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Call of the Sea

Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 06.12.2020

-75%19.99€4,99€

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Preis Update 30.05.25

Marktplatz

Call of the Sea

Plattform: PC

€

Zum Shop

Preis Update 06.03.23

Wir schreiben das Jahr 1934 in den Weiten des Südpazifiks. Norah hat den Ozean überquert, um der Spur der verschollenen Expedition ihres Ehemanns zu folgen, und gelangt schließlich zu einem tropischen Inselparadies ohne Namen. Dieser geheimnisvolle Ort birgt Überreste einer vergessenen Zivilisation aus einer lange vergangenen Zeit. Welche mysteriösen Geheimnisse wird Norah auf ihrer Suche nach der Wahrheit ergründen?

Erkunde eine atemberaubende Tropeninsel (detailgetreu mit der Unreal Engine 4 erstellt) voller sehenswerter Orte, vergessener Ruinen und okkulter Mysterien.
Tauche ein in ein packendes Abenteuer voller Spannung und surrealer Überraschungen.
Untersuche die Hinweise, die andere Reisende hinterlassen haben, finde heraus, was geschehen ist und löse eine Reihe herausfordernder Rätsel.
Erlebe die emotionale und bezaubernde Charakterstudie einer Frau auf ihrer Reise zu sich selbst mit der Stimme von Cissy Jones (Firewatch, The Walking Dead: Season 1).

Minimum
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CPU: AMD FX-6100/Intel i3-3220 or Equivalent
GFX: AMD Radeon HD 7750, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or Equivalent
RAM: 8 GB RAM
Software: 64-bit Windows 7/8.1/10
HD: 20 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 11
MISC: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
LANG: Englisch

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700/Intel i7-6700K or Equivalent
GFX: AMD RX Vega 56, Nvidia GTX 1070/GTX1660Ti or Equivalent
RAM: 16 GB RAM
Software: 64-bit Windows 7/8.1/10
HD: 20 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 11
MISC: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
LANG: Englisch

Deutsch (20)
Englisch (76)

158 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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913 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.01.22 17:40

Wunderschöne Grafik, toller Soundtrack, teils knackige Rätsel, gute Story. Alles was ein Spiel braucht ist hier zu finden. Klare Empfehlung!

553 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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459 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.12.21 23:43

Schon recht schön

59 Produkte im Account

32 Reviews

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668 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.12.21 20:02

Bezaubernde (Stimme der Synchronsprecherin von) Nora entführt dich auf eine mysteriöse Reise voller Rätsel und schönen Erinnerungen an die grosse Liebe mit Harry. Um die dunklen Geheimnisse aber zu lüften muss man einige (teils sehr leichte, teils klever ausgedachte) Puzzles lösen. Die Atmosphäre verändert und steigert sich von Kapitel zu Kapitel und mit der passenden Musik taucht man wortwörtlich in eine faszinierende Geschichte ein. Hat meine Erwartung übertroffen. Auch die Grafik wird von Kapitel zu Kapitel spannender und die Unterwasserwelt war einfach wunderschön. Symbolepuzzle vom feinsten.

220 Produkte im Account

104 Reviews

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103 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.10.21 14:11

Ödes Adventure. Renne die ganze Zeit bunte Szenarien hoch und runter, vielleicht hast du ja was übersehen, nebenbei wird eine unspannende Geschichte erzählt. Die Rätsel sind nicht schwer, sondern umständlich und langweilig. Obwohl ich schon seit 20 Jahren alles mögliche aus der Ego-Perspektive spiele, bekomme ich bei diesem Spiel starke Motionsickness.

554 Produkte im Account

55 Reviews

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413 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.09.21 20:52

absolutely amazing game, cool story, astounding design and visuals, good sound design

280 Produkte im Account

58 Reviews

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510 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.08.21 18:39

Überwiegend Walking Simulator, die Laufen Abschnitte können sich manchmal etwas ziehen. Die Rätsel sind ganz nett gemacht. Voice Acting fand ich nicht herausragend weil die Sprecherin oft sehr kühl reagiert. Dennoch insgesamt gute Qualität auf English. Die Story durchaus interessant und zusammen mit der Atmosphäre Highlight dieses kleinen Games :) Ich kanns durchaus empfehlen insgesamt.

English:
Walking sim / Puzzler with sometimes tiding walking passages. Not overwhelming but still decent Voice acting. Good Story. Good atmosphere. All in all a nice game.

71 Produkte im Account

18 Reviews

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517 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.06.21 15:23

Vorab wünschte Ich mir es gebe eine neutrale Stimmenvergabe,dann würde Ich diese auch hier nutzen.
Das Spiel als solches ist nicht schlecht- allerdings sprechen schon ein paar Punkte dafür es nicht zu mögen.

Ich bin ein Lovecraft Fan. Wir besitzen neben ein paar Büchern auch ein paar Brettspiele.
Da dachte ich mir, kommt das Spiel ja gerade recht ;-)

Es beginnt echt stark.
Die Umgebung wunderschön gestaltet- Traumhaft geradezu.
Man 'schleicht' sich voran und erkundet diese Welt und Ihre Rätsel die es galt zu finden und zu lösen um weiter zu kommen.
Da ist der Haken. Die Rätsel sind so abstrus und verwirrend das selbst ich als Rätsel-fan oft nicht mehr weiter wusste.
Große Areale mit unsinnigen Kombinationen.
Auf so vieles wäre ich garnicht gekommen oder hätte es gefunden, wenn ich nicht nachgelesen hätte.
Und das ist etwas was ich nur bei echt harten Nüssen mache und machen möchte.
Und davon gab es hier eine Menge. . . Das hat mir leider den ganzen Spielspaß genommen.
Weil es zu unsinnig war.. Nunja..
Die Grafik, die Geschichte, der Sound sind Super.
Die Charaktere njaa etwas Eindimensional.

Letztenendes ein Spiel das ich mir dann doch hätte ersparen können auch wenn es Anfangs soooo einladend wirkte.

Achso: nen Bug gab es bei mir dann auch noch das den Frustlevel noch erhöhte.Ich konnte ein Rätsel nicht beenden da es nichts zu sehen gab wo es eigentlich sein sollte..
Da half es auch nicht das es dann irgendwann klappte, nach einer bestimmten Einstellung...
Sollte aber auch nicht Sinn und Zweck sein, einfach weil man bis dahin dann eh schon recht frustriert war.

Tut mir leid *Call of the Sea* Das war ein Schuss in den Ofen aber heee immerhin hat das Spiel es geschafft mich in den Wahnsinn zu treiben ;-)

61 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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541 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.04.21 13:49

Sehr schöne story mit einigen sehr kniffligen oder auch weniger kniffeligen Rätseln. Wunderschöne tropische Landschaft und Unterwasserszenen. Ich habe das Spiel sehr genossen! Leider viel zu kurz - aber ich habe auch nicht aufhören können. ;)

1095 Produkte im Account

184 Reviews

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504 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.04.21 22:58

Call of the Sea ist ein Adventure, bei dem man mit der Protagonistin, Norah, auf der Suche nach deren Ehemann ist. Dieser ist mitsamt seiner Expedition auf einer Insel verschollen, auf der er nach einem Heilmittel für Norahs mysteriöse Krankheit gesucht hat.

Bei dem Spiel geht es nicht darum, Gegenstände aus dem Inventar zu kombinieren oder zu benutzen. Vielmehr ist man für jedes Rätsel in einem kleinen Gebiet unterwegs, in dem man erst einmal das Rätsel finden muss. Und natürlich die Hinweise, wie man es löst. Beispielsweise muss man Holzscheiben so anordnen, dass das richtige Muster angezeigt wird. Hierzu findet man in dem Gebiet Holzskulpturen mit unterschiedlichen Mustern. Ein weiterer Hinweis sagt einem, welcher Teil von welcher Holzskulptur richtig ist. Anschließend ordnet man die Ringe richtig an und öffnet so etwas. Norah zeichnet die Sachen praktischerweise in ihrem Tagebuch ein, sodass man nicht unnötig durch die Gegend rennen muss.
Die Rätsel sind keine Selbstläufer, man muss schon nachdenken. Aber sie sind machbar. Sie sind auch nicht schlecht, allerdings auch nicht die Stärke des Spiels. Die liegt woanders (siehe unten). Bei den schwierigeren Rätseln war es nämlich oft so, dass man sie auf zweierlei Art interpretieren kann. Das Spiel hat mir dann zu wenig Feedback gegeben, ob ich auf dem richtigen Weg war oder nicht. Das letzte große Rätsel war außerdem unnötig fummelig. Ich will hier aber nicht spoilern.

Die große Stärke des Spiels ist seine Atmosphäre. Bereits auf den ersten Metern merkt man, wie liebevoll die Umgebung gestaltet ist. Man läuft zum Beispiel nicht einfach nur über einen schnöden Dschungelpfad. Nein, überall sieht man Pflanzen in allen Farben und Formen. Dazu noch die Lichteinstrahlung - es ist ein Traum! :D https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2454360397
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2459850582
Die Musik ist ziemlich zurückhaltend, aber trotzdem sehr passend. Was dem Ganzen noch mehr Flair verleiht, ist die Protagonistin. Norah kommentiert so ziemlich jedes Foto und jede Notiz man findet, jedes Rätsel und auch sonst das Geschehen. Nicht so viel, dass sie stören würde. Im Gegenteil. Man hat dadurch umso mehr das Gefühl, Teil des Ganzen zu sein und nicht nur ein unbeteiligter Beobachter.

Die Spielzeit beträgt ca. 7-8 Stunden.

Da ich in einer Review gelesen habe, dass Norah ziemlich langsam sei, hier noch der Hinweis, dass man (unendlich lange) sprinten kann, wenn man Shift gedrückt hält.

Insgesamt war Call of the Sea für mich eine großartige Erfahrung und definitiv das beste Adventure, das ich in den letzten Jahren gespielt habe.

70 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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516 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.04.21 21:54

*** Ich dachte vorm Release es sei ein Laufsimulator***

+ wunderschön
+ atemberaubend
+ also ehrlich richtig mega hübsch ^^

Ich stehe auf die Optik des Spiels, aber leider war's das auch schon für mich.
Ich bin ein großer Fan von Eastshade und habe gedacht, dass dieses sehr ähnlich sein wird. Leider wurde ich was das betrifft enttäuscht.

Okay fangen wir ganz von vorne an. Das grafische habe ich deutlich gemacht - mega. Schöne alte Zeit gemischt mit tropischen und mystischen Feeling. Einfach eine Augenweide und würde am liebsten selbst dort sein.

Nun aber zu den Punkten, die mich persönlich störten. Zu viele Bilder und Drück/Dreh hier mal was Rätsel. Ein paar ist ja okay, aber gefühlt bestand jedes davon daraus, dass ich etwas in einer bestimmten Reihenfolge machen musste und dann hatte man auch noch Laufwege ohne Ende innerhalb eines kleinen Radius. Es gab keine Momente des Verweilens durchs Spiel gegeben.

Auch schade fand ich, dass der Weg sehr Linear war. Man konnte nicht mal ungewollt in den Wald abdriften & diesen erkunden. Open World also fehlanzeige, leider, denn gerade, wenn die Welt so hübsch anzusehen ist, würde ich am liebsten ewig darin spazieren gehen.

Umso spannender es wurde umso lästiger fand ich dann die Rätsel und wollte unbedingt mehr von der Story erfahren als die blöden Rätsel zu machen. Ein Rätsel habe ich selbst mit Hilfe von der Lösung , die man Online finden kann, nicht gerafft, wie man auf so etwas kommen soll ohne Blind zu probieren, aber vielleicht hatte ich auch einfach einen schlechten Tag gehabt :D

Noch habe ich das Spiel nicht durch, aber da mich die Story nun mehr reißt als das Gameplay an sich, habe ich mich gespoilert und die Komplettlösung angeschaut, was am Schluss passiert und es wird mich wohl ebenfalls enttäuschen.

ACHTUNG SPOILER:
Am Ende scheint man den gesuchten nicht mal zu begegnen bzw. erfährt wo er aktuell ist und was er macht. Ich hoffe sehr ich irre mich in dem Punkt. Ich werde es aber bald erfahren :)

Eastshade wird wohl auch weiterhin mein Maß aller Dinge sein.

545 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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847 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.03.21 17:08

Tolles Spiel. Sehr schöne Grafik und tolle Geschichte. Mir gefällt sehr gut, dass die Puzzle alle (zumindest bisher) logisch sind und man nicht ewig hin- und herlaufen muss, um alles zusammenzubekommen. Jedes Kapitel bietet ein größeres Rätsel an, aber eben auf vergleichsweise begrenztem Raum.
Ich bin noch nicht ganz durch, bin aber sehr aufs Ende gespannt!

Von mir eine klare Empfehlung!

111 Produkte im Account

16 Reviews

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687 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.03.21 20:41

★ Worum geht’s? ★
>Call of the Sea< spielt in den 1930er Jahren. Wir begleiten Norah, die auf der Suche nach ihrem verschwundenen Mann und seiner Expedition ist. Die Suche führt sie auf eine geheimnisvolle und wunderschöne Insel im Südpazifik, auf der Rätsel gelöst und Geheimnisse entschlüsselt werden müssen.

★ Positiv ★
➝ interessante Story, schöne Liebesgeschichte
➝ wunderschöne Umgebung, es gibt viel zu entdecken
➝ knifflige und abwechslungsreiche Rätsel

★ Neutral ★
➝ ist ein recht kurzes Spielerlebnis (schätzungsweise ca. 10-11 Stunden, mit allen Errungenschaften)

★Weiterempfehlung! ★
Ein tolles, wenn auch recht kurzes, Spiel mit einer beeindruckenden Atmosphäre und einer tollen Story. Kann ich nur empfehlen, besonders, wenn man Rätsel und Abenteuer mag.

PS: Es wurde häufig von Bugs berichtet in anderen Bewertungen, dem kann ich mich (Stand März 2021) nicht anschließen. Ich hatte keinerlei Probleme und das Spiel lief bei mir sehr flüssig.
(ʘ‿ʘ)

14 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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713 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.03.21 08:28

Ich kann Call of the Sea jedem empfehlen, der Spass an einer schön erzählten Geschichte hat. Der Schwierigkeitsgrad der Rätsel ist, wenn man alle Hinweise gefunden hat, durchaus moderat und wie ich finde gut zu lösen. Mir fehlte manchmal etwas die Abwechslung. Die Rätsel sind sehr schön in die Geschichte eingebaut. Die Grafik ist immer eine Frage des persönlichen Geschmacks. Mir hat sie sehr gut gefallen, denn die Mischung auch mit der Musik passt einfach zur Geschichte und dem Setting.

17 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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1905 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.02.21 20:53

Ein ganz tolles Spiel, in welchem keine blutrünstigen Kämpfe bestanden werden müssen. Einfach nur Abenteuer und Rätsel vom Feinsten.

166 Produkte im Account

33 Reviews

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483 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.02.21 20:33

Das Spiel war unerwartet anders und dennoch sehr schön. Die Geschichte fängt so merkwürdig an, dass man in den Bann gezogen wird. Ich wollte unbedingt wissen, wie es weiter geht. Das man Ende noch die Wahl hat, fand ich super! Manche Rätsel waren wirklich nicht einfach (oder mir fehlt es an Logik :D)

Die Grafik fand ich super angenehm, nicht zu überladen, aber detailreich genug. Die Spielmechanik hat einwandfrei funktioniert. Ich hatte nach einem Kapitel einen Bug und konnte das Kapitel nicht mehr laden. Ich hatte das Spiel danach einige Tage liegen gelassen, es kam ein Update und ich konnte normal weiterspielen. <3 Der Support hatte es sich auch angeschaut.

Schon lange nicht mehr ein gutes Adventure-Rätsel-Storygame gespielt. Es war einfach magisch.

286 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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348 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.02.21 08:31

Super Spiel, hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Atmosphärisch und grafisch sehr ansprechend - Mit guten Rätseln (Ich musste nichts nachschauen, aber an einer Stelle musste ich länger überlegen :) ). Die Story kann sich sehen lassen!
Kann es wirklich ans Herz legen.

205 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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311 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.12.20 13:49

Schönes Spiel!

Es wirkte zuerst ein wenig oberflächlich auf mich, habe mich aber von Chtulhu-Kommentar ansprechen lassen. Die Geschichte fängt langsam an, wird aber sehr schnell interessant und man möchte wirklich mehr wissen, so dass das Spiel einen in seinen Bann zieht. Es ist optisch sehr schön und rückt den Mythos mal in ein anderes, bunteres Licht.

Sehr zu empfehlen!

323 Produkte im Account

141 Reviews

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73 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.12.20 22:38

Dear Development Team of this nice walking puzzle simulator, please rework the mouse movement. It's somehow lagging (or sluggish). Explanation: The mouse pointer doesn't stop precisely at the moment i stop moving around. It makes dizzy. I tried to play it for a while, but had to stop playing. Thanks in advance - maybe ! And why the specification of 20 Gb ? There were 35 Gb on my hard drive.

301 Produkte im Account

59 Reviews

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271 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.12.20 00:43

Sehr schönes und buntes Abenteuer Spiel, coole Rätsel bisher. Hier steckt viel Liebe zum Detail im Game das merkt man, aus diesem Grund Daumen hoch.Super Titel mit einer coolen Story , perfekte Stimmung und Musik.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1645467095456097721/D88BBF77EC94CA529AF713D19F52861C96C593B5/

93 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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238 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.12.20 20:28

Ich spiele das Spiel in 4k auf maximalen Einstellungen und nehme dabei auf.
Ich kann sagen, dass die Grafik überwältigend ist. Der Ton ist sehr gut abgemischt, die Spielmechanik ohne Probleme.
Die Story ist interessant und baut gut aufeinander auf. Die Rätzel sind spannend, teils anstrengend, aber nie so kompliziert, dass es kein Vorankommen gibt.
Dieses liebevolle Spiel wird diesem Preis völlig gerecht. Ich hätte sogar noch mehr dafür bezahlt.
In 2,5 Stunden ist mir nicht einmal langweilig geworden. Es gab viele entspannte und atmosphärische Momente, aber auch Gänsehautfeeling.

Ich kann das Spiel nur empfehlen,
LG

42 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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225 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.05.22 15:28

this game is amazing i recommend it to everyone

68 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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293 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.05.22 23:14

Very cute! Highly recommend if you like Gone Home or What Remains of Edith Finch. Great walking sim with puzzles. 8/10.

153 Produkte im Account

25 Reviews

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660 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.05.22 00:37

An absolute pleasure to play. Every puzzle fit the story, the voice acting was flawless, the graphics and environments beautiful. If you enjoy a gentle adventure with some fun puzzles - this is a gem.
Tiny wrinkles... I find the PnC convention of having 'conversational notes' left by people who would never leave such notes... breaks the spell a little - but it's hard to find other ways to convey the story. Also hard to imagine how some of the items would have been carried (won't explain to avoid spoilers) - and other plot points. But the game is so well made that for the most part I didn't care - i could just enjoy the gorgeous scenery. I'm not the best solver, but I managed without a walk-through, in 11 hours. I imagine it could be done quicker. I don't mind that - it works out at less than £1 an hour for good entertainment.
On the plus - the story was good, the controls easy, the puzzles were not ground-breaking, but did put a nice twist in to make them feel fresh and different - and they were seamless. Zero pixel-hunting, zero 'throw away inventory item and immediately need it for next puzzle', none of the usual annoyances. Plus some good variety in scenes and tasks.
I can't wait to see what they do next.

524 Produkte im Account

28 Reviews

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632 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.05.22 22:03

Behold - the only good Lovecraft game.

203 Produkte im Account

24 Reviews

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7 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.05.22 23:00

seems like a really cool game, and i love lovecraft, but i cant play it. i literally cant change the resolution to fit my screen. ill try playing this game in the future, maybe by then theyll have fixed the issue

104 Produkte im Account

16 Reviews

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411 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.04.22 00:00

Charming environment and art design, strong voice acting, and interesting take on Lovecraftian tropes are bogged down by puzzles that are sometimes totally obtuse, a host of plot questions left after the credits roll, and a walking speed and amount of backtracking that should be illegal.

Not bad, but wait for it to go on sale.

77 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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48 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.04.22 03:45

The controls are sluggish and laggy, and often just hard to use. They're not responsive or intuitive, and there's a slightly 'oh look, natives, how cute!' vibe throughout that I didn't feel very comfortable with.

143 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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279 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.04.22 15:08

I enjoyed this for the atmosphere and puzzles.

229 Produkte im Account

20 Reviews

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324 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.03.22 15:57

Pretty fun game. Lots of interesting puzzles, beautiful artstyle and relaxed gameplay, with a twist. Definitely worth a try

851 Produkte im Account

93 Reviews

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272 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.03.22 21:32

Call of the sea is a first person puzzle adventure game with beautiful 3d cartoon-like graphics sporting some epic scenery and vistas. It has an intriguing story that slowly unravels and has some twists and turns along the way. The story is primarily told through monologue of the main character who has a very good voice over artist, and the rest is told via notes and pictures left behind in the environment. The game took me about 6 hours to complete in one sitting, the puzzles aren't too demanding if you're a seasoned puzzle fan but offer enough of a challenge to keep you thinking.

They have removed some of the classic game play of puzzle adventure games, where you endlessly seek for inventory items or things to interact with. The game does a good job of giving you most of the information up front, so you can spend most of your time thinking and not messing about.

I highly recommend this for puzzle fans, it's an enjoyable and atmospheric experience, it doesn't outstay its welcome and has a good length for it's standard price of £15, so represents good value. My only real gripe with the game is the levels become very large as you progress and even when sprinting your character is quite slow, especially at climbing ladders, this makes it a bit frustrating and a lot of the games length comes from traversing quite large areas. This won't bother some but I found it became frustrating later on.

30 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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433 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.02.22 01:46

Fun to uncover the mysteries, deep story, nice puzzles.

354 Produkte im Account

31 Reviews

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363 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.02.22 01:35

This is a game about walking very slowly and making snarky comments about your presumed-dead partner.

408 Produkte im Account

50 Reviews

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452 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.01.22 10:33

Call of the sea is a callback to the golden age of point-and-click adventure games with a hefty dose of puzzles and exploration thrown into the mix. The story follows Norah Everhart, a young woman struggling with an inherited terminal disease that led her loving husband Harry to go on a quest to find a cure on a forbidden tropical island where he and the entire expedition mysteriously goes missing. In the beginning of the game Norah receives a package with a few mysterious items from the lost expedition and embarks on a quest to find out what happened to her soulmate Harry. On the way we are treated to lovely environments, engaging puzzles and a genuinely heartwarming story that is narrated via the internal monologue of the main character.

So the story as you might have figured out from the trailer is heavily influenced by Lovecraft yet takes it on a somewhat of a spin in the end and makes it a truly satisfying conclusion. Personally I think this might be one of the better versions of this type of story yet to come to digital media. First of all the environment and atmosphere in this game is spot on. Every chapter has its own unique look and feel to it and it brings up a wide variety of strange surroundings, weird pictograms, clever insertions of lore into the game via found logs and small cutscenes. The narration is perfect and the encountering of clues via logs and photos are fitting. The puzzles are well constructed and even though a few were a bit convoluted we finished most of the game without clues.

All in all this is a wholesome story of a sick young woman looking for her lost lover in a strange land and on the way stumbles upon things that make her question her place in the world. I strongly recommend this game for the story alone yet the environments, the puzzles and the feeling of otherworldliness takes this game to a whole new level. I encountered no bugs or glitches of any kind and generally had a fantastic time with this game.

10/10, Would surely swim out to that brooding reef again and again and again..

226 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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455 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.01.22 04:30

It's got a pretty well rounded story, solid controls, a nice graphic style, and good lighting. I encountered probably half a dozen graphic glitches: A missing texture in one chapter, culling in one area causing pop-in, and slowdown in one large exterior area to name a few; but, it was nothing that inhibited me finishing the game.

To not spoil anything in the story, the characters are well rounded in the context of the story. Everyone behaves consistently, though you get little backstory for one early character, who exit the story a bit fast then to give you any kind of reaction. I'd say the game really starts to come together around chapter 4, with everything that happens from there on feeling pretty impactful to me. The game ends in a binary choice that you can save prior to making. I think both options were rather well justified and I did go back to enjoy both when I finished the game. Further, after completing the game I did have to sit there a bit and decide which option was best. So it's well written.

In regards to the puzzles, I had to look up 3 answers. 1 I had, but was just a bit off because of the hints given in game. The other two I had 0 chance of solving. The rest of the puzzles though (Quite a few more, I'd say there are about 3-5 per chapter) I got no problem. Only 1 puzzle though, was such that I found it rather difficult: You had to get values from one puzzle, that you translated to symbols with another puzzle, that you then had to convert to a separate set of values based on a note you found, that you then had to open a set of switches with, and set 1 dial based on another bit of evidence I didn't see at all mentioned anywhere. Beyond that monster, everything else was pretty good.

I'd recommend. A point is lost for the lack of polish with those few graphic and performance bugs, and a half point is lost for the more abrupt first bit of story. I'd almost dock a half point for that one monstrous puzzle, but I'm not a big puzzle game person, so I wont.

So yeah: personally I'd say about 8.5/10

124 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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812 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.01.22 15:29

This game was a complete surprise for me, I haven't heard from it before, it appeared on a suggested list.
If you liked games like Monkey Island, or puzzle games in general, you're going to have fun with this one.
It has a beautiful story, different and it will keep you going.
You can feel the dedication and love put in the game, I hope they keep making more games, it would be a 10/10... [spoiler] if you get to interact and see more characters, so you don't feel so alone. [/spoiler]

145 Produkte im Account

28 Reviews

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282 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.12.21 15:54

When did games decided to become to beautiful

541 Produkte im Account

80 Reviews

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407 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.12.21 16:01

Read this review and others here!

Call of the Sea is the title presented by the Spanish studio Out of the Blue and published by the hand of Raw Fury that mixes very peculiar genres such as narrative-driven and puzzle-adventure. All the action takes place in first person and is set on a Polynesian island during 1934.

The player plays the role of Norah Everhart, a character who is affected by a strange disease that causes black spots on the hands and arms. Apparently is something that her family has to deal with since her mother was also affected by this misfortune.

The story begins with a question: “What happened to Harry?”. Harry is Norah’s husband who left several months earlier on a mission to find a cure for his wife’s illness, focusing on an island off the coast of Tahiti. The problem is that he disappeared with his entire crew without a trace. This journey thus goes through answering this question where our main character decides to venture into the island that the locals say is cursed.

Early Norah feels a very strange and personal connection to this stunning environment. What is so special about this island? Exploring the jungle, the player is guided by clues left in the way of annotations in Harry’s diaries and perceptive observations by the main character, leaving all the puzzle-solving part to the adventurer’s side.

The entire narrative is enveloped by ancient adventure tales with the main focus on the love story between Norah and Harry. Do not worry because the line of “cheesy part of romance” is never crossed. There is clearly a very strong link between these characters who are presented through internal monologues about their marriage and messages that Norah reads from Harry’s notes. Many of them are presented with cutscenes. They are not just married, they see themselves as best friends using the affectionate term “my old pal” or just “pal” to address each other.

Norah can be described as a person with courage and a lot of perseverance and is interpreted perfectly by the voice of Cissy Jones who among others participated in the episodic title of “The Walking Dead”. Harry has an adventurous spirit and is played by the voice of Yuri Lowenthal, also known for giving voice to Peter Parker in the Spider-Man adaptation of the Sony console.

The adventure is divided into six chapters, each drawn in different locations and presented in an absolutely stunning way. Each area has a main puzzle that needs to be solved to progress in the story. It is necessary to recover all the puzzle clues left in the camps by Harry’s expedition or in the environment that surrounds him. Norah has at her disposal a diary where she will record her notes and logs that help in solving the puzzles and centralize all the pieces of history.

Some of these puzzles can be quite complicated with the need, or not, to use paper and pen and others with very obvious clues around their environment. At certain times it feels like a real “escape room” where it is necessary to find certain devices, buttons, or solutions for both situations. Exploration is indeed important in this chapter and I must confess that I found myself stuck with two main puzzles. One of them for not having fully explored the map area and the other for having a really complicated resolution.

There is a desire to discover the end of this story that does not leave the player disappointed. With a vibe of “The Shape of Water”, this title is totally suitable for puzzle fans.

As a curiosity, you can also follow the prequel to Call of the Sea, represented by the voice actors themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ww27QXKqI0

35 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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478 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.12.21 10:27

An amazing and beautiful take on one of H.P. Lovecraft's stories and myths. The game is truly excellent and I will replay it to try and get all the achievements. But for now, I'll lay it aside. Stunning!

241 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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503 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.12.21 23:49

Great game with wonderful art! Not too hard but still challenging! And just the right amount of play time (about 10 hours)!

46 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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1030 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.12.21 20:29

I got this on a sale for about $14, and loved every minute of it. I'm not the best at puzzles by any means, but even I figured them out. The story is beautiful and so sweet, and the landscapes are stunning. I will definitely replay to fully complete it to get all the achievements. I highly recommend this game to anyone that's a fan of romance and/or puzzles

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2 Reviews

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305 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.12.21 10:49

Time:
Around 5h for a full story, maybe 8-10 to get all the achievements.

Story:
Same old searching for your loved one, stumble on some ancient civilization, discover yourself, etc

Gameplay:
Walk around, backtracking can be tedious at times, look at stuff, puzzles which are not so intuitive and involve a lot of guessing.

Graphics:
Nice.

Sound:
Nice.

Overall:
I hate the main protagonist's voice and all the comments she makes. Puzzles are very dumb (or could be that I am very dumb also) . But the game looks lovely and has his own charm.
Worth it full price? No.
50% off? Maybe.
6/10, was a relaxing playthrough.

253 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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89 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.11.21 00:23

Great game :)

1510 Produkte im Account

27 Reviews

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473 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.11.21 18:45

Fun puzzle game, good visual and good story. Recommended.

173 Produkte im Account

19 Reviews

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305 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.10.21 18:17

I can hear my pc scream how beautiful this game is.

333 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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224 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.10.21 11:58

Peaceful and beautiful game. For something pretty, relaxing and a bit intriguing I quite enjoy this game,

101 Produkte im Account

9 Reviews

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340 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.10.21 10:23

I think this game very fundamentally misses what I feel are really important aspects of this genre. A good example of a game in this genre tends to give the player intrigue that drives the clue gathering and storytelling, and these clues and discoveries inform one's ability to solve puzzles, and become a self-reinforcing loop of discovery and advancement. This game isn't one of those.

This game is so obvious in each one of these respects after the first hour that I found myself already knowing the vast majority of what is going on and what would happen, the storytelling is spelled out for you repeatedly and the puzzles are really more of a series of convoluted instructions that feel very arbitrary.

Let's start with the storytelling. The clues dropped by the other characters are not particularly interesting, very obviously lay out the story and then on top of that, your character monologues over each and every one, essentially repeating what the thing just said with extra inferences that are so un-subtle it just feels like the author constantly whispering in your ear telling you what the meaning of it is. Imagine if you came across a piece of paper of someone saying 'I'm going to have some toast', and then your character says 'Huh, he's going to have some toast, seems like he was hungry'. Imagine that, but for basically every item pickup, for hours. I felt like I was never really left to be able to think or feel about the story on my own, I was always being told *precisely* what's going on.

The puzzles rarely make the world feel like a real world, they're mostly incredibly arbitrary and combined with the journal system it fits you in a sort of passive groove where you're gliding around objects until the pages are full and then using them as instructions to solve a convoluted door lock at the end of the chapter. And then you proceed to the next area where you do the exact same thing but just a little more complicated.

These things combined result is a sort of game where I'm on autopilot - The game doesn't want me or need me to contemplate, examine or feel about anything, it's a series of straightforward visuals and interactions that wash over me.

This feels like a game that is deeply scared that people aren't going to understand it so it tries to be obvious about absolutely everything. And this game is so unaware of subtlety that even if you wanted to, for instance, turn the character's dialogue off (I tried because I found it *that* annoying), the world-building is so lacking in places that you can't make it through or understand certain things without her voice chaperoning you the whole time. The puzzles are so arbitrary, you *need* the journal system to be your instruction manual for opening the doors. I played through the whole thing and I felt like at no moment was my curiosity or time investment actually rewarded.

I found this game to be a fundamentally tiring and annoying experience. I really don't want to have to say that about a game, especially one that clearly looks like it's had a good amount effort put into it, but nice graphics do not make a good game and it completely misses what makes this genre compelling at all. I'm actually kind of shocked by how much it misses.

481 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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602 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.10.21 00:25

Call of the Sea

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. 10/10.

Call of the Sea is a beautiful walking tour/puzzle game in the vein of Fire Watch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, The Park, and, to a lesser extent, Myst. Call of the Sea has a wonderfully affecting and personal story to tell that is fabulously paced. The 1930s aesthetic, palpable at every turn, maintains the immersion of the story giving the whole game a fabulously pulpy feel. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos has a presence in this game, contributing to the foundations the game is built on, but not overshadowing it like in The Sinking City and Call of Cthulhu video games.

The gameplay was fun. While your character’s speed leaves a little to be desired, she is admittedly an adventuress of the '30s, in heeled boots and a full length skirt on a wild tropical island. The puzzles grow more challenging as the game progresses without becoming obtuse or opaque. Similarly, the biomes of the island are fabulous and only add to the storytelling while keeping the feel consistent but not same-y.

All in all, this is a great game with enough detail to make it worth playing again to see all the little bits of foreshadowing that were sprinkled along the way and putting together the early puzzle pieces for a more complete story.

------Spoilers ahead!!!!!!!!------

Once I knew the twist, it threw a fascinating light on the aesthetic of the game for me. In most games set in the Cthulhu mythos, you play a protagonist traveling to an isolated, dangerous, alien, and often savage place to seek a cure for your sick loved one or yourself, only to find ancient ruins and eldritch horror. But here you play that sick loved one looking for the person that went searching for your cure. In those other storylines, the sick character is slowly changing into a monster that will inevitably be called to the sea to join others of their bloodline that have “returned home” before them. Without a cure, this person has no hope other than insanity and a slow, wasting death, or the aforementioned transformation.

But here in Call of the Sea, you are that sick, slowly transforming person. After traveling across the world, you too end up at the same isolated place to find ancient ruins, but instead of a savage danger and alien horror, you find tranquility, beauty, and mystery. The only horror you find is in the evidence left by the people you are looking for, in what they did to the land and what they did to each other. This is most evident and wonderfully portrayed in the difference between the island exploration levels that are tranquil, bright, and full of life, and the civilized camp level that is dark, trash-strewn, and desolate. This level was the only part of the game in which I felt like something might truly attack me. This level was the one that was alien and dangerous. This level, full of the trappings of civilization, was the place of savage danger.

I loved this: a mythos story from the perspective of someone becoming Other and finding the home of their ancestors--being called to it, and welcomed by it. I was really taken with the idea that it is beautiful and welcoming because the character belongs there, and that she sees it that way because she is wanted there. It makes me wonder--what was it like for those she searches for? She sees a tranquil beach leading to a coolly-shadowed jungle, with rays of sunlight dancing through the trees. They see a beach that is the last refuge before an ominous jungle with the ephemeral shafts of light from above providing the only safety. (Heck, their first camp on the beach is so far from the jungle that it is almost in the water.) She sees a peaceful glade by a river filled with indigenous buildings and art. They see the only safe haven in a jungle filled with the remains of a cryptically vanished people and threatening totems to the unknown.

She sees the awesome ruins left by ancient people--monuments to their perseverance and craftsmanship, covered in murals, a testament to their culture. They see alien design and purpose in a place no indigenous person could have built.

I found it fascinating that the environment could look so different to each group because she belonged and they didn’t. How that would affect the way they interacted with and perceived its purpose was a welcome layer to the game. It also made me think more about how other mythos stories might look from the other side.

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41 Reviews

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427 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.08.21 00:08

There are few games that I wish I could experience all over again; where every aspect of a game feels constructed by hand to fit my desires. This game is one of them.

From the first moment I saw Call of the Sea, I knew it would be something for me. The story about a woman with an illness, desperate to find answers about herself and her missing husband, in the shape of an incredibly beautiful game - both visually and as an experience. Discovering a story so full of mystery and love that you feel yourself drawn in from the first breath. It can only be described as what the first breath of air on the island must feel like.

If you want to be part of a story that you will never forget, let it be this. I know this will be one I speak of forever.

Good for achievement hunters, time to achieve 100%: 7.1 hours

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5 Reviews

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28 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.08.21 02:04

Seems like a fascinating game. I love Historical Fiction and story based games. However I can't play this game for more than 30 mins at a time without having horrible motion sickness. I wish there was a 3rd person option, however if you are a person who isnt bothered by motion sickness, im sure you will love this game. It has amazing graphics, stunning music, and a truly intriguing story.

117 Produkte im Account

27 Reviews

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598 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.08.21 17:48

Call of the Sea is a nice little adventure, with really great visuals, music, environments, and a neat story. The puzzles are pretty good as well, with them ranging from being simple obstacles to real head-scratchers. Sometimes the directions can be a bit unclear, which caused confusion on my part and had me having to think for long periods of time before progressing (though you can always use a walkthrough like I did for one puzzle).

But really, I'd like to reiterate how beautiful the environments were, with each area offering some new vistas and locations that you can explore. With the cute artstyle and instrumental music, it often feels like a Disneyland adventure ride.

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2 Reviews

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337 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.08.21 01:41

other than pretty graphics there isn't anything to the game :(( the storyline is really boring and very predictable, the movement is painfully slow which feels even slower when u have to constantly backtrack to finish puzzles, the controls in general are kind of really awkward. i was really excited to play this and finished it in hopes of the game picking up but i feel like i just wasted my time

139 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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507 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.08.21 20:18

For me, this game was truly one of the best experiences I have ever had with a video game. I have tons of positive things to say about this game in particular. The story was wonderfully crafted and I loved how this game was obviously inspired by authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Jules Verne. The atmosphere to this game was very immersive with its bright and beautiful settings. I was sucked into this game and its stories with its characters the moment I started playing, and it's one experience I shall never forget. Awesome job!

190 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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305 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.07.21 02:04

The story was kinda bad. Norah was slow to control, even when sprinting. Multiple times did the game not register clues and not write them down in the journal. To fix that I had to follow online guides. Some of the puzzles didnt make much sense. Multiple times the game crashed because it got stuck on a ladder or geometry on the ground. [spoiler] The end decision made little sense and felt rushed. Norah was annoying to listen to because she figured things out extremely slowely or was suprised about things that werent suprising. [/spoiler] Multiple times I had lighting issues and I couldnt see anything I was supposed to. The game is very pretty but it certainly has issues.

If I were to rate the game out of 10, it would be a 3.5 . Cool idea but very poor execution. This game would greatly benefit from better controls, better puzzles, and faster animations.

107 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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284 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.07.21 09:05

PC owners beware. Like many others (see discussion thread, `Tips for playing on PC', I've had increasing problems with disappearing or non-functioning hotspots. Due to this I've abandoned the game near the end of chapter 2. Unfortunately Steam tell me I'm not eligible for a refund because I've exceed the game time limit - ironically, due to repeated failed attempts to solve puzzles that involve the said malfunctioning hotspots.
Because of this I can't possibly recommend the game to PC owners (nb I have Windows 10, 64 bit). Even without this problem I found the game a little disappointing due to the fairly simple puzzles. It's great if you want lush visuals and nothing too taxing in the gameplay.

212 Produkte im Account

25 Reviews

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357 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.07.21 00:36

great art style

71 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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366 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.07.21 22:04

Absolutely amazing game! I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did. First of all, for me it was visually stunning, the landscapes, the lightning- just walking around gave me so much joy. The story was great and the option to make a choice at the end was a pleasant surprise. I also really liked the riddles, although they weren't too complicated (which might be a drawback for some people), I loved that I could just relax with this game (which again, the visuals and overall atmosphere were perfect for that). I will definitely looking forward to more from Out of the Blue

1706 Produkte im Account

80 Reviews

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352 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.07.21 13:35

????

1752 Produkte im Account

67 Reviews

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72 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.07.21 14:25

Movement is way too slow in this game, most time is spent going from points a to points b instead of solving puzzle. so if you miss a clue you have to painfully go back to find it and go back to the place to solve the puzzle

1018 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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384 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.06.21 13:46

Call of the Sea is a beautiful puzzle game with a nice story and good voice acting.

The game itself is not that hard, but the puzzles are still interesting to solve end the story will make you want to progress and discover the secrets of the island and what that happened to the protagonists husband.

For me, it took about 6 hours to beat all of the game and it felt like I did something new during all of that time.

38 Produkte im Account

17 Reviews

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272 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.06.21 13:20

I think I would love this game if I could play it. The mouse motion makes me sick, but most of all I'm frustrated that I'm stuck at the totem for the bridge - it doesn't work. Most of the time when I click on objects or try to solve a puzzle nothing happens. I've tried all the recommended setting to resolve the problems and nothing works. I'm giving up. I'm on a PC with windows 10.

286 Produkte im Account

99 Reviews

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460 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.06.21 14:11

Its amazing what a bunch of creative individuals will do with the unreal engine. This game is no exception. I was surprised by how decent and well laid out this game was. I went into it pretty much not expecting or knowing anything about it (which helped add to the adventure!). A good solid adventure, some nice puzzles to work out along the way (none were really that difficult if you just stop, think and look at the hints and notebook entries), and a nice story to wrap it all together. Well done, and worth a thumbs up!

278 Produkte im Account

12 Reviews

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349 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.05.21 21:03

I´m joining most of the negative reviews: the game is not bad, it just doesn´t offer much gaming.

It´s a narrative experience, the puzzles are ridiculously easy and repetitive.

The story was interesting enough to see it through, but I was hating myself in the process.

Lovecraftianesque Firewatch is a good summary - another game that so many liked and I hated. Gotta be into slow paced chill movie like games for this one.

51 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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727 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.05.21 14:28

Oh I absolutley loved this.

The story was great, taking on topics about love and self discovery. It felt like I got to follow along as Norah, a grown woman, found herself again and grew a bit more. An adult coming-of-age story almost? The two storylines that take place, Norah's and Harry's, are beautifully intertwined and the collection of clues and tidbits of information as you search for the truth got me shrieking with joy. This was really a game I didn't know that I needed this badly.

Anyway the game was fantastic, the scenery breathtaking and the puzzles tricky enough to feel rewarding, while not too difficult that you lose your flow while playing. I also really enjoyed the fishy [spoiler] Lovecraftian/eldritch horror [/spoiler] aspect of the game that played in the background.

This game is definitely worth your time and money, at least in my opinion. The story, puzzles, and lovely aesthetic really made me drown in this amazing experience, so I wholeheartedly recommend picking this up and joining Norah in her adventure.

61 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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431 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.05.21 15:10

An absolute recommendation for any Lovecraft-enthusiast. Although it isn't really a horror game, it often manages to create the typical Lovecraftian feeling of uneasiness.
The riddles are more entertaining than difficult, which gives the game the lighthearted feeling of an old school adventure mixed with beautiful graphics and varied settings. Highly recommended!

1436 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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1025 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.05.21 15:49

Disappointed.

I was charmed by the game's visuals. But it is just not enough to have a beautiful art direction when the game is that boring.

It is remarkably scarce in terms of good puzzles, all of them are relatively simple and uninspiring. Mostly, it is the same routine: explore the scene to find clues and turn some switches / buttons / something else on and off to get access to the next chapter. Repeat. Basically, it is a walking simulator. And a very bad one. Your character is really slow even with SHIFT, and that's a problem when approximately 80-85% of the game is about moving from point A to point B. Fascinating.

This could be neglected with a great story. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It feels like the story was written by a teenage girl who just recently read 'The best of Lovecraft' and decided to mix her romantic expectations about true love with a newfound concept of mystic and horror. The protagonist is flat and not convincing. 'We decided to tell only truth to each other, no matter how bad it is'. I am sorry, Norah, are you 13?! Needless to say, the final twist is soap-opera cheap. And it harshly violates the basic narrative rule. Show, do not tell.

A few things to mention. That's a port of a console game. I saw a few videos on YouTube, and I believe PC version is slightly different. Also, you can't change controls for keyboard for some reason. That's irritating. Mouse sensitivity is also weird but that's bearable. Also, I have to mention that publisher's logo placed on the stone elevator in Chapter 2 is just cringe. It is not even stylized to match other murals on the island. Why, Raw Fury? Do you really believe it is a good Easter egg? It is not. Also, I've managed to complete the game two times, I saw both endings but didn't get the achievement because you should watch all the credits in order to see the last small cutscene. Stupid.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy the game at all. And I am very surprised with 90% of positive reviews.

61 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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455 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.05.21 00:02

;~; aww man the feels , and the game is beautiful!!

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1 Reviews

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453 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.05.21 16:45

Enjoyable puzzles, beautiful scenery. A fun, quick game to play over the weekend.

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96 Reviews

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368 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.04.21 12:04

Fine narration game, some puzzles are quite hard (i had to cheat)
Playing in Linux is possible, there was some performance lag at the end and i think some overlays don't appear while readings some notes.

106 Produkte im Account

4 Reviews

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318 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.04.21 23:18

Excellent puzzle game, with a surprisingly touching and deep narrative. Definitely recommend.

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22 Reviews

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341 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.04.21 13:29

Call of the Sea is an impressive debut title from Out of the Blue Games considering just how well they’ve managed to capture the essence of a traditional adventure game. The game takes players onto a captivating island full of secrecy, puzzles and hidden stories, and while sometimes the game fails to fully expand on these points, the high notes Call of the Sea achieves make it more than a worthwhile experience.

The Island

The visual presentation in Call of the Sea goes a long way with very simple graphics. Textures are very clean and readable, greatly complimented by the gorgeous lighting that makes exploration so intriguing and rewarding. The artstyle is simply gorgeous, there's plenty of opportunities to stop and admire the sights as every area is joyous to look at, a feeling that synergises with the gameplay so very well as many environmental details are essential for solving puzzles.

The environmental variety really keeps the game consistently interesting too. Every chapter has a very distinct visual style that keeps exploration fresh, and each chapter’s world beautifully reflects the tone of the story. There’s such a good contrast between the modern english explorer camps and the ancient island architecture that becomes really interesting as you delve further into the land, there's a lot of effort put into fleshing out how two separate societies have existed here.

The only downside would be the size of some areas are far too large and can be a big hindrance to puzzling. Norah moves fairly slowly, so running back and forth between landmarks could get tedious occasionally when you’ve seen everything in an area. It’s not a huge issue, but there are a couple specific moments in my memory that got quite annoying.

The Puzzles

The puzzles of the island are a pretty interesting mix. You’re going to be sensing a pattern immediately, as most of the puzzles resolve around deciphering and understanding symbols to achieve various results in the world. Despite the repetition, these puzzles were always pretty interesting to solve. I liked seeing how the world would change after I figured something out, and I think they’re ingrained into the environment very well.

Usually the puzzles that went outside this formula were a bit less successful. Mostly infrequent, there were a couple puzzles I found to be irritating to work around and uninteresting to figure out. One relied on specific timing of inputs which didn’t really mesh with the rest of the game, and another seemed to ask for a very specific answer while giving so little information that it remained annoyingly hard even with all of the clues.

Thankfully, the diary mechanic is a wonderful addition that keeps these puzzles on track. Any information about the story or the puzzles you find will be immediately added to a diary you can always access. The information is always neatly indexed here so that you know if you’re missing important pieces, and I found the notation style and the journal entries themselves really helped flesh out Norah as a character.

The Expedition

The actual narrative of Call of the Sea is probably it’s weakest point, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t highlights. The best part I found was the pacing, the gradual drip feed of information about the expedition crew kept me engaged with the events of the narrative. It’s a very familiar story structure, but the execution is quite nice as things slowly start to get more eerie for the expedition crew.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the actual events within the story were very interesting. The initial questions posed have some good pay offs, but as a whole I struggled to connect with the events at hand. For the amount of time we spend researching the expedition crew, we learn disappointingly little about them, and while Norah’s story was interesting, I felt as though it failed to carry a full narrative, and we should’ve had more investment with the other characters.

Norah as a focal point is perhaps the narrative's biggest weakness. The characterization of her is solid and the acting great, but her writing really ruins the subtext in a lot of moments. Norah serves as an exposition machine in a lot of scenes, it's painfully obvious in the opening and only continues to be a bother as the story progresses. There's a strong sense of “tell don’t show” as everything is meticulously explained and no revelations are granted to the player of their own volition. Considering Norah’s dialogue is such a large chunk of this game, it's a shame how more often than not it was a large hindrance on the experience.

6/10

Favourite Moment: [spoiler]Finding The Lady Shannon, it’s a delightfully creepy chapter full of secrets and the first proper dive into the supernatural wonders of the island, and the piano puzzle was my favourite one in the game.[/spoiler]

There's some impressive work here and definitely the signs of a good developer in the making. Call of the Sea is a beautiful game, but it needed a fair amount of fine tuning to become a true classic.

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343 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.04.21 12:05

Call of the Sea is a puzzle adventure with light horror elements. The female protagonist searches for her husband in a desolate island in Tahiti, whom set out to discover a cure for his wife's mysterious disease.

Positive:
- Amazing visuals. Instead of going with a dark and sinister tone designers opted for bright colours and almost cartoonish textures, which worked surprising well for this type of a game. Environment design is also top notch, especially underwater levels. Do yourself a favour and try to play this game on a big screen.

- This was definitely one of the better Lovecraft inspired stories I have ever seen. The pacing, characters and everything was well above average. It is not easy to pull of Lovecraft like that, writers did a very good job.

- Designers managed to keep puzzles easy and interesting at the same time. Most easy puzzle adventures end up being boring, but I never felt that with Call of the Sea.

Negative:

- Although I said that puzzles being easy is not a problem, I actually wished that game got a bit more difficult towards the end. The progression of difficulty was very nice in the beginning. But the difficulty saturates around the halfway point and it doesn't get any more challenging. There is a bit of a wasted potential there, because there were some very interesting puzzles in the second half, which would have benefited greatly from being more difficult and complex (for instance the alien language puzzle, or the underwater currents puzzle).

- Game is a bit on the short side, it took me around 6 hours to beat it. I can understand that not all games need to be long, but I really wished there was a bit more challenging puzzles and gameplay.

- The default walking and running speed is a bit slow, which becomes annoying in the larger areas in later chapters. I wish there was a slider to adjust that.

Conclusion:

Call of the Sea is a fine little puzzle adventure with awesome graphics and interesting (albeit easy) puzzles. It also has a very solid Lovecraft inspired story. I would recommend it to the fans of this genre. That being said, I would have easily bumped the score to an 8/10 if there were more challenging puzzles and longer gameplay, especially in later chapters of the game.

Score: 7/10.

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299 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.04.21 02:10

This is by not what I would call a bad game, but I would not recommend it. It has some very good elements, but the good in the game is undercut by parts it got wrong, both in aspects of puzzle and in adventure.

The puzzles themselves are pretty good. Varying in complexity and type, and they all had logical solutions that I never had to guess at. But the experience of figuring out the puzzles was undone both by the protagonist pointing out that something was a clue whenever I saw one and, to a greater extent, the notebook automatically connecting clues for me. The idea of a notebook that can store clues in-game is great, but there was a puzzle mid-way through the game that involved combining symbols, and just by reading the papers in the surrounding campsite, the notebook filled in all the intermediate steps of the puzzle for me, leaving me to just enter the final combination. I was very disappointed I didn't have the opportunity to figure it out for myself. The best puzzle experience I had in the game was at the very beginning where the character mentioned that a series of totems looked like they told a story. Nothing else was mentioned, and I enjoyed taking the time to consider what kind of story the pictograms were telling. (The ship level was enjoyable too, for a similar reason.)

In terms of adventure, the game features fantastic environments and a decent story. But every time I entered a new area, before I had the chance to take it in, the protagonist would remark on how awestruck she was, and it broke me out of the moment. I didn't have time to experience awe for myself, I was just observing someone else who was. Among all the environments of this game, the only time I felt a sense of intrigue and discovery was over a strange feature of architecture in the latter game. And it had the power to illicit those feelings because the game never pointed it out; I discovered it myself.

The notebook and protagonist were solid ideas, but applied too thickly. Less would have been more. As it is, the game felt less like going on an adventure, and more like someone else going on an adventure and telling me about it.

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737 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.03.21 04:46

Wow, a beautiful story. The only downside from my perspective was that trying to play with a mouse got me a little motion sick, but I switch to a controller and had no issues after that. Seriously just a well put together story.

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239 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.03.21 14:40

I like most of puzzle games I played but certainly not this one.

+ Great environments.
+ Somewhat interesting story.

- Illogical puzzles.
- Very slow character movement.
- Infuriatingly slow ladder animations.
- Significant distances between puzzle elements.

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435 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.03.21 22:31

So let's talk about Call of the Sea without spoilers which is going to be tough.

Story: You play Norah who is looking for her husband and she arrived on an island and she will discover what happened.

Gameplay: it's walk, read and resolve puzzles. (advice your journal gives you all the hints)

puzzle difficulty: some are easy, some are hard because if you're like me you forgot to read the journals

ending: no sorry can't spoil you

Stability: it's stable i have played on Gentoo

Duration: 7 hours maybe more if you keep looking at the horizon

Do you recommend the game ?: Yes totally, game is good, beautiful colors, good atmosphere and soundtrack is good.

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318 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.21 11:38

Sadly I cannot recommend the game in its current state.
If I were able to look past the bugs then I would easily recommend it for it's a cute and pretty game.

Alas, the game has gamebreaking bugs for me where items become 'un-interactable'.
Unfortunately, these only started to show up later for me so I can't even refund.

Strong warning: steer clear until you see some explicit patch notes and confirmations of people that these have been sorted out.

(I'm going to be mean here; but really....the game isn't very technical at all...how on earth do these bugs fly on the radar....)

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454 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.02.21 07:34

A fun and engaging adventure game, if a little short. I enjoyed the overall light atmosphere and Norah as a protagonist is a treat. The game's puzzles are pleasantly challenging, not too easy and not simple 'get item x to advance', at multiple points requiring observational awareness to solve, but they are also far from super challenging or frustrating and there weren't many occasions where I felt the puzzles were expecting ridiculous things from me. Definitely recommend it overall, very enjoyable!

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48 Reviews

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529 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.02.21 03:16

Ocean man, take me by the hand, lead me to the land that you understand
Ocean man, the voyage to the corner of the globe is a real trip
Ocean man, the crust of a tan man imbibed by the sand
Soaking up the thirst of the land
Ocean man, can you see through the wonder of amazement at the oberman
Ocean man, the crust is elusive when it casts forth to the childlike man
Ocean man, the sequence of a life form braised in the sand
Soaking up the thirst of the land
Ocean man, ocean man
Ocean man
Ocean man, take me by the hand, lead me to the land that you understand
Ocean man, the voyage to the corner of the globe is a real trip
Ocean man, the crust of a tan man imbibed by the sand
Soaking up the thirst of the land
Ocean man, can you see through the wonder of amazement at the oberman
Ocean man, the crust is elusive when it casts forth to the childlike man
Ocean man, the sequence of a life form braised in the sand
Soaking up the thirst of the land
Ocean man

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47 Reviews

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106 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.02.21 11:34

If you love exploration games and enjoy them for their beautiful scenery you have to get this.
I'm only at the begining of the game but I already feel like I'm on vacation exploring this strange and vivid island.

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43 Reviews

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320 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.02.21 19:08

A beautiful game; whilst it wears Lovecraft on its sleeve it's much more of a love story than a horror one. The plot doesn't really deviate from expectations but it's well told and Norah is a really likeable protagonist. The puzzles are pretty tough; there's a few timer based ones and a few puzzles that require being good at visualising symbols but nothing terribly obnoxious.

If you're an adventure game fan and would like a not so grim dark take on Lovecraft-style material, check this out.

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355 Reviews

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257 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.02.21 16:30

Review by Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam.

Embark on a classic point'n'click adventure game where the environment is not shown in 2D, but in beautiful 3D. We play Norah, a young woman in the 1930s who suffers from an unknown disease. Dark spots on her hands are the reason why she only moves out of the house wearing gloves. And then there are the terrible, constantly recurring nightmares! After no doctor could help her, her husband started looking for a cure. But she hasn't heard from him for a good year now. His trail leads her to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, which is avoided like the plague by the superstitious locals. So she hires a boat and sets off for the island. Once there, she realises that this is exactly the island she has always dreamed of. Very strange, isn't it?

The paradise-like island is probably not so deserted after all. As soon she lands, she finds the traces of an expedition on the beach, so her missing husband was undoubtedly here. She follows his tracks further and further into the interior of the island. But there is much more waiting for her there. Missing ships, ancient temples as witnesses of a lost civilisation, unknown animals... the Bermuda Triangle is a rest home in comparison. There is much to explore and many things to find, with Norah providing spoken commentary most of the time. So we learn more and more about the island and about her relationship with her missing husband. By the way, important clues and puzzle notes are automatically entered into a diary by Norah - very convenient.

I'm not really a big fan of adventure games in 3D, very often they play rather cluttered and the 3D view is more of a pain than an advantage. Call of the Sea is completely different - here, exploring the island with its countless secrets is really fun. All actions are easy to carry out with a mouse click, so you only sweat because of the puzzles, but not because of the poor controls. By the way, the control works without problems with the mouse as well as with a controller. Apart from the good graphics, the game also is voiced, all sentences and thoughts of our protagonist are spoken by Cissey Jones, who already impressed me in Firewatch. The game also offers the possibility to expand the field of view to 100 degrees, which is also the temperature my GPU had after playing. Or maybe not, but don't try to play this on a laptop. Also very important for me is the option to switch off the camera shaking while walking (head bobbing), because otherwise I quickly get sick, as for example in the actually quite well-made adventure game Draugen.

Conclusion:
If you are looking for a graphically excellent adventure game in 3D, with an exciting story in six long chapters, combined with entertaining puzzles often incorporating polynesian symbology, Call of the Sea is absolutely right for you

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432 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.02.21 07:26

Not a long game. Took me 7 hours steam says. None of the puzzles are complex or difficult but they do make you think just enough to feel like you accomplished something. And if you're not a puzzle master you'll probably get the puzzles just fine without being frustrated or needing a walk-through. The story is really good. Play it for the story.

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476 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.01.21 02:32

Great game!

Call of the Sea is a new take on Lovecraft’s lore with a vivid introduction that enhances the moments when the game transitions into darker waters!. Call of the Sea might be short but It is a highly rewarding puzzle adventure that should be played by all fans of the genre.

Great Music!

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1043 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.01.21 02:47

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Call of the Sea
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Call of the Sea is a unique story-driven, puzzle-adventure experience. Call of the Sea’s world revolves around Norah Everhart and her journey to uncover the truth behind her husband’s expedition to an uncharted island.

As the Call of the Sea’s story progresses, Norah will discover more about herself, her incurable illness, the mysteries of the island, and her husband’s unfortunate expedition.

Plot: its 1934, and Norah Everhart is on a voyage to meet her husband, Henry. Norah is very excited; it has been a while since Henry left on his expedition.

Henry’s expedition was of great importance to him; Norah is unwell, and her symptoms are getting worst day by day. He is optimistic that he will find some sort of answer to cure his beloved Norah.

Shortly after the captain called, “Miss Norah, we have arrived,” Norah ventures out alone to reunite with her beloved. But to her dismay, she finds an abandoned camp, with no clue about the whereabouts of Henry and/or the crew.

Something has surely gone wrong, as a letter and a note from Henry indicate. Hoping that Henry and his team are all right, Norah decides to move inland. As she starts to move inland, she’s blown away by the island's beauty; she discovers local manmade structures, temples, puzzles, and complex mechanisms.

As Norah progresses through the island, she discovers more and more about the mysterious island and how all this is related to her illness. She discovers a black substance, which Henry is calling black OoZe.

Henry can’t really explain what this substance is. It is surely something magical, or even evil; the doctor interacted with this black OoZe, and he soon perished, as did the others.

She starts to uncover all the mysteries and the fate of the expedition.

Norah finds notes, drawings, and letters by Henry and the other crew members, which lead her to the answer, puzzle by puzzle, piece by piece.

Henry was right all along! He knew he would find something of great importance here, something that would surely save his beloved, even if he would need to sacrifice it all.

Gameplay: The gameplay of Call of the Sea greatly compliments the amazing and creative story of the game. The gameplay is simple and effective and allows the player to take his/her time to explore the beautiful island and all its features.

The basic WASD is slow and elegant, although it felt annoyingly slow sometimes when I was done exploring a particular area, or if I was revisiting it, which you have to do often in this game.

The game also features a diary, which logs Norah’s adventure, her discoveries, and important details throughout the game.

Norah also draws down clues as she discovers or goes through new areas, which later play an important role in solving the puzzles.

Discovery and problem-solving play the most important role in this game. The game insists that the players go through every area to explore, collect clues, drawdown important details, and find notes and letters from the expedition.

However, there’s really not much to explore. The playable area seems large (it certainly gives that impression), whereas in actuality, you play through a limited area. Finding clues and puzzle pieces is easy, which in the case of this game, is good and done very well.

Voice acting and narration: Both voice-overs for Norah and Henry were very well done and gave the story a great flavor. So did the narrations by Norah, which were consistently happening throughout the game, and at no point of my playthrough did I think that it was getting too repetitive or boring. Kudos to the actors who played these roles for doing a great job.

Puzzles: Now let us get to the main course, the puzzles. Call of the Sea nailed it when it comes to puzzles, in my opinion; the game features a good balance of difficulty.

Puzzles don’t have to be stupidly difficult to be enjoyable; well-balanced, well-placed and a good variety of puzzles has a far better outreach. And Call of the Sea did just that!

The game features a good number and a good variety of puzzles, and each is well-designed and well-placed. Some were easy to solve yet hard to get clues from, while some were hard to solve and needed some close attention to figure out. What they all have in common is that they are not too difficult to solve, and are very rewarding for those who like to explore the world and discover all the details, both in the open and hidden.

What did make the puzzles a bit tedious or annoying is the fact that the movement speed is rather slow, and you have to explore and revisit multiple locations to gets clues or discover all the hidden details.

World design: Absolutely gorgeous world design, full of different elements, colors, regions, structures, and many more.

I loved it how the devs designed and divided the island into regions with minor changes at a time, rather than just throwing the player right into a unique region without any transition. The slow buildup of different elements before transitioning into a brand new area or region is much appreciated.

Music and sound effects: A very well-put-together song features at the end of in this game; I absolutely love it! And it’s performed by the same actors who play Norah and Henry; they did a great job with the performance and gave the game an excellent touch.

As did the sound effects and background ambient noises. Right from the get-go, I was stunned to hear how well they implemented all those sound effects and ambient noises without getting in the way of narrations.

Considering all aspects of the game, Call of the Sea turned out to be a great indie title with a great touching story, voiced by a couple of talented actors, set on a beautiful island, with some great sound effects work.

However, I must mention some minor issues that I faced with the performance; although the game is not that demanding, it felt quite sluggish at times, with minor lags.

Positives:

+ Great Story
+ Beautifully designed world
+ Brilliant narration
+ Good music selection
+ Brain-tickling puzzles
+ A great exploration experience
+ Great art style

Negatives:

- Sluggish performance at times with minor lags
- Some clues and puzzles were not well explained
- No custom settings, only graphical presets

Help Norah Everhart in her search for the truth and for her beloved. Explore the mysterious island to uncover its secrets.
9/10

Key provided by the developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!

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197 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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340 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.01.21 00:51

Gorgeous graphics and initially captivating story line don't mask the truth that it's more walking simulator than puzzle/exploration game. Each chapter is very constrained and the puzzle peak in difficulty about half way through, and even then will take little more than a few moments of thought for anyone seasoned that has played Myst, Quern, or similar. The second half of the game devolves into basic pattern matching and the final puzzle is easily one of the most straightforward in the entire experience. The message the game gives in it's endings is touching but is not a worthy payoff when so much of the inner details of the whole experience are left completely ignored. It would have been nice to explore Norah's lineage further through the island and mysteries it holds, but instead Call of the Sea is just a walk from one gated area to another looking for shapes or symbols to align correctly to proceed.

Well made game that simply lacks the depth of others in the genre.

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41 Reviews

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429 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.01.21 23:40

I had a good time !

What drew me into this game was the fact that it looked so pretty, and this was no disappointment. Also, i like puzzle-adventure games, and i was happy to get into that once again.

I have a few critics about Call of the Sea though :
- The adventure is too guided to my taste. It's like following a rail. It can be a positive point for those who just wanna enjoy the atmosphere, discover the story without too much thinking. Not saying the puzzles are obvious either, but overall it felt too easy. And the story... [spoiler] it's typical Lovecraft. That's great, but it felt like it's always the same... no surprise, no suspense, i got a feeling that i saw it all already :/ [/spoiler]
- The main character wasn't realistic in my opinion, and this broke my immersion by A LOT. Spoilers for those interested : [spoiler] She is searching for her husband who disappeared on the island, but she acts so calmly and it a detached manner that it feels she doesn't care a bit. Aren't you worried for the one you love ? [/spoiler] From the beginning to the end, her reactions don't match the situation at all, and i think it's a pitty.
- The gameplay : you can't jump, you can't die... and it feels so linear ! [spoiler] I wish the gameplay would change along with the story : going darker -> going less easy, less obvious ? [/spoiler]

Overall, i feel like the devs wanted to make a beautiful, feel good game, and i think they pulled it off. That's just not what i expect from games anymore, cause it makes them feel predictable, slick, maybe even a little soulless. But i still had a good time playing this game, and i'm sure many people will !

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364 Reviews

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677 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.12.20 22:18

Zitat:

Follow our curator page: IndieGems if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

Call of the Sea is a first-person adventure with excellent presentation and interesting combination of story and puzzles to keep the player engaged for the entire journey. In short, this game is absolutely amazing, and if you want to stop reading there, just know that it's a worthwhile adventure.

Strengths

Story: Play from a first-person perspective of Norah Everhart as she pursues this adventure in search of her husband, and discovers the truth behind her life-long illness in the process. With a Lovecraft-inspired theme filled with mystery and unknown, Norah comes closer to the truth every step along the way. Beyond the theme, the style of introspection, wonder, followed by self-reflexive acknowledgement and acceptance help to hold the game together really well.

Character Development: It's lovely to see a game with such fleshed out characters. Not just our protagonist Norah but also her husband Harry, who we mostly get to know from her self-musings and observations during her journey, and some letters that he has left for her. She's an intelligent, determined, caring, and loving individual with whom the player truly bonds. He just wants to help cure her illness.

Visuals: Undoubtedly you have already seen some of the amazing mixture of artwork and colors arranged for this game by the time you are coming to read the reviews. Everything looks absolutely amazing and fits into the game's other aspects superbly. I haven't posted this many screenshots in such a short amount of time in a long time.

Puzzles: The puzzles are moderate difficulty in design, with clues to their solutions to be found through exploration. The game does make the puzzles a lot easier by noting in a journal almost everything needed to solve the puzzles. The player can open the journal mid-puzzle to look at the important notes if necessary to progress. There are not a ton of puzzles to this game, only a couple of major ones barring the path from one chapter to the next, but they are well-designed and fun to solve.

Audio: The sound effects really puts the player in Norah's shoes, everywhere she goes and everything she does, the sound effects help to bring the atmosphere alive. The music evokes wonder, discovery, amazement, but also frustration, loss and sadness at the appropriate times in subtle but effective places. The excellently voice-acted sound bytes as Norah explores the island also convey a lot of emotion to help provoke the player's empathy.

Internal Glue: There is enough mystery to keep the player on his/her toes. There is fascinating story progression to keep the player engaged. Some of the missable achievements help to encourage complete exploration and examination, which aids the player in finding clues to solve some of the seemingly wild puzzles. And it's that same exploration that keeps the player entranced by the visuals and the details. Everything fits together so well to help with the immersive gameplay and for the player to bond with Norah and through her, Harry. Alone she may be on her journey, Norah is always connected to the player, the environment, and the other not-physically-present characters within the game.

Some Views

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2333441044

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2333440243

An Unforgettable Underwater Ride

https://youtu.be/YA--CKKsHO0

Places For Improvement

-So I definitely ran into some sections where immersion breaks a bit, such as a series of objects that are meant to be examined in sequence, but I go on and explore a bit, the come back to look at the items in reverse order. Norah's audible reactions to examining these objects break the intended order. Most of the time it's minor, occasionally she's more reactive and so the emotions do not fit.

-Occasional bugs that are small and usually insignificant. Nothing game breaking.

Other Comments

1. The game works with KB+M or Controller. I had no issues with the controller.

2. I did have to turn off motion blur and maximize the FOV at 100 degrees. You might want to adjust to your liking.

3. $19.99 base price is pretty reasonable given the quality of the game. There are not a ton of puzzles, but they are well designed. If you are super quick on the puzzles, the game may only take 7-8 hours. But it's one of those games that's worth your extra time and attention to explore.

Conclusion

Call of the Sea can be considered a genre-defining work and an example for others to follow. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure and felt attached to Norah that I wished the game to go on for longer.

Score: 9/10

Zitat:

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

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306 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.12.20 18:06

If you enjoy this genre then this game is pretty much as good as it gets. None of the puzzles were frustrating or banally easy, the story is engaging, audio-visual side is top notch. I have really nothing bad to say about it.
Took me ~5hrs to complete without rushing through - I was satisfied (having paid full release price) but I imagine some people might take issue with the price/hours of play ratio so decide for yourself.

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1438 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.12.20 19:16

Call of the Sea

Call of the Sea is impressive and immersive. I can’t think of many more examples of a better puzzle game with such an interesting story binding it together.

Zitat:

Challenging puzzles, a charming relationship study and an intriguing story make Call of the Sea a superior adventure puzzle game.

Call of the Sea is a first-person adventure and puzzle game set during the 1930’s.

After years and years of appointments and medical referrals, the doctors have all but given up on Norah’s unusual and rare condition. In pain, and suffering from horrible nightmares and visions, her husband Harry decides to embark on a quest to solve the riddle behind her affliction. The trail takes him to a remote island in the South Pacific that the locals fear and have named “The Island of Death”. When Harry goes missing without trace, Norah musters all her energy and travels to the island to investigate.

Overall Impressions????

I loved Call of the Sea. I just didn’t want to stop playing it.

The atmosphere is superbly done with layers and layers of lore, intrigue and mystery added to the mix at just the right times. There is even a short, but informative, seven-part prequel story in the news section to wet your appetite and introduce you to the two main characters. Check it out before you start!

I really enjoy good character development and the relationship between the two main characters is what drives the story forward. Norah and Harry are as deeply in love as the day they met, and this is portrayed wonderfully through voiced cut scenes, and letter correspondence between the two of them. The game manages to convince you that they have the perfect relationship and would do anything for each other. There are lots of different types of lore lying around to enforce this notion, from inscribed photographs showing special memories to events in their lives that we witness. I really enjoyed this part of the game as it made it feel like more than just a puzzle game loosely tied together.

The game felt like a true adventure where you cared about the characters and you wanted to know what happened to Harry and you wanted Norah to find him.

There is plenty of exploration to do, and lots of objects to examine. Objects that can be examined will invoke either a text-based summation and/or a voiced comment from Norah. Inspecting objects will add to the lore and reveal parts about the story and island. It is all cleverly layered and keeps the intrigue high.

Puzzles were imaginative but quite difficult I thought. I managed to solve them without any guides apart from two. One of these puzzles is broken and the other was slightly misleading. The puzzles were cleverly entwined around the story, which is mostly Polynesian based, and added to the immersion and feeling that the puzzle was part of finding Harry rather than a disconnected puzzle for the sake of it.

Some puzzles required making notes, even though there is a diary where all important clues and puzzle notes get added. The diary can only be brought up on full screen however which means you are flicking between puzzle and diary. I would have liked the option to have the diary visible alongside the puzzle so that you refer to it and solve the puzzle simultaneously.

I think most people will struggle with these puzzles. They take a bit of exploration to find the objects needed to provide the clues and when you have all the clues, it takes a fair bit of brain power to work them out. Personally, they hit just the right difficulty level with me and although I struggled, it was immensely satisfying when you reach that Eureka moment.

The island setting is beautiful and voice acting is superb. Cut scenes are dramatic and have a high production feel. The whole game feels mysterious and eerie.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2331504921

The story is one of the best I have experienced in a puzzle game. Characters are strong and well developed with wonderful music and sound effects accompanying it.

There are six chapters and I played through the game twice to gain all the achievements. It took me around twenty hours to do so.

Zitat:

Call of the Sea is one of the best story-driven puzzle games I have played. It is unusual to find such a well-developed character base alongside such an intriguing story which matures as it progresses.

Puzzles may prove a little too difficult for some less experienced puzzle gamers but overall, the game is wonderfully produced and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it to puzzle lovers who like a good story.

Gameplay????️

You play as Norah Everhart, devoted wife to Harry Everhart.

In search of your missing husband, you arrive on a mysterious island and must explore for clues to Harry’s whereabouts. Along the way you will find evidence of your husband’s progress in trying to find a cure for your illness, and clues to his whereabouts and what happened to his party.

Norah has a journal where she notes important finds, and documents clues to puzzles which block her progress. You can refer to the diary at any time which provides invaluable help. The diary has a notes section which recaps the story and a log section which places all clues to puzzles.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2323244169

If an object is examinable, then an eye symbol will appear. The object can be rotated which sometimes reveals more information. Norah will comment on the object and any important information is noted.

Sometimes Norah will find a letter that Harry has written for her. This produces a small cutscene detailing Harry’s efforts in finding a cure and his concerns and worries.

Collecting clues is vital to progressing so you’ll need to examine everything you can. The notebook page should be full if you are harboring all valuable evidence so if there is a gap on the page you’ll need to keep looking.

Using the evidence in your notes and logs you’ll need to solve the puzzles at hand. You do not have an inventory as such but occasionally you will pick up objects that will be automatically used on the correct puzzle.

The puzzles are varied and interesting and can be quite challenging. There is a mixture of smaller and easier puzzles along with bigger ones with multiple facets. One of the first puzzles you’ll encounter is actually broken and referring to a guide proved this. If you get stuck on the lens aligner puzzle then you’ll need to look up the solution until it’s fixed.

Keyboard or controller can be used.

There are lots of interesting achievements to gather.

Graphics ????

The graphics were beautiful. The game felt polished and professional. I did get some screen tearing in the early chapters though but this seemed to resolve itself later.

The island is well detailed and they’ve put a lot of effort into the Polynesian look and feel.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2330484727

Sound ????

Voice acting was superb and there is a wonderful orchestral tune played for dramatic effect when required.

Conclusion????

Zitat:

Call of the Sea has the complete package.

I wish there were more games around like this. Often games suffer in one department and excel in others. Call of the Sea manages to produce a wonderfully intriguing story, characters who you want to invest your feelings with, a great setting full of eerie tales and mystery, and genuinely challenging and clever puzzles.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you buy this. Definitely one of the best games I have played this year.

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1706 Produkte im Account

35 Reviews

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496 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.12.20 12:41

Enjoyed this little game. Additional kudos to devs for writing good female character, not Mary Sue or STRONG WOMYN THAT NEED NO MAN.

212 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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303 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.12.20 14:37

Call of the Sea is a beautiful game, that above all is evocative of its themes and immersive in its presentation.
The story is relatively straightforward, but nontheless interesting, and sucks you in as a player in pursuit of the central mystery of the game.

The beautifully crafted puzzles are the central gameplay element of the game and are very interesting to solve, even if for my taste at least a little bit to easy at times. Overall the game is also rather short and does not really provide any replay value apart from revisiting chapters to search for a few hidden items and journal entries. I finished my playthrough at 5 hours.

That makes it hard to recommend in terms of value for money, when you take a look at other cheap games that can provide hundreds of hours of fun.

Still Call of the Sea is a wonderful exploration of its genre, that is polished and well crafted, and is well worth it if you are a puzzle fan and want a straighforward cinematic experience that never feels boring, unfair with its puzzles or overindulges on itself with unnessecary padding.

Overall a great game made by a small team of developers, whose love for the subject can be felt on every step of the way!

313 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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420 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.12.20 03:53

A great pulpy adventure with thoughtful puzzles and pacing.

600 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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440 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.12.20 03:39

an amazing adventure game. Its really beautiful to see another approach to the whole Cthulhu mythos other than the usual bleak darkish maddening settings they always place games with this theme. i love how colorful this was. the puzzle and the atmosphere where breathtaking.

221 Produkte im Account

178 Reviews

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970 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.12.20 21:49

What an absolutely wonderful game! Call of the Sea is an exploratory adventure with a heartwarming love story. You play Norah - a woman with a mysterious illness whose husband has gone missing while looking for a cure. She travels to a South Sea island and begins to look for him, following the clues he has left behind. Puzzles consist primarily of restoring power to modern equipment and activating ancient artifacts. You have a journal that is updated with a log of your travels and all puzzle clues that you encounter.

For me, this game was a perfect mix of adventure and story, without endless backtracking or long dialog trees. The story is told through Norah's musings as well as in the letters, photos, and notes she finds along the way. For the most part, the game is a linear path through 6 chapters with the ability to save at any point. Your time is split between traversing a diverse landscape, experiencing dream like sequences, and swimming in a perfectly crafted underwater world.

The artwork is beautiful and the music is uplifting. Some of the cut scenes feel like a major motion picture... big landscapes with swelling music that give you true 'wow' moments. The voice acting is professionally done and you can't help but like Norah and share her wonder as the mysteries of the island unfold. With few exceptions, the puzzles are not difficult and clues abound if you are paying attention. There are achievements for finding all of the clues and story snippets so it pays to take time and look at every object that can be interacted with.

I think this is one of the better games I've played this year in terms of art, music, story, and puzzles. I highly recommend it to any gamer who doesn't need combat to feel good about an adventure!

1358 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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388 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.12.20 00:29

If you like:
- Lovecraft Deep Ones' theme
- First person adventure game
- Gorgeous landscapes
- Challenging puzzles with a great eureka effect
- And an emotive story

Don't think twice, because all these elements have been combined, with care, into such a great gem (a trully love letter to all classic puzzle-narrative driven games!).

Good old times.

280 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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267 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.12.20 19:05

One of the best games you could end 2020 with. Call of the Sea is extremely engaging in all of its aspects. The atmosphere created by the sounds and music makes you enter this world and stay in it along the incredible adventure of Norah.

The characters and the story are well developed, thanks to the different items you find all over the place that give you details of how these characters were and what happened to them. Not to mention the incredible voice acting it has.

The puzzles are varied in their style: from timing to rhythm, memory, and spatial reasoning.

It's a must-play for anyone that enjoys exploration, story-rich, puzzle games.