Call of the Sea

Call of the Sea is a beautiful game with simple but enjoyable puzzles, fantastic voice acting, and excellent narration. It’s not overly long, but it’s packed with charm and quality from start to finish.

If you enjoy casual puzzle adventure games, I definitely recommend giving this one a play-through!

This is a really great game. The story is intriguing and the storytelling by the main character, Norah, engaging. Beautiful VA work all around.

Most of the puzzles were ones I could solve without guidance, but as much as I love games like this, I struggled with some of the intricate later game puzzles.

It took me a little over 5.5 hours, which I'm happy with at this price point. I do wish there was more replayability, but the lack of that is common in these types of games.

If you love a good story, even if Lovecraftian stuff is not your jam, give this one a go.

Great puzzle game, fantastic story. I need more games like this.

A tip: You'll want to limit the framerate in your Nvidia Control Panel or similar software, otherwise it'll use far more GPU than it actually needs and give you some crazy high temps. I limited it to 80 and had no further issues.

This was a pretty surprising game for me. I saw the trailer and screenshots and thought it looked like a cool puzzle-y adventure game in the same vain as Myst, with a comfy atmosphere and compelling style. What I got was way better though. If you've somehow not spoiled it for yourself, and think the game looks interesting, then I heavily recommend giving it a go and just seeing where it takes you. If it's your sort of thing then you'll almost certainly enjoy it.

If you want more info though, or simply are reading reviews after finishing the game to see what others think, then feel free to read on.

Lovecraftian first-person adventure games are an odd sub-genre. They are usually jank, run terribly, have poor writing and/or voice acting, and don't really do a lot with the dense theming that they've chosen. This one however? Oh my frick. Not only was I totally surprised to even find a spooky atmosphere, with some psychological horror elements as well, but the Lovecraftian themes were something I had NO idea was in this game at all. And it's by far the best use of it I've seen in a game like this. In fact, this is easily the best game in the aforementioned sub-genre. It's got impeccably good dialogue, perfect voice performances, gorgeous environments, an enticing plot, and the ending I chose made me fricking cry lol. I also only found 2 of the game's puzzles to be a little too obtuse. In fact there's one where even after looking up the solution, I still have no idea how it works lol. But besides that, It's fantastic. This game is awesome. If you enjoy this sort of thing, it's a goodie.

Also I ended up looking back at the first page of the puzzle notes during the final level... And the meaning of it felt QUITE different lol. Man this game is just brilliant. 10/10

A fantastic game!
For people loving the Mystlike style, this is one of the best, and there are not so many of that kind...

PROS :
Graphics, colors, textures, lights and ambient are excellent and beautiful. (Even on my old machine, I found a setup more than satisfying)
The story is simple and good enough to take you in, with the fantastic parts of the scenario well integrated.
The variety of puzzles are pleasant, quite easy and always logical.
Music is good and discretely well fitting in the story.
This game is a perfect mix and I was really surprised of the quality for the price.

CONS :
I can't see any!

Let me know what you think... :)

i loved the story and animation style. great for anyone who likes mystery and puzzles. The puzzles get quite difficult.

Very disappointing. Requires far too much suspension of disbelief. Had great source material, and then completely throws any attempt at realism out of the window.

All of the puzzles feel like reading IKEA instructions and then following them. No sense of myst-ery. I remarked multiple times after getting the answers to a puzzle basically written for me in my journal, that the game had given me the answer, and I could just guess what to do through process of elimination at best. And, even with that, the puzzles were strangely hard to find occasionally, with progress in one area locked behind finding numerous generator switches, even long after you've gotten the power back on. This is to say nothing of the puzzle where you get the organ back online, which basically consists of trying to remember a series of meaningless shapes, which are sufficiently visually indistinct that even after knowing the combination, which, again, frankly is given to you, rather than being deduced in a way that feels satisfying, you can easily make mistakes by confusing almost entirely homomorphic glyphs that appear to have no meaning, and, indeed, no relation to anything even approximating a real tuning system, which is just huge missed opportunity in creating a puzzle that actually relates to music in any way, instead of being another glorified combination lock, the difficulty of cracking consisting only of how much you're willing to tolerate the player's incredibly slow movement speed to make adjustments.

All of the areas are laid out far too conveniently, with the standard trope of finding the logs of dead people who seemed to write everything down for no apparent reason, or massive numbers of photographs apparently developed on an island with no darkroom, that happen to capture every story beat. Also, the narrator states the obvious constantly and ruins any sense of mystery or tension, and isn't really interesting enough to be a character in her own right. Turned it off halfway through after getting too tired of pretending there was more here than a promise of doing something interesting with its inspirations. I really wanted a proper mythos horror game that takes place mostly at daylight in the tropics.

Oh, one last thing. The physics for the birds. They don't fly like birds at all, and seem to be moving around more like you'd expect fish to. This just seems like a lazy reuse of code that was probably originally written for fish, or much larger flying animals with more inertia. And, somehow this code is badly optimized enough that the entire area you first interact with them happens to just...not load sometimes, leaving behind a void populated only with floating trees, a skybox, and some fragments of levitating mountain. Honestly, the laugh that I got at that technical issue was perhaps the most fun that my friend and I had while attempting to finish this game.

Oh, another thing. The amount of time that it takes to climb up and down ladders in this game is atrocious. There's basically no reason to do it, especially since some of the time you're interacting with ladders supposedly as shortcuts. They're still painfully slow and dull, and while your snails pace of a running speed also makes the game slow and dull, it at least offers you something to look at other than a wall.

Synopsis: Needed more honest playtesters. Honestly, the fact that this game has a new tabletop adaptation makes me wonder significantly why the whole game wasn't originally playtested as a Call of Cthulhu scenario, in tabletop. Really would have made it clearer which things were fun faster, and that approach was actually used by Rand and Robyn Miller in the creation of the original Myst and its sequels.

Will I finish? I hope I respect myself enough that I don't. I might. There's a chance that my overall starvation when it comes to any games that try and approximate the experience of playing Call of Cthulhu is so extreme that I will want to go to tentacle IKEA again, and hope that I can assemble a Star Spawn or something. But, the puzzle in this game are only about as satisfying as a very soggy side table, and the plot does not thicken.

I was pleasantly surprised with this game - and having read other reviews - yes this game is slow, but it have walking simulator aspect of it, so it's more suitable for puzzle loving gamers that don't mind the slow pace and walking/light jog to locations. Playing Chapter 1 and 2, you have an idea of the story and gameplay, but at Chapter 3 and 4, it took an unexpected turn, and you're like, okay I see where this is going, let's get to Chapter 5 and 6 to conclude the story, and it took quite a turn comparing to Chapter 1.

If you're looking for a Tomb Raider esque game, without the combat and shooting, then you may like this! There is a ruin to explore, lots of notes and point of interests to explore to and to take note of on Norah's journal book, and there is Tomb Raider esque puzzles to solve, but the main story is nothing like Tomb Raider, only the ruin aspect, archaeology aspect, and puzzle aspect are feeling like they were inspired by the likes of Tomb Raider and Uncharted. The story have some supernatural element in it.

The colour vibrantness of this game may make it seems like a cosy adventure game, but as the later Chapters goes, it get less cosy so I would say that this is not a cosy game, but quite a vibrant adventure game. The fact that this game got Lovecraftian tag on it, it is not a horror game by far, it has some dark moments in the story, but definitely nothing too spooky or scary as you'd expect in a horror game. No jumpscares either.

You would enjoy this if you enjoy - games with Archaeology elements, walking simulator games, adventure games, collectathon (collecting lores, diary logs, murals etc), and puzzle games.

It took me just under 8 hours to finish this game and 100% it, so it being priced at £16.75 for 7-8 hours, little bit overpriced for a walking simulator adventure game IMO - u may enjoy it more and feels that it's worth more if you grab this on a sale. I really enjoyed the archaeology supernatural adventure of this game, and am happy that I got this game on a sale.

Don't let the critic scores fool you. Game is poorly written, movement is trash and incredibly slow, 3 hours of my game play was likely due to just being held down at a snails pace. The puzzles aren't challenging, but mind numbing at best. Graphics aren't that bad, until they flash bang you with a 20 sec pure white transition. I fell asleep a handful of times just trying to get my 5$ worth out of it. Definitely not worth 20$.

Score: 7/10

I spent around 6 hours with Call of the Sea, and overall, it's a solid puzzler that stands out for its atmosphere and narrative twists. The game initially lures you in with a bright, tropical color palette—almost deceivingly cheerful. But don’t be fooled: once Chapter 2 kicks in, the tone shifts dramatically, and you start to realize what the game is really about. That tonal change is one of its most intriguing strengths.

The puzzles are well-designed for the most part—I'd say I enjoyed about 80–90% of them. That said, there’s one puzzle involving constellations that tested my patience more than my brainpower. It drags on longer than it needs to, with a tedious trial-and-error mechanic that kills the pacing. Instead of feeling clever for solving it, I felt relieved it was over. It’s the kind of puzzle that makes you second-guess whether you’re missing something obvious, or just stuck in design limbo. Thankfully, it's a rare misstep in an otherwise enjoyable lineup.

The storytelling unfolds gradually, and the deeper themes are surprisingly emotional by the end. What truly stuck with me were the chapter endings. Each one feels grand and theatrical, often paired with music that perfectly fits the moment. They leave a lasting impression and give the game a unique rhythm that keeps you moving forward.

That said, Call of the Sea doesn’t exactly master any one area. It’s good—sometimes very good—but never quite great. Still, if you enjoy puzzle games with a mysterious story and an evolving tone, it’s definitely worth playing.

Beautiful artstyle and intriguing story to follow. Good level design and interesting puzzles that are not too obvious, but also not too easy to solve straight away. A great cozy game for those who enjoy a laid back gaming experience. :)

Gameplay -

- Movement
The movement is clunky and slow. It's not inherently bad, its just not for me. The movement is weighty and the camera shakes to give the appearance of real walking. The issue I have with the movement is that it ends up feeling slightly arbitrary. It feels as though the distance between different puzzles is only there to keep you in the game longer, rather than designing the levels to suit puzzles. I guess the game I am comparing it to in my mind is Portal. That game is obviously very involved with its movement and I know that's not entirely a fair comparison but it did bug me throughout the playthrough. Because of this style of movement, the game ends up feeling less like a puzzle video game and more like an escape room. If that's the style they were going for then that's a job well done, but it didn't suit me. I got used to it after a bit though.

- Puzzles
The puzzles were fun. Some of them were easy, others were more challenging. Another thing that had it feeling more like an escape room was the fact that the puzzles don't hardly build on one another. There were some aspects of puzzles that carried over, chapter to chapter, but the a lot of it didn't. This, again, is not inherently bad. I just enjoy the format where the game starts with easy puzzles and teaches you the basics, then slowly incorporates new types of puzzles until the puzzles are crazy complex, yet, can be broken down into their essential pieces. Here, however, the puzzles don't always carry over and so you often times have to try several things before you understand the logic behind a particular puzzle (or maybe I am just slow :D). In that way it is similar to an escape room where you essentially just look around for things that may come in handy in the later puzzle and it often doesn't have any consistency to it.

Other than that, I did enjoy the puzzles and the challenge some of them presented. It was a very fun game despite my critiques.

Art Style -

The art style was amazing. My computer is a potato and so I had to turn it on low graphics (and even then it was still low fps) but I am a sucker for the stylized art style and so I really loved each chapter's environment. The variety in the environments gave each level its own identity and allowed for variety. As soon as I was getting bored with one level, the game drastically changes the environment. I loved that. I also loved all the liminal spaces like the dreams and the game's ending. Those were really cool and contributed to the intimidating and ominous feeling the game presents.

Sound Design -

The sound design was equally good. I'd basically say the same thing about it as with the art style. The music was great, the whispers, echoes, wind blowing, and other such sounds all contributed well to the feeling of the game. There were a few times where I just had to stop and take it all in.

Story -

*obvious spoiler warning*

The story was interesting. I really liked it from the start onward, but towards the end I was worried that the finale would not have a good enough pay off for all the suspense that had been built throughout. It sort of paid off. The conclusion made sense and wrapped the story up nicely, but there was one thing I wasn't too sure about. In the end, you are made to choose between two options: stay or leave. The idea of leaving and going back to live with the husband made sense to me. She knows her destiny, but chooses, for the sake of love, to go back and spend her remaining time with her husband. The other option did not make as much sense to me. The option to stay on the island and embrace who she truly was just felt off. I get the appeal. Towards the end of the story Norah comments about how she feels stronger and more alive than she ever has before. So, in that way, it makes sense she would want to stay. The reason it felt off was because the game tries very hard to never show you another living soul. It feels the same as the empty aperture science labs in Portal 1 and 2. From viewing all the murals throughout the island you learn that there was once a race of people that lived on the island, could raise and lower the levels of water in their habitat, and transform into water animals. But those people likely lived a very long time ago and are no longer around. You never see any of them. Their houses are deserted. Why would anyone choose to stay if they would be all alone. I am as introverted as the next guy, but embracing a life of solitude does not sound super fun, especially since the game hints at immortality. I don't know how the immortality thing works since we never see any of the original people that lived on the island. My assumption was that they were dead, but they could have merged back with the gods of that world like a sort of Christian Theosis or breaking free of Samara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth) within the Buddhist religion. Either way, it felt like a choice no one would make. Some might choose to leave their loved ones behind if it meant not dying a painful death, but I doubt they would make the same choice if it meant living isolated on an island the rest of their life. Other than that issue with the story I thought it was fantastic. :D

Final Thoughts -

This game is 100% worth playing. I tried to give some of my more harsh critiques so that you would get a sense of the game's flaws before deciding to buy it. But, the game is fantastic. Right now it's on sale for like 5 dollars and is very worth that price. If you are looking to add a bit of variety to your gaming catalog, I highly recommend giving this game a try.

It looks quite nice and I like the first person setting of an adventure game. But movement is slow and sluggish, the mystery is not mysterious in the slightest and the puzzles are BS.

Must play game, has a fascinating story and great soundtracks that eventually makes the game perfect

Great narrative walking-sim/puzzler with high production values throughout. Bought it because I enjoyed American Arcadia, and wasn't disappointed. I thought the puzzles were pretty well paced, but you definitely need to take your time, stay observant, and note the hints you're given.

Excellent adventure game, very immersive and mysterious

I'd give this game a 6.5/10. It's a modern game with good-looking modern graphics and a WASD interface, however the Lovecraft-ian narrative and the style of puzzles feel like those of the point and click adventure games of the 90's. The story did actually make some sense and the puzzles were fairly well tied to the story, however some of them required a bit of running to-and-fro and got a bit tedious. Some of the puzzles were childishly simple, but others were quite obtuse; I had to get a hint for one of them, and another I just solved randomly.

The puzzles for the most part of the game were hard and not clear on what it was you had to do, some were but most weren't, at least to me.

After the first chapter, the game unfortunately lost both its mystery and its fun for me. Norah is not an interesting character to follow around, or listen. The puzzles were easy, maybe at times a little laborous since even with sprinting the character moves slow. I don't have a problem if I have some questions left in the open. But the story didn't grab me.

But the graphics and the landscapes were really amazing. At some places I stopped and looked around for a while.

I only finished it because I didn't want my money to go to waste.

Puzzles were challenging but still very enjoyable. Really loved the whole feel of this game in it's entirety. The graphics and artwork is amazing! Great Game, highly recommend!

I have decided not to continue past chapter 5. The puzzles are getting too difficult, requiring help from the internet community. This is a puzzle game with many clues. If you miss a clue lying around somewhere, the puzzle cannot be solved. Puzzle solving is all there is too it. I like the atmosphere and the story is mildly interesting. But now all I am doing is following directions and not playing a game. 25/100

A thoroughly disappointing game. It's like Firewatch but bad.

The actual gameplay is just walking around and solving a series of puzzle, which would be fine if the puzzles were good enough. I rarely got that "a-ha" moment, because every puzzle were extremely simple. The "hard" puzzles weren't actually difficult or complex, just obtuse. I did enjoy the final star puzzle, but it did not make up for the rest of them.

The movement is very slow, and ladders take an eternity to climb, which just makes it annoying to look around for clues. The visuals are fine.

The main problem is the plot. The games starts out quite mysterious and lovecraftian, but half way through the story it just stops being either. The game starts telling you exactly what is going on with no room for ambiguity, so the mystery just evaporates. The lovecraftian / mild horror elements also disappear as it's made abundantly clear that the player is under no threat whatsoever, and the things happening to the player are a good thing.

I bought this on sale for 4£ and I still think I wasted my money.

Too slow.
Too much redundant minutiae.
Poor option design.
Protagonist doesn't shut up.
Looks pretty, that's about it.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit. Not super long but has a decent story. There are a few areas that were very frustrating and I had to look up a guide on but other than that pretty solid game. My one suggestion to the dev is implement some sort of helper if a player is taking too long to solve something. Maybe the character could say something like hey airhead, maybe you could try this.

An excellent puzzler:

- Not a horror game, but palatably creepy (coming from someone with no tolerance for horror games)
- Theme is really strong, and puzzles are mostly diegetic - as in they are explainable within the world of the game
- Story is very compelling, leaves you wanting to explore the world of the game more
- Notes and clues for puzzles are well-designed
- Looks amazing

Only mild negatives:

- Puzzles can be quite easy
- Walking and running speeds are slow
- Some invisible barriers can be a bit frustrating

If you like first person mystery and puzzles, you'll like this. I love the aesthetics and the soundtrack is fantastic! I am currently in Chapter 3 and am excited to see how the adventure unfolds! Kudos to the developers!

Wonderful game. Emotional story, beautiful environment, puzzles along with the uncanny feeling that you might not actually be alone...

If only I could tell myself there is plenty fish in the sea. But,the sea is full of sharks,fake guppies and greed.

Goodbye,Harry.
-Old Pal,Norah Everhart

Took me a while to realize the lore is inspired from Lovecraftian stories but nonetheless it was an amazing experience worth buying for. The stunning scenery of the island left me in awe. The story is great but I wish they expand more to the world building. For some reason the endings didn't hit me as close but maybe it's just me, still bittersweet in a nice way though. Would recommend it 👍

Short, interesting puzzle game exploring the mystery of a woman from the 1930's going on a quest to find her missing husband, who disappeared on a naval voyage looking for the cure to his wife's illness.
This game is made with a lot of love and care, and does a great job exploring some lovecraftian concepts. Puzzles are a great deal of fun and well thought out. There was only one that I had a good deal of trouble solving, but it seems like that opinion is not uncommon among the player base.

Fine little puzzle game with a interesting setup, the character walks very slowy though...

You're doing an exam and one of the questions is a bit ambiguous. You ask the teacher to clarify and they reply with a condescending 'interpreting the questions is part of the test! ;)'. For me, this is an excuse for poor writing. This is what this game feels like.
The puzzles aren't that difficult, they're just poorly explained, signaled or physically laid out. Some of them are in big areas where you need to come and go and look for 'clues' in the environment - which can be easy to miss because the completely white icon becomes almost invisible in the glare of the bloom effects. Or you need to interact with some of those 'clues' in a certain order.
Some puzzles are just boring, repetitive or annoying. Granted, the game had already lost me in the first puzzle, where you need to order some symbols in a totem according to a sequence you find nowhere or wasn't alluded to nowhere (or maybe I just didn't find the 'clue', who knows). What that taught me was that this game couldn't be trusted to give me a clear question. Not mentioning various bugs with the puzzles other players found - if you go to the forums.
So confusing puzzles you don't know if you're not getting right because you missed some invisible interact icon *somewhere* or because they're bugged - or that are just boring. This kills the pacing of the story, which to be honest is nothing to write home about. The madness angle feels super forced: 'Oh, it's Lovecraftian, so of course people need to go insane! Look at the ramblings of those maddened minds!'.
I like the visual style, but this game suffers from an excess of bloom. Which doesn't help the UI which is made of completely white icons with no borders.
So yeah, I just a got a guide and used it as soon as I hit the slightest obstacle. In the final chapter I must've read something wrong and reset the puzzle, but I was so done with the game by that point that I just decided to stop right there.
It might be a me problem. If you like puzzles you might like this game, but if you came expecting a mostly narrative game the frustrating puzzles might kill the pacing and the story with it.

It's good.

The game starts out intriguing and lush; it only gets weirder and more impressive from them. Strap in; it's going to be a wild ride.

Loved this game!

A nice story paired with some clever puzzles.

Great game, made it in ~7h. What made me almost quit after 20min is that annoying mouse deadzone, that only recognize your actions if you move your mouse rly fast

I'm not sure it can be recommended. My main criticism is the rather loose structure at certain points in the game. Not knowing what you are supposed to do as opposed to how you are meant to go about it. There's a lot of stuff to look at but it's not made clear what is and isn't required so you end up looking and interacting with everything. On the plus side the artwork and voice acting is first rate. Didn't think much to the ending though. I though it was a bit over contrived.

i hate it at first, and i still pushed toward the ending and hate it even more..

Beautiful artwork, fun puzzles which aren't too challenging for casual gamers and an interesting story. Love this sort of story game.

This game nearly had me in tears, and I don't often cry about games! I LOVED the rich storytelling this game possesses, felt like I was reading a descriptive novel! Highly recommend this to anyone who's into a good puzzle game alongside an amazing story!

Good game

Якщо Вам подобається повільно досліджувати історію і Ви любите пазли — то ця гра точно для Вас. Я ж ненавиджу пазли.

reject humanity, return to fish

One of those games I need to replay to 100% the achievements. Mind bending puzzles in a strange Lovecraftian tale, told in a lovely and original way. Get this wonderful game if you want a challenge!

Really amazing escape room + narrative walking sim type game. The atmosphere and story remained interesting throughout and the story was gripping so it never felt like I was just walking through fake rooms designed for me to solve. And one of the most profound quotes roasting romance novels I've ever heard.

Great game, with a good story and good puzzles. 10/10

Good balance of story and puzzles. The story itself is very well told, you do care about characters.

All the things I like in a puzzle game: gorgeous appearance, puzzles that challenge but never become a burden. Even better, the story and characters are well-developed, not shallow emotionally and spiritually.

Wonderful.