In a similar mood to Abzu, Lani’s call: A Tiny Whale Singer Story is a bite-sized walking (swimming?) simulator that puts you in control of Lani the whale. As a seaquake takes place, you’ll be tasked to save trapped animals from fallen debris, and maybe restore the ocean floor to a calm place again. It sounds like a great premise, and it is. The problem is, this is a 10-15 minute experience.
Controlling Lani is simple, and she moves gracefully in the water. The game is viewed isometrically with a handy zoom feature. The zoom lets you see all the shoals of fish circulating you in all their fluid glory. Add in a textured soundtrack, and some vibrant graphics and Lani’s call is set up to be a memorable experience. Instead, you move forward through a few screens of admittedly lovely ocean floor space, interact with a few objects to nudge them out of the way, and press interact to whale call a few times… and that’s it. I took my time and completed the experience in 12 minutes. You could speed through it in 6-7 minutes. It costs £2.49 at full price, and that doesn’t seem like an appropriate trade-off. Free demos are longer.
I’ve made my peace with Lani’s Call, and part of the reason why is that the developers are clear and transparent that this is a short 10-15 minute experience. The developer has said Lani’s Call is an introduction to the world, and that makes me view this product as a tech demo or paid prologue. The fundamentals are here to be expanded upon with a full game release at a later date. I’d like to see more interactive elements in whatever comes next, but everything else plays, feels, looks, and sounds great. Let’s see where it leads.
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