It's no great spoiler to say that things haven't quite panned out for poor old Harry, which is fairly obvious given that he's lost deep within the bowels of the island. Call of the Sea is a pure puzzling adventure, so there's no combat, there's nothing chasing you or trying to kill you – it's just you versus the island, tracking down your heroic hubby, who embarked upon a dangerous expedition, in a bid to find a cure for Norah's terminal disease. (Especially those younger fedora-clad adventurers camping out in your family room.After a brief prologue, confined to Norah's room aboard a passenger ship bound for Call of the Sea's picturesque island, you'll take a rowing boat to its immaculate golden shoreline, before heading into the depths of a meandering and increasingly dark jungle. You’ll undeniably find a lot of visual splendor and noggin-testing challenges to enjoy, but this vintage-feel expedition may get a bit too dark for some.
On top of that there are several misuses of God’s name in the dialogue and a couple uses of “d–mit” (though the exclamations more often are limited to things like “jeepers” and “holy Moses”).Īdd it all together and you’ve got a fun puzzling adventure toting a fairly mixed steamer trunk. And we are dipped in a general atmosphere of mysticism and death in the latter parts of the tale. We’re forced (as Norah) to cut our own hand and wipe blood on a ritual alter. We see evidence of others who were plagued by whispering voices that drove them mad. We also learn of a native tribe that lived on the island and performed rituals and past sacrifices to their “Elder god.” There’s nothing overtly goopy, gory or spiritual here, but we do hear of people who have died or were killed. That fantasy mystery isn’t fully explained, but there does seem to be something otherworldly and possibly extraterrestrial about it all. No tentacled beasties stalk the island, but there is a dark, twisting fantasy afoot. I should note, however, that as Norah digs into the island’s mystery-something that actually does tie directly to the illness she suffers from-the tale takes a very creepy, Lovecraftian turn.
And unlike some puzzle adventures, this one eventually has a good reason for all the hurtles placed before the desperate-to-find-her-loved-one Norah. And then you must translate symbols, solve musical and memory challenges, and wrap your brain around all the many different environmental conundrums that the game tosses at you. You and Norah have to gather papers and clues that Harry and his fellows have left behind. And it features a very well written story with tons of smaller riddles to unlock a good-sized environment puzzle to master for passage through each chapter and a twisting overall mystery to eventually unravel. This, however, is a classic puzzle game with compelling art direction and a solid voice cast. The lush tropical vistas and sweeping underscore quickly transport you to an alluring world that you could almost just walk through and enjoy without puzzles. In fact, it has the feel of a game like Myst more than anything else. I mentioned a certain Tomb Raider protagonist up above, but in truth this first-person adventure game is all mysteries and puzzles with none of Lara Croft’s typical trigger-pulling antics. Could this island be his last resting place? As she explores the expedition’s abandoned campsites, gathers clues and bits of evidence, and then solves the island’s strange environmental puzzles, she hopes to put the whole story together and find the truth. Norah has an unexplained illness that has long afflicted her family members, and Harry seems to believe that he may have tracked the source of the disease to this tiny tropical isle, a place that the locals avoid like-well, the plague.Īfter a year’s absence with no word, however, Norah has no choice but to try and track down her beloved hubby. She simply knows that her husband, Harry, ventured off with a small expeditionary crew in search of a cure for her. When Norah first steps on the golden beach of a little island-situated some 74 nautical miles east of Tahiti-she really hasn’t got a clue what she’ll do next. In Call of the Sea, you’recalled upon to slip into the sensible shoes and skirt of one Norah Everhart: a young woman who discovers she has some Nancy Drew mystery-insights and a dash of Lara Croft puzzle-solving in her DNA. We close out the year that was 2020 with a review of a little mystery game that harkens back to 1934.
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