Calluna

I live in Norway and have visited the beautiful old town of Bergen, so I was extra happy to check out this game. The first part of Calluna is an interesting glimpse of 19th century Norway. It feels closer to a well done interactive museum experience than to a regular adventure game, with info beacons providing historical insights and everything. There's some rather light gameplay, but it seems to be mostly about getting immersed in the atmosphere. The views are pretty and the atmosphere does feel impressively authentic, with attention to details making the streets come alive. You can find a map with a fast travel function, but I actually preferred walking because I enjoyed the scenery. The music enhances the historical experience nicely, though I would have expected more violin... I haven't had time to finish the game, going to update my review later. So far it's a recommendation if you're into this kind of "edutainment" experience or just want to get immersed in historical settings. UPDATE: From chapter 2 on, I thought the quests were getting a bit ridiculous and tedious. Also, there are fantasy elements, so we're leaving the purely historical. ALSO, [b]there's no save function, not even autosave[/b]. Which I found out the hard way after exiting the game with an almost finished 3rd chapter. It really wasn't good enough for me to bother playing through the whole chapter again. I could select chapter 4 and just play that without knowing the outcome of the third, but ugh. What if I'll have to leave again, or just don't feel like continuing [i]right now[/i]? I think no matter how short a game or chapter is, there should [i]always[/i] be a save function. * * * If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35872486]Peaceful Adventures and Stories[/url]. You're also welcome to join the [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/chilladventures]group[/url].

Calluna might just be a bit of a hidden gem. Too many times I've seen a small indie dev team execute a really interesting concept poorly but this is not the case with Calluna. I was surprised at how smoothly this first-person, semi-open world, historical adventure game runs. The environments are really pretty and the missions you're on in the 4 different stories do not feel repetitive. You will adventure in the streets of Bergen, Paris, and Cairo as Ole Bull but from very different perspectives - an ambitious child, a whimsical pre-teen, a stubborn, sickly and broke young adult, and an accomplished musician in his 60s. They all bring out a different dimension of Ole Bull and teach you about his life without actually feeling like an educational game. It just feels like an adventure game. It's a short game and I truly believe that it's worth your time and attention! Indie devs deserve our support, especially when they create such charming adventures for us :) The game isn't perfect. It would really benefit from an auto-save feature, or any kind of saving feature for that matter. It is a game you can finish in 3 hours and that's counting all 4 episodes. You can play the different episodes in whatever order you want to so it's not that big of a deal that you can't save your progress but it's a pretty basic feature to omit. That's basically my main complaint and it doesn't take away from the charming experience that is Calluna!