I played Call of the Sea as a free EGS game a while back, and this acts as a direct sequel. Buzz was positive and decided to give it a go. Impressed overall.

I enjoy puzzle games, there’s a zen in each of them when trying to put the clues together in order to get the final result. I really enjoy intuitive puzzlers, but those require a substantial amount of logic present to work. Return of the Obra Din is the highlight for sure, though there are a half dozen games that come close. Then you have mechanical puzzlers, and this is more like Myst where things need to go in a certain order within a machine to get you the final results. There’s a spot between both genres where you need logic and mechanics to move forward. Call of the Elder Gods is in that spot.

There are 7 chapters here, including a prologue. Each of them has 1 major puzzle to solve, along with a handful of smaller ones too. The wide majority of these puzzles are mechanical in nature, you need to simply find the instructions and sort of fill in the blanks. There are 2 exceptions here, a totem puzzle that is more like Obra Din on steroids, and then an Enigma box logic jump. Thankfully the game includes a very robust hint system that can nudge you in the right direction.

The story itself, well, it’s in the title right? It’s not a direct line to Cthulhu, but thematically it’s similar. The first game had much more horror baked in, while this one is much closer to an Indiana Jones vibe of discovery. The art style works wonderfully here, the voice overs are all solid, and the sounds eerie enough to keep you grounded. I will say that the story itself felt a bit short, like there are a couple chapters missing here to truly make sense of some of the later turns. Feels a bit like deus ex machina to close it all out.

That said, there aren’t many games in this genre to start, and Call of the Elder Gods hits a lot of good notes along the way. Steam says I cleared it in about 8 hours, so give or take a couple more for the general public. The best credit I can give to any game is one where you find it hard to put down – and this certainly is in that category. Hopefully the gaming industry can see what was done here and continue to make awesome games. We can all use more of that.