Seven years is a hell of a long time to wait for a sequel, but The Mermaid Mask proves that SFB Games hasn't lost its touch. Detective Grimoire is back, dragging his sarcastic sidekick Sally onto a submarine to investigate the locked-room murder of Captain Magnus Mortuga. If you played Tangle Tower or Secret of the Swamp, you’ll recognize the rhythm immediately: it’s a stylish, funny, and deeply methodical whodunnit that prioritizes character chemistry over punishing difficulty.
Image credit: www.theguardian.com
Clues, Pipes, and Talking Sticks
The core loop here is refreshingly simple. You’ll spend most of your time clicking through cluttered submarine cabins, dragging items to inspect them, and cross-referencing your findings with a cast of weirdos. The suspects are the real highlight. You’ve got Madam Tadpole—a buff, green-skinned individual who definitely has gills—and Mariana Moon, whose dialogue is hilariously muffled because she’s constantly chugging on a pipe. Then there’s Godric Gripp, a compass repairman who carries a sentient stick named Cornelius Cane. The developers clearly had a blast with these characters; I’m still thinking about the shopfront interface they coded solely for one joke involving that talking cane.
The deduction system is identical to Tangle Tower and games like The Case of the Golden Idol. You fill in the blanks of a sentence using a provided bank of nouns and verbs to form hypotheses. It’s a satisfying, checklist-driven process where you get a literal tick for every topic you exhaust. While I did run into a minor bug where a mystery unlocked a bit too early, it’s the kind of thing the devs are already patching out for early adopters.
A Few Underwater Bumps
The game isn’t perfect, though. If you’re a fan of the jazzy, character-driven score from Tangle Tower, you might find the music here a bit of a letdown—I actually turned the volume down just to focus on the voice acting, which is top-tier across the board. Also, if you aren’t into the "pixel hunting" style of investigation, you might chafe at the pacing in the final chapter. It turns into a very literal to-do list that feels like it’s dragging its feet before the big reveal.
Still, for £17.75, it’s a steal. Whether you’re playing on PS5, PC, or Switch, the game offers a polished, lighthearted mystery that feels better wrapped up than its predecessor. It’s not going to break your brain with complex logic puzzles, but the journey to the final accusation is easily one of the most entertaining detective stories I’ve played in years.
Original coverage: www.theguardian.com.
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