Calligram Studio’s Phoenix Springs is a striking point-and-click investigation game. We play as reporter Iris Dormer who is searching for her estranged brother, starting in her apartment. From there, we can piece together clues to find the next location to travel to and investigate, until we eventually find the answer.
Phoenix Springs‘ point-and-click mechanics consist of navigating its gorgeously designed areas and either ‘looking at’, ‘talking to’ or ‘using’ objects or people within the environment to collect clues which we can then either ask people about or combine with an environmental object to piece together into a new clue (i.e if we see a statue with the same initials as a character’s name, we can combine them to create that connection).
Interactable objects and area paths aren’t highlighted to maintain a minimalistic UI, so quite a bit of pixel hunting is needed to navigate your way around Phoenix Springs. That being said, it seems to be the price of its gorgeous graphics style. Calligram Studio uses a comic book-style art style made up of block colouring that mostly consists of green, yellow, red, white, black and gray and is textured using an active grain effect to give the game a retro look despite its futuristic setting. In turn, its appearance is striking and easily the most memorable thing about it – I simply could not stop taking screenshots. When we’re not traversing across colourful scenery, we’re watching a beautifully animated cut scene play out, narrated by one of Iris’ monologues or vivid scene descriptions.
Audio-wise, Phoenix Springs is very quiet, though its visuals make up for that. There’s very little in terms of music aside from key moments, and even the atmospheric noises are kept on the downlow – yet it somehow works, possibly because the visuals are so overwhelming that the lack of noise is barely noticeable. I did find that the default audio levels were a little off with Iris’ voice being drowned out by what ambient sounds were present, so this took some adjusting to get right.
As the whole of Phoenix Springs is narrated in Iris’ perspective, including NPC dialogue, she’s the only voiced character. I really love the enchanting tone of Iris’ voice as the actor takes a more robotic approach while still sounding reminiscent of a 50s noir movie. It’s a really standout approach that adds depth to Iris’ character as a whole. On top of this, I like the way Iris responds to the player trying to get her to interact with something that doesn’t work. Rather than repeating a phrase that will quickly grow irritating once we’ve been stuck for a while, Iris’ comments actually reflect what we’re trying to do and sometimes they’re quite humorous. If you try to get her to talk to an inanimate object, she’ll say something like “that would be a one-way conversation” or sometimes she’ll just bluntly tell you “no”.
Story-wise, Phoenix Springs is fascinating because it holds as much back from you as it possibly can. Iris will not let anything up, there will be no expositional speeches about her past with Leo nor will she spoon feed you an explanation of what’s going on; it’s up to the player to interpret. Sometimes this can be frustrating, especially right at the end where I’m still not entirely sure if I completely understand what happened, but at the same time it does a really good job at building intrigue and wanting you to press on. Even object descriptions will come off as blunt if they’re not relevant to what we’re doing, almost as though Iris is so focused on her investigation that she’s irritated that we want to know more about a specific rock – again, adding to her character if anything. When she does go into detail about a scene, object or person description, the writing is beautiful and it does feel as though we’re in a detective noir book.
There a variety of different environments which each utilize the blocky graphics perfectly, from a derelict street to a beautiful oasis. One thing I will say is that these sometimes vast areas to cross would grow annoying towards the final act of the game where we are consistently traipsing back and forth over the same area – especially during a segment where we needed to relay some information to someone and Iris keeps forgetting what this is and needs to keep going back to listen to it again. There are a few instances where certain areas are a complete dead end and could have benefitted with maybe a little bit of information or something of interest to interact with or learn more about.
In terms of puzzles, a lot of Phoenix Springs involves thinking outside of the box and exploring all options to come up with a solution. There were very few instances where I felt like the solution was too easy or so far out of the box that it was impossible to solve. Quite a few times the reason why I was stuck would be because I assumed a certain topic wasn’t relevant to an NPC so wouldn’t ask them about it, so a lot of the solutions rely heavily on you exploring all options and being that one step ahead of yourself. That being said, some of the solutions were quite puzzling and I found myself accessing the game’s ‘tips’ section. This consists of the basic controls but you can click on a ‘solution’ button which is a link that will take you to a full guide of the complete game. I wasn’t particularly a fan of this, mainly because when I’m looking for a hint I often still want to be able to solve the puzzle myself and I just need a point in the right direction. This hint system blatantly gives you the answer to the whole game and it takes away the satisfaction of the conclusion.
Overall, Phoenix Springs is a gorgeous neo-noir point-and-click puzzle game with some of the most stunning visuals of the year. It’s storyline is enigmatic and intriguing, though maybe a little too enigmatic towards the end. And while I found the gameplay to be enjoyable and challenging, I would often find the lack of a UI to be a hindrance – forcing me to pixel hunt – and when I was truly stuck, the oversharing hint system would take away the feeling of accomplishment upon working it out. That being said, it was still thoroughly enjoyable and at four and a half hours long, makes for a great afternoon’s worth of fun.
Jess played Phoenix Springs on PC with a review code.
