Name of the Sea is a first-person journey recreation developed by Out of the Blue Video games and revealed by Uncooked Fury. It’s a thriller full of surprise, puzzles, and a few story moments that can have you ever holding your breath.
The story is ready in 1934 and also you play as Norah, a lady heading off on her personal to seek out her lacking husband. She has a mysterious sickness and her husband had set out on an expedition to seek out her the treatment. When his letters abruptly cease, Norah takes issues into her personal arms to seek out him. Or, a minimum of work out what occurred to him. She finds herself alone, on a sketchy island within the South Pacific, The captain that brings her there tells her he’ll decide her up in three days. Thus, the journey begins.
Don’t fear; Name of the Sea isn’t truly timed. The sport strikes ahead when you’ve finished the whole lot you must within the present space. That is good contemplating you’ll be able to take your time and discover each nook and cranny, however it additionally means you may be caught in a particular spot for a very long time if you happen to can’t work out what to do subsequent. Norah retains a journal so clues and proof you discover (which might be necessary) will likely be famous there, and you’ll take a look at it any time.
The mysteries of the island, Norah’s sickness, and the disappearance of her husband (and his exploration crew) are revealed slowly by means of environmental and located narrative. Norah narrates loads. Typically to the purpose the place she’ll overexplain one thing. She’ll communicate whilst you play, so it was considerably tough to concentrate on exploring or fixing a puzzle as a result of I tuned into what she was saying, simply in case it was one thing necessary. It was jarring at instances, however not something large enough to make me wish to give up the sport.
The puzzles are an enormous portion of Name of the Sea. I’ll start by saying puzzle video games aren’t my sturdy go well with regardless of telling myself in any other case every time I boot up a puzzle recreation. Throughout the first few puzzles, I’m all the time humbled. The puzzles on this recreation had been considerably difficult and that was partially on my lack of puzzle-solving expertise, but additionally partly the sport.
Let me clarify: I knew what to do for most of the puzzles, however the answer itself wasn’t clear as a result of I performed in another way than how the sport wished me to. For instance, one early puzzle had a totem of 5 symbols that wanted reordering. First, I attempted the order I discovered the symbols in. Nothing. I attempted many mixtures and nothing labored. I ended up a walkthrough to seek out the answer and it turned out I used to be appropriate. I wanted to arrange the symbols within the order I discovered them all through the island. The issue was, I discovered the symbols in a unique order than the sport wished me to. The image I used to be supposed to seek out first, I discovered final. That’s how most of the puzzles are.
That stated, I wasn’t too impressed with a lot of the puzzles in Name of the Sea. I imagine the narrative and exploration is its sturdy go well with, regardless of Norah speaking a lot. The opening cutscene felt like I used to be watching an (interactive) film and it was great. The sport is damaged up into six chapters, that are all comparatively brief relying on how fast you’ll be able to clear up the puzzles. Every space actually solely has a handful of smaller puzzles plus one large one to unravel earlier than transferring on. In any other case, nearly all of the sport is strolling round and clicking on the whole lot you discover to study extra in regards to the island, and what beforehand occurred there.
Having the sport in first-person was an excessive amount of, although that’s a private desire. I couldn’t play for too lengthy with out getting dizzy because you’re transferring the cursor all around the display to look and click on on the whole lot attainable. The cursor is a small dot in the midst of the display, and I wanted to be completely exact in the place I clicked or else Norah wouldn’t discover something.
Chapter three particularly was tough to get by means of as a result of Norah is stranded on the seashore at night time throughout a thunderstorm. I’m delicate to lights and all the time play my video games with the brightness all the best way down, however I wanted it up for chapter three. However even with my brightness at 100%, it was tough to see and the intense flashes of lightning on occasion gave me a headache.
These aren’t essentially negatives, however with such an attractive storyline, I might have liked to sit down down and play Name of the Sea for a pair hours at a time. Sadly, I used to be solely in a position to play in brief bursts due to the POV and the lighting.
In any other case, there are a lot of options to like about this recreation. The music and sound results introduced the island to life. Plus, the sport is totally voice acted, which was top-notch. The story stored me on my toes, between Norah’s lacking husband, her sickness, and the creepiness of the island. Nevertheless, I feel the puzzles might have been finished a bit higher. If you happen to’re in search of an atmospheric title with a powerful storyline, then definitely try Name of the Sea.
