Golden Boy: Broken Relic

An ambitious point-and-click adventure that loves the classics.

Jun 23, 2025

‣ Broken Relic
From: Sandpenguin
Platforms: PC
Release: Coming Soon
Genre: Comedic 90s Point-n-Click
Steam Page • Demo Video • 10 Minute Video • Developer Site

Broken Relic carries a torch for the adventure greats of the mid-nineties.

The first day on a new job is nerve-wrecking. You don't want to screw up, at least not until you're settled in. You don't want to rock the boat. You certainly don't want to unleash Armageddon on the world.

Then again, maybe a job at a magical library is not for everyone. But it is an excellent place to start a classic-style point-and-click adventure called Broken Relic, a love letter to the genre's golden age.

You are the new apprentice at the Nytheris Archive, a repository of strange and magical books. After briefly helping your brother replace his helmet before his guard duty, you report to the library’s Archmaster for your first day. He instructs you to locate three unreturned books in the library. You are left to explore the library, interact with its characters, and figure out how to get those books back.

Other than the Archmaster, you'll also talk to a snotty student, the master of the pigeon post system, and a scholarly professor studying butterflies—if you can figure out how to wake him up.

Doing so requires meddling with pigeons in the postal room. You are trying to liberate one of the books from a hostile pigeon using it as a nest. That's a different problem, but you happen to find a bag of coffee beans. Once you brew a cup (even a fantasy library has a nice coffee machine), it will wake up the sleeping professor.

Maybe you can borrow his net to catch another book flying around magically in the garden. But what's that? He first needs to catch those agile butterflies. How to solve that problem?

This type of puzzle-solving is pedigree point-and-click adventure design. Players explore environments, gathering items and talking to characters, hoping to remove barriers in their way.

But Broken Relic doesn't stop there. It carries a torch for the adventure greats of the mid-nineties: colourful, lush, and ridiculous games that are as remembered for their dialogue and lateral puzzles as their stunning pixel art.

Even a glance at the screenshots will remind some gamers of at least one great adventure title, many likely from LucasArts. It even uses the same dialogue font. But Broken Relic worships a pantheon of classics, including games about quests from kings, worlds on discs and boy sorcerers called Simon.

Yet, it isn't a game that relies on nostalgia. It knows what makes this style of adventure game work.

Broken Relic is an ambitious project by a tiny developer called Sandpenguin. While the demo delivers in big ways, there are moments where it feels a little threadbare. The puzzle design is also not particularly deep or very elaborate, another apparent compromise between impressive vision and limited resources.

Yet, the developers put in the things that really count. The character designs and animations are funny and a pleasure to watch. The backgrounds are impressive and detailed. Some scenes are a real treat, such as the postmaster's pigeon-filled room and the last part of the demo where you encounter the titular relic.

Plus, all the characters are professionally voice acted! That's above and beyond what this demo needed to do, yet the developers knew that's precisely what brings the best out of this style of adventure game.

📽 Demo Snapshot: Have some coffee.

This is what ultimately distinguishes Broken Relic's demo. It only has a few scenes, a couple of characters, and a fairly straightforward sequence of puzzles. But all the care, attention, and direction are going into the right places, creating a game that punches well above its development weight.

It's hard to predict if the game will land those punches. Making a golden-era adventure game is not a small task. It can't just look good and have a few nice conversations and object puzzles. It needs to be vast, intricate, and full of surprises. Will Broken Relic go the distance? We'll have to wait and see. The developer has said it’s a four-part story, with the demo being Act 1, the shortest chapter.

Spoiler: you screw up your first day. You cause something that will require the rest of the adventure to sort out. Your day is not going well. But as a retro adventure game, Broken Relic is off to a fantastic start.