#Call of the sea game full
#Call of the sea game trial

As the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place, the island will lurch, shift and twist into different shapes. The pay-off for completing a puzzle is the second of Call of the Sea’s big weapons. These lean on the notes from the previous expedition. The other puzzle-group is more cerebral, requiring you to work out alien languages or decipher codes, and there’s less of an opportunity to fiddle with things to get an answer.

#Call of the sea game trial

It’s a game of trial and error, but it’s fun to work out how the workings clunk together. You press stuff, you see what happens, and you work out an order of happenings that make sense. One group requires a certain process to get them working, as if you were tentatively poking around a machine. You can mostly lump them into one of two groups. These puzzles tend to be relics of a long-lost civilisation. It’s a touch of genius that following in the team’s footsteps also means you get clues to the puzzles.

Each chapter has a habit of circling someone’s death, similar to What Remains of Edith Finch or Return of the Obra Dinn, and it gives the story a tragic edge. This structure works extremely well, as you get two stories running in tandem – yours and the team before you. Generally, the chapters find you on the tail of the previous expedition, rifling through journals, photographs and notes to build up a picture of what happened, before establishing where they went next.

It’s a shame that the island is separated with loading screens and couldn’t be explored as one map, but you learn to live with it. Rather than adopt Myst’s open structure, Call of the Sea is more linear, breaking the narrative up into chapters. While movement between them is a little on the slow side (even with the run button), Call of the Sea makes the trudge worth it. It helps that the emphasis is on exploring the environment at your own speed, as you find these vistas yourself. Only Chapter 1 and 2 of the story feel anything like the other, and Out of the Blue Games finds different ways to make you gawp. Not wanting to play the tropical island card too often, Call of the Sea shifts up its weather, time of day and surroundings to showcase the extremes of the island. There isn’t a CD Projekt Red-level of detail to the environments, but they’re stylised, chunky and tactile, and you suspect they will stand the test of time well.

#Call of the sea game full

The full dynamic range of your telly is put to work, as you move from exotic vibrancy to darker tones, disappearing under a canopy or watching as night moves in. After a quick orientation in your cabin, you’re tossed onto the island to be immediately walloped with one of Call of the Sea’s two weapons: it’s absolutely flipping gorgeous.