiple platforms as an early access title.
The two-dimensional point-and-click adventure about an aspiring reggae musician was created by Oded Sharon, a game developer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and his Adventure Mob team. I’ve met with Sharon over the years, and he has had an unflinching focus on getting the game finished.
The first chapter of the game is launching on Steam, Humble store, and Razer ForgeTV. Bolt Riley takes place in 1970s Jamaica and follows the path of Bolt Riley on his path to stardom. The game was funded fully through a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. The game won the top prize in a game contest I saw in Tel Aviv at the Casual Connect Israel event.
“We’re launching the game with high expectations,” said Sharon, Adventure Mob’s CEO, in a statement. “We are committed to our backers to deliver the game on time, so we pretty much have the date set in stone, and we are working very hard to weed out all the bugs. We’ve chosen this particular launch date, well… because we wanted everything in the game to be properly baked and didn’t want our backers to get the munchies.”
The game is appears to mirror the life of reggae legend Bob Marley, but the story makes no reference to him. It is about a young man growing up in a very poor area of Kingston, Jamaica. He loves music, and after discovering reggae music, he wants to become a singer.
In the game you play as Bolt and help him discover his inspiration. He needs to write great songs and put together a talented group of musicians. He has to deal with some gang members who pressure him to become a criminal. Instead, he chooses a path of peace and goes against the violent environment he lives in by helping out his fellow townsfolk, reuniting families, and bringing joy and harmony to his neighbors.
Adventure Mob created the game in collaboration with Lori and Corey Cole, creators of the Quest for Glory series who took part as design consultants on this project.
Voice acting was performed by Anthony Sardinha (The Journey Down), Jesse Lowther (Quest for Infamy) as the narrator, and Jason Linere White (Scrubby) as Bolt Riley.