Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice

Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice is a graphic adventure game based on Hugo Pratt’s classic comic series. Players take on the role of the iconic sailor and adventurer, Corto Maltese, as he embarks on a mysterious quest through the canals and narrow alleys of Venice. The game features point-and-click gameplay focused on solving puzzles, avoiding dangers like bullets and explosions, and fighting a mysterious poison, all while uncovering a deeper narrative set within the licensed world of the beloved character.

Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice: Review

In the pantheon of graphic literature, few figures possess the rugged romanticism and worldly mystique of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese. A sailor, a soldier of fortune, and a philosopher, his adventures across early 20th-century hotspots were ripe for interactive adaptation. In 2014, developers Kids up hill and Lexis Numérique, in partnership with publishers Bulkypix and Plug In Digital, attempted to channel this legacy into Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice. The result is a title that stands as a fascinating, albeit deeply flawed, artifact—a game caught between its profound reverence for its source material and its failure to deliver a compelling interactive experience. This review will dissect this ambitious but ultimately underwhelming journey, analyzing how a project with such strong foundational elements could drift so far from its destination.

Development History & Context

The early-to-mid 2010s were a period of significant transition for the adventure game genre. The point-and-click format, once the domain of PC classics, found a new home on mobile platforms, leading to a surge of titles designed for touchscreens. Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice was a product of this era, launching simultaneously on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and iPad in December 2014.

The development was led by French studios Kids up hill and Lexis Numérique. The latter had a notable track record in narrative-driven games, including the In Memoriam series and Red Johnson’s Chronicles, which shares several credited personnel with Corto Maltese. The project was a licensed endeavor, produced with the involvement of France Télévisions and Casterman Publishing, the longtime publisher of the Corto Maltese comics. It was also supported by French cultural bodies the CNC (National Centre for Cinema) and the CNL (National Book Centre), signaling its status as a cultural product as much as a commercial one.

The vision was clear: to create the first video game adaptation of Hugo Pratt’s iconic character. The team, including producers Eléonore Lamothe and Mathieu Détaint, aimed for authenticity. This is evidenced by the extensive use of original locations in Venice, with photographer Marco D’Anna capturing the city’s essence. The artistic direction sought to blend these real-world photographs with a watercolour effect and animated comic strips, attempting to bridge the gap between Pratt’s illustrated world and a tangible, historical setting. The involvement of 98 credited individuals speaks to a project of considerable scope and ambition, yet one that was likely constrained by the budget and technical limitations typical of the mobile-centric gaming landscape of the time.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

Secrets of Venice presents an original story, though it is “loosely based” on the comic Corto Maltese – Fable of Venice. The player does not directly control Corto Maltese, a curious and significant narrative choice. Instead, you are an unnamed tourist who is poisoned by a barman in a Venetian café. The barman tasks you with finding a fabulous emerald in exchange for the antidote, sending you on a frantic quest through the city’s labyrinthine canals and alleys.

The narrative structure hinges on this life-or-death motivation, but critics almost universally panned its execution. Adventure Gamers noted a “wafer-thin story” and “agonising dialogue,” while Pocket Tactics found the game “simply fails in a few key areas,” with narrative engagement being a primary shortcoming. The plot serves as a thin vehicle to introduce characters from the Corto Maltese universe, with the titular sailor appearing as a “dreamlike guide” accessed through a comic book the player character consults.

Key Narrative Elements:

• The Protagonist: The player’s avatar is a blank slate with no personality, whose sole motivation—surviving the poison—fails to generate compelling drama.
• Corto as a Phantom: Corto Maltese himself is relegated to a spectral advisor, a choice that may disappoint fans hoping to step directly into his shoes. He exists in animated comic strips that serve as flashbacks or visions, a clever idea for fan service but one that distances him from the core action.
• Thematic Aspirations: The official description hints at grand themes: “fighting the unknown,” “opening the doors of knowledge,” and finding “a magical balance and finally, utopia.” Unfortunately, these lofty ideas are not effectively woven into the player’s moment-to-moment experience, which revolves around solving disconnected puzzles to find an emerald.
• Supporting Cast: The game features both established characters from the comics and new creations. However, with “limited dialogue interaction and no voice acting,” these characters fail to leave a lasting impression, coming across as static figures rather than dynamic participants in the story.

Ultimately, the narrative feels less like a Corto Maltese adventure and more like a generic treasure hunt that occasionally pauses to pay homage to a greater work.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

As a point-and-click graphic adventure, Secrets of Venice operates on a familiar framework, but its implementation was cited as a major point of failure.

Core Gameplay Loop:
The game is a linear, first-person, slideshow-style experience. Players navigate fixed screens of Venetian locales, clicking on hotspots to examine objects, collect items, and solve puzzles. The interface is a standard point-and-select or touch-based system, depending on the platform.

Puzzle Design – The Fatal Flaw:
The consensus from critics is that the puzzle design is the game’s greatest weakness. Adventure Gamers stated bluntly that the “puzzles aren’t integrated and are irrelevant to the story.” This lack of integration is a cardinal sin in adventure game design. Instead of puzzles that feel like organic obstacles within the narrative, they come across as arbitrary locks requiring equally arbitrary keys, breaking immersion and player investment.

Tools & Progression:
* The Compass & Gazette: The game provides a mysterious compass and a gazette “full of stories and hints.” These are intended as built-in hint systems, a concession to the casual mobile market. The gazette, in particular, functions as a collection of Corto Maltese memorabilia, offering the “welcome time capsule of a classic pulp character” that Adventure Gamers highlighted as a positive.
* Two Difficulty Levels: The inclusion of two puzzle difficulty levels (“for beginners or insiders”) was a thoughtful, player-friendly feature, but it could not compensate for the fundamental lack of compelling puzzle design.
* Lack of Exploration: The game offers “no freedom to explore.” The fixed, flip-screen progression is rigid, making Venice feel less like a living city to uncover and more like a predetermined path of scenes.

The gameplay, therefore, becomes a repetitive cycle of moving to a new screen, tapping on every visible hotspot, and solving a puzzle that feels disconnected from the urgent, life-threatening premise.

World-Building, Art & Sound

If there is one area where Secrets of Venice unambiguously succeeds, it is in its visual presentation and dedication to its setting.

Visual Design and Atmosphere:
The developers made the inspired choice to base the game’s artwork on real photographs of Venice. Photographers Marco D’Anna and Marco Schievenin captured locations such as the District of Cannaregio, the Rialto Bridge, the island of Sant’Erasmo, the cemetery of San Michele, the famous Acqua Alta Bookshop, and the Porta dell’Arsenale. These photographs were then reworked with a watercolour effect, creating a unique aesthetic that blends the gritty reality of Venice with the painterly quality of a graphic novel. This technique successfully evokes the atmosphere of Pratt’s work, bathing the city in a melancholic, mysterious glow, especially at night.

Integration of Source Material:
The game’s most praised aspect is its use of Hugo Pratt’s original artwork. It features “motion comics” and “animated comic strips” from Corto’s adventures. When the player consults the in-game comic book, the screen transitions to these beautifully animated panels, with Corto’s stoic visage and world-weary eyes brought to life. This is the “fan service” that critics acknowledged as a high point, a direct and loving tribute to the source material.

Sound Design and Music:
The soundscape was crafted by Marine Desmolin and Gery Montet. While the game lacks voice acting, the music and ambient sounds aim to bolster the mysterious atmosphere. Notably, the game uses an extract from Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Pulcinella; suite for orchestra; Serenata’ in the cemetery sequence, a touch of classical refinement that hints at the artistic aspirations of the project. However, the sound design was ultimately not enough to elevate the core gameplay experience.

Reception & Legacy

Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice was met with a lukewarm-to-negative critical reception and failed to make a significant commercial impact.

Critical Reception:
* Adventure Gamers awarded it 2 stars (40%), concluding that it “fails to deliver an engaging story or gameplay experience worthy of its source material.”
* Pocket Gamer UK gave it a 6/10 (60%), calling it a “beautiful-looking effort… hamstrung by a wafer-thin story and agonising dialogue.”
* Pocket Tactics was more severe, rating it 4/10 (40%), stating it “simply fails in a few key areas.”
* On aggregation sites like MobyGames, it holds a 40% average from critics, while user scores are similarly low.

Legacy and Influence:
The game has largely faded into obscurity. Its legacy is twofold:
1. As a Cautionary Tale: It serves as an example of the challenges inherent in adapting beloved literary properties to video games. Aesthetic faithfulness is not enough; the core interactive loop must be engaging and meaningfully connected to the source material’s spirit.
2. As a Niche Curiosity: For dedicated Corto Maltese completists, the game remains a curious footnote—a visually authentic but interactively deficient piece of franchise ephemera. Its collection of original artwork and motion comics provides value as an interactive archive, but not as a fulfilling game.

It did not pave the way for further Corto Maltese games nor did it influence the adventure genre in any discernible way. It stands as a missed opportunity, a project where clear passion for the source material was undermined by a lack of compelling game design.

Conclusion

Corto Maltese: Secrets of Venice is a game of frustrating contradictions. It is a title crafted with evident love for Hugo Pratt’s creation, manifested in its beautiful, photo-based watercolour art and the reverent inclusion of original comic strips. For a brief moment, when the screen dissolves into one of Corto’s animated adventures, the game captures a glimmer of the magic it so desperately seeks.

Yet, these moments are islands in a sea of mediocrity. The game is ultimately sunk by a poorly conceived protagonist, a disengaged and thin plot, and, most damningly, a collection of puzzles that feel arbitrary and disconnected from the narrative. It is a classic case of style over substance, where the packaging promised a thrilling quest for “a magical balance and finally, utopia,” but the contents delivered a mundane and poorly integrated scavenger hunt.

Its place in video game history is secure, but not prestigious. It is a relic—a beautifully framed picture with a hollow center. For all but the most devoted Corto Maltese archivists, Secrets of Venice remains a secret worth leaving undiscovered.