I have a deep admiration for Adam Vian as a writer. Even deeper is my vicious envy. Between Tangle Tower and Crow Country he’s proven to be an extraordinarily adept storyteller that effectively harnesses the interactive medium. Like, guy’s at the tippy-top tier. The, er, maximum utmost.

The Mermaid Mask is another clear example of that. So, if all you want to know is whether or not you should play it, then the answer is: absolutely.

And, I’m not going to get deep into spoilers here in this review, but given that The Mermaid Mask is a murder mystery, and because a significant slice of its amazing success is how things are gradually revealed to you, then I do recommend going in blind. It’s quite a trip. If you don’t care about that, shame on you, but I’m willing to provide further convincing.

THE HEX OF THE HELMSMAN

The Mermaid Mask returns us to Sally and her sidekick, Detective Grimoire. They have a new case, this time on a bizarre submarine parked outside of Silkworm-on-sea. Its owner, Magnus Mortuga, has been murdered, the body found in a storeroom right beside a strange, stone cauldron. Some believe the cauldron had never been opened before, which adds an additional question to the mystery: what was inside? Subsequently, where did it go?

The submarine is inhabited by eight eccentric characters, each with their own connection to Mortuga, as well as a reason to be there. There’s Dr. Zephyr, the dream researcher; Godrick Gripp, the merchant; Symmetry Silkmoth, the whimsical illusionist; Madam Tadpole, supposedly a half-mermaid; Sinthia Seafoam, the submarine’s new captain; J.D. Wirman, the author of a popular pulp novel loosely based on Mortuga’s life; and Dirk Dansom, the star of a movie based on Wirman’s book. None of the characters really have an obvious reason for killing Mortuga, and the crime scene leaves a lot of questions, so it’s up to you to put all the pieces together.

The game itself is rather simple. You collect clues, you talk to the submarine dwellers, and gradually, you get a better picture of what happened. A large bulk of the first portion of the game is just finding items and showing them to characters. The characters all react in their own way, giving you bits of hearsay to play with. There’s no reason not to show a character all the items that you found, unless you’re just bored of the dialogue, but I don’t foresee that happening.

However, it’s maybe important to note, that the dialogue is all rigid and linear. You’re not going to shove an item that you think is evidence into someone’s face with the intention of getting a confession out of them. When you learn new information, it doesn’t change what someone else will say. You just display your inventory to a character, they’ll give their personal perspective on it or make an excuse or just brush it off, and that’s it. You can check that off the list, because it’s all you’re going to get out of them.

HER

It’s a deceptively strict framework that ensures you never really get stuck and that the pace remains consistent. At worst, you’re likely to trip up on solving one of The Mermaid Mask’s puzzles (which are almost invariably just fancy locks), but you’re provided plenty of hints if you need them.

If you make a wrong choice in dialogue, the game just backs up and lets you choose another one. It’s more interested in telling you a story than challenging you. That’s not to say it’s mindless, though. Well, unless you are completely devoid of curiosity. The way it provides you with bits of information challenges you to draw your own conclusions. And even if you don’t manage to get things clarified, you’re then provided opportunity to figure things out alongside the characters.

What I’m trying to stress is that you can boil down The Mermaid Mask into a really simple game in every facet, but it doesn’t feel that way. Exactly as if you were reading a good whodunit novel, you still feel like a detective, even if solving the mystery is a foregone conclusion. 

SEAFOAM

It’s an engrossing mystery. Adam Vian made sure to twist all the characters together in satisfying way, and, as I’ve mentioned, the way you’re fed tidbits of information is extremely well done. There are plenty of red herrings thrown at you along the way to confuse things, including Grimoire’s fantastical theory he tends to contrive (with your help) at the beginning of his investigations.

By the end, I had a pretty solid idea of what happened, but didn’t truly know whodunit until things began coming together for the reveal. Again, regardless of how direct and rigid things are, it still felt like I was involved in solving the mystery. The game tells you what things you need to fit together within appropriate context, which usually elicits an “ah ha!” Or at least an “ooooh!”

There were, however, some instances of “fridge logic,” which may bug some folks, but I don’t think fridge logic is particularly egregious most of the time, especially given the genre. On the other hand, I must admit that I’ve been chewing on one particular happenstance that I can’t quite reconcile completely in my head. Okay, so, I’m maybe among those that gets bothered by that sort of thing, but it didn’t drag down the experience.

CORNELIUS CANE

If there’s one other thing that bothers me, it’s that not all the characters are created equal. There were some that I was always delighted to talk to, and a few that weren’t as remarkable. When I look back on it, I also feel that some of them don’t exactly tie into the overall plot as much as I think was intended.

My initial thought is that the characters are well-executed enough that it doesn’t really matter. Of course some will be less interesting, that’s always how it goes. However, when I think back to Tangle Tower, I realize that I don’t remember a single character aside from Grimoire and Sally. And I’m not saying the cast of Tangle Tower had any evident problem. However, three years ago doesn’t feel that long ago in terms of my memory, but perhaps it was because I didn’t get around to reviewing the game and therefore my brain didn’t tag it as important.

Regardless, I think this time, at least a few of the characters are going to stick with me. Perhaps it would be fairer to commend The Mermaid Mask for having some, or even many, memorable characters rather than suggesting they all need to all be direct hits.

This may seem like an abrupt change of subject, but I found the music to be at a similar level as everything else, by which I mean, it’s excellent. While it’s largely set up as atmospheric background music, there were instances that I couldn’t help but tune in. A lot of it is really fantastic, and I’d probably be willing to listen to the soundtrack removed from the game.

For that matter, the voice acting is likewise superb. I often find myself put off by voice in 2D, text heavy games, but not always, and that wasn’t the case here. The cast’s delivery alongside the terrifically animated characters are immensely enjoyable. The voices make things feel complete, and I never found myself wishing it was just text.

WHODIDIT?

I like a good whodunit, and they don’t get much better than The Mermaid Mask. Everything about its presentation is on target, and it’s hard to think of a way it could be better. Even some things it does, had they been done in other games, would probably annoy me fiercely (such as its exposition heavy ending), but in context here, I can’t imagine their absence.

For a lot of The Mermaid Mask’s runtime, I often reflected on how flawlessly it delivers on its intent. The art, animation, voice acting, and music are excellent in the ways that support the narrative, and the narrative itself is top shelf. You may not be given very much agency when it comes to solving the mystery, but it doesn’t feel that way, and the time spent with the quirky, whimsical, but believable characters is a delight. This is one that you’ll want to investigate.

9/10

This review was conducted using a Steam version of the game. It was provided by the developer’s PR.