Call Me Under (PC) First Impressions

Call Me Under, the forthcoming visual novel from Lunaris Games currently slated for release in 2021, offers an alternately dreamy and unsettling trip through an alternate 1950s. It is centered on the underwater, glass-encased city perhaps aptly named Styx.

As a community that home to “humans, sirens, and a host of unknown otherworldly entities,” Styx is the site for an intriguing blend of genres such as supernatural horror, film noir, and dating sim elements. These are all tied together into a visual novel.

It’s helped along by a well-crafted, engaging soundtrack that, together with clever, evocative writing and an enjoyable art style, creates a solid sense of atmosphere. All together, Call Me Under makes compelling choices. The visual novel slash dating sim isn’t an immediately obvious avenue for the unnerving, but I find myself pleasantly convinced.

The voice acting for the game is still a work in progress, with only one of the characters fully voiced so far. However, this too is well-directed and persuasive, offering a strong sense of character even with this limited exposure.

I greatly look forward to seeing how the rest of the acting pans out once the voices for the remaining six central characters are added. I’m glad to see a concerted effort to not just write in diverse characters, but also hire diverse actors to voice them.

All together, this demo plants enough of the story to intrigue without giving too much away. Equally, Call Me Under so far doesn’t seem like an overly derivative retread of either the noir detective stories or the Call of Cthulhu-esque narratives that clearly inspire it.

With all the promised elements taken together, both seen in the demo and anticipated from the game’s description, Call Me Under looks to offer an enjoyable, complex narrative to sate dating sim fans, horror fans, and fans of both who’d like to kiss monsters. Or be kissed as a monster. Both? Both is good. If that sounds like your thing, the game is available for wishlisting on Steam, and can be supported on Kickstarter in advance of its release on PC, Mac, and Switch.