Schrödinger’s Call Review

Schrödinger’s Call is a visual novel game that puts you in the role of Mary, the world’s last ‘Confidant’. Mary finds herself in a room with a cat and telephone, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The cat speaks to her, but it is not very interested in answering Mary’s questions to her satisfaction. Instead, it insists that she answers the phone when it rings and provides her with a little guidance on the calls as well as the rules of the role of a Confidant.

The room that Mary is in exists outside of time while the world itself is nanoseconds away from an apocalypse that will end humanity. The people who call in to Mary are not necessarily aware of the impending end, but they are all dealing with some form of personal crisis that is in need of resolution. Your job as a Confidant is to help them work those issues through to a resolution so that when the disaster strikes, their souls will be unburdened.

It will take multiple calls from each person to provide them with closure. With each call you will learn a little bit more about each person’s situation. This is done through conversation as they narrate the flashbacks that reveal their memories and the responses that you choose as you are prompted to make a comment or ask a question. As you glean key information from a caller, sketches will appear in your notebook along with some notes. These notes are sometimes used as prompts for your responses instead of the regular response choices that pop-up during the calls.

While it might seem that you’ll be under a lot of pressure to say the right thing each time it is your turn to speak, that’s not really the case. While there are certainly some choices that are better than others, the game will eventually steer you toward a successful conclusion. The game is a visual novel, after all, and not an adventure game with potential bad endings awaiting you at the end of a string of poor choices. The story is well-written, though, and you will find yourself intrigued by the inherent mystery as each tragic tale unfolds, as well as impacted by the emotional weight of each of them.

The game has a unique visual style in which scenes are rendered in black and white. Sometimes a single-color background is added to the scene, giving the game the feel of a stylized graphic novel. There are also some variations to the art style as it occasionally veers into pencil sketches or watercolors. Some scenes transition into an almost surreal swirl of colors and objects that accentuate the mysterious, other-worldly nature of the game.

There are additional style choices that have been made that further enhance the game’s unique feel, such as the fact that Mary is the only one in the game who appears human. The cat is an actual cat, collar and all, while the people Mary is helping are all anthropomorphized animals.

Schrödinger’s Call is a game that you play for the story and atmosphere. If you’re looking for something in which the gameplay extends beyond making dialog choices, you won’t find it here. However, if you enjoy a good page-turner in game form, there’s an intriguing tale waiting for you in Schrödinger’s Call.