The Mermaid's Tongue demo gets people talking about Tangle Tower sequel

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Detective Grimoire and Sally to return in underwater adventure on PC and consoles in 2024

Detective Grimoire and his partner Sally sure do get called to some unusual settings to solve mysteries, from the swamps of a small tourist attraction in the investigator's self-titled debut, to a magical mansion filled with oddball characters in 2019's Tangle Tower. The pair's next case from SFB Games will be no exception, sending them underwater in the upcoming "deep-sea detective mystery" The Mermaid's Tongue.

As with its predecessors, the game begins with a murder. This time it's Magnus Mortuga, the captain of the "world's strangest submarine." Mortuga was a reclusive, enigmatic figure about whom wild rumours abounded, some claiming he was an "immortal time traveller" and others speculating that he was "a vampire, cursed to stay hidden beneath the waves forever." Clearly neither was true, because now the captain is dead, though his demise gives rise to a new mystery: How was he killed, when his corpse was discovered with an ancient stone cauldron in a locked room that was "unsealed and opened for the first time?" It's up to Grimoire and Sally to delve the "pitch-black waters beyond a long-abandoned fishing town" to investigate whether it was a curse brought on by the curious cauldron, murder by a member of his crew, or perhaps even a "bizarre truth" that runs deeper than that.

Fans of the indie British developer will instantly recognize the charming hand-painted art style of The Mermaid's Tongue, with a new wrinkle in the form of fully 3D items to examine up close. This case will take you many leagues deeper than ever before as you "submerge yourself in the nautical beauty of the sprawling Mortuga Submarine and discover its many oddities and secrets." The culprit is here – if indeed the captain was killed by human hands – with eight potential "suspicious occupants" on board, all of them fully voiced and "each more eccentric and inscrutable than the last." There will be plenty of clues to uncover along the way, as well as puzzles "designed to encourage curiosity, experimentation, and that ultimate 'aha!' moment of discovery." As always, the story will balance "heavy themes with light-hearted humour," and the action will be accompanied by an original soundtrack performed by the Budapest Art Orchestra.

While no firm release date has been announced just yet, The Mermaid's Tongue will be launched on PC and consoles sometime in 2024. In the meantime, you can dab a toe in its beautifully murky waters via the playable demo available now on Steam as part of the Day of the Devs 2023.