Call of the Sea

A first-person puzzle game with a walking sim soul. That means it's quite slow and intends for you to read all the notes and enjoy the view. The story is inspired by Lovecraft but it's not really horror.

Puzzles are not very difficult but also not casual. Expect to be challenged. There is a good amount of clues to nudge you in the right direction, but in the end you will have to think, mostly about patterns and geometry.

The story is quite good and follows the Lovecraftian formula of a slow descent into weirdness. Voice acting is excellent. The only aspect I didn't entirely enjoy was the art style: despite a few beautiful scenes, it's all quite cartoonish, meaning low detail and an overly vivid color palette. It's consistent and polished but somehow seemed like the wrong design decision to me. The sound engineering is excellent, though, and using surround speakers or headphones is highly recommended.

All in all it's a nice experience for people like me, but I suspect that puzzle-heads might find the walking sim aspects tedious, while the walking-sim-heads might find the puzzles too challenging. But, if that combination sounds good to you, you're in for a treat.