The M/S Cornelia II Incident Preview: An Intriguing Point & Click Mystery

It’s been a while since I last played a good point-and-click game, which was probably why I was drawn to The M/S Cornelia II Incident. What also attracted me to this game was its set up. Mysteries with amnesia thrown in aren’t exactly new, but even so I felt further compelled to check this game out and find out what The M/S Cornelia II Incident was about. Although the free demo only allows you to play a small portion of the game, is it enough to convince you to watch out for the game when it is eventually fully released?

The demo of The M/S Cornelia II Incident is available on Steam.

Story – Who Am I, Where Am I, and Why Am I Here

A man washes up ashore, his suit ripped, bleeding. In the distance, a boat can be seen. He has no idea where he is, or why he’s there. He doesn’t even know his own name. This is the story of The M/S Cornelia II Incident. It’s up to you to answer three questions: who the man is, where he is, and why he’s there. The only way to do this is to explore your surroundings, using whatever you can find to hopefully solve the mystery.

Since this is a demo, only a portion of the story is played, so you don’t get to solve the full mystery. However, you’re given enough to learn something. You find out that you’re in the Nordic Archipelago, and you were riding on a boat. There’s also a mystery surrounding a woman known only as “L”, which adds to further intrigue. Throughout the short demo, on your phone, you get messages from different people that expands the story and the mystery, so it’ll be interesting to see if this develops further when the full game is released. I’m also interested to find out exactly what the titular incident is, as from seeing the boat on the horizon, it obviously hasn’t sunk or appears to be sinking, so how did our protagonist end up getting washed up on shore with no memory and looking in a bad way?

I hope there’s a good reason for this skeleton being here.

Gameplay – Point, Click, and Solve Some Puzzles

The M/S Cornelia II Incident is a classic point & click adventure game. The formula is the same as ever. You use your mouse to click on things, whether it’s to pick items up or reveal information. I don’t find this gameplay old at all. In fact, it’s what drew me to trying this game out. What I discovered was that there’s more to this game than I initially thought.

Exploring and Clicking on Things

The demo for The M/S Cornelia II Incident is set in a smallish area. There are only a few places to explore and they’re not overly big, so you won’t get hopelessly lost or overwhelmed. It’s pretty easy to find your way around by clicking on the edge of the screen. There’s something to find in each section, and they’re distinctive so you can recall what’s where.

As with any point-and-click game, you can find items that you can collect and add to your inventory. These can reveal important information, or be combined to solve a puzzle or create a new use. For example, you can find a fishing rod that needs fixing before you can use it to retrieve another item. You can also interact with certain points of interest in the world, which will come up on the screen for you to examine.

When you first begin the adventure, the first thing you find is the protagonist’s phone. This is an important part of not just the gameplay, but the story, giving you your first insights into the character and the events that took place before he was washed ashore. Although you cannot get a signal on the phone and therefore cannot call for help (of course), you can read messages, either previously sent by you or received from others. These can provide clues and lead you to solving the mystery, or part of it, at least.

The phone is one of the most important items you’ll collect.

When playing The M/S Cornelia II Incident, there was something I had to look out for. When the cursor hovers over something that can be interacted with, it glows blue. Sometimes, certain points of interest will glow yellow, indicating that they’re an important clue that’s part of solving the mystery. The game doesn’t tell you this; it’s down to you to discover it for yourself and work it out.

There was another suggestion I wanted to make for improvement in this game. I had no clue there was even an inventory that contained items that you collected at the top of the screen. I can’t remember how I found out about it, but it should be made more obvious that there’s a hidden inventory at the top. Why be hidden in the first place anyway? Wouldn’t it be easier to always have it on show ready for use instead of you having to move the cursor to the top to unveil it?

Getting a Memory Back

One important feature that gives The M/S Cornelia II Incident its edge is its Mind Palace. Here, you can see what the protagonist is thinking. There are the three core mysteries of the demo: Who Am I?, Why Am I Here?, and Where Am I? With each of these questions, you can help the protagonist solve them. By clicking on them, it reveals a hint for something for you to do. For example, Where Am I? gets you trying to work out exactly where you are by using your surroundings. What I like about this section is that at the start, it is rather blank, but as you make more discoveries, it becomes more animated, literally painting a picture of what happened to you. It made me want to find out more.

As you slowly regain your memory, it becomes clearer, no longer a blank space.

How Do You Play?

While you obviously don’t want to be spoon-fed information in a game that is supposed to encourage you to explore, solve puzzles and discover the mystery, I can’t help feeling that I might have felt a little less lost, especially at the beginning, had I been given some guidance on how to play. In the main menu, you can bring up the controls anytime to learn how to play. I wish though this was more easily accessible, especially during gameplay. I don’t want to have to temporarily leave the game to find out how to play. It should automatically come up right at the start, regardless of whether you’ve played before, so you at least know what you’re meant to be doing and what you’re looking out for.

Graphics & Audio – A Haunting Pixelated Adventure

There’s something quite charming about pixel art, and The M/S Cornelia II Incident is no exception. It makes the game and its story and mystery feel more haunting. The pixel art does a stellar job with this game. I love how the moon reflects on the water, the lights from the boat and the distant lands. You can even see the cold breath coming out of the protagonist’s mouth. The pixel art for The M/S Cornelia II Incident is detailed enough to make objects, shapes and letters distinguishable and easy to identify. There is something quite chilling about seeing blood on the side of the protagonist’s head, even in simple pixelated graphics, so it’s clearly effective. It shows that you don’t need top-of-the-range realistic graphics to create an atmosphere of mystery.

In the audio department, there’s not much to report. Not that it’s bad for anything. The audio in The M/S Cornelia II Incident is again simple, like the graphics, but also like the artwork, it is effective. For example, whenever you get a new message on the phone, it beeps. Nothing special about this, but because of the game’s atmosphere and lacking in music, it feels you with intrigue, while also filling you with anxiety. What new message have you got? Is it something good, or bad? Will it help me solve the mystery?