For a Turn Based Strategy game to work, it has to have quality controls and a workable interface. In ‘Call of Cthulu’, the controls work solidly, though they feel somewhat unintuitive at times. To move your character, you tap on them and then tap the place you want to go. Attacking requires you to select your character then tap and hold on the enemy you want to shoot at. These mechanics work fairly well, though will occasionally not do exactly what you to (i.e. it will infrequently take several tries for a tap to be recognized). One minor annoyance with the mechanics is that you can’t move around or select anything else while your character is in motion; you have to wait for the character to get all the way there and stop to select another character. This is only really annoying when you have to move your characters over a longer distance. The only glaring problem with the controls, however, is that when you accidentally make a mistake or realize you went too far, there’s no undo button available. Any minor control pains and nuances could be heavily alleviated and eased with this addition. Especially with the importance of action points, even the smallest mistake can feel brutal. Other than that fact, the controls usually work very well and feel solid enough. There are also several options like rotating the field of play that can make the game feel more intuitive. The interface feels fairly good as well, albeit a little bit scary to inexperienced players. Especially on the character screen, the sheer number of skills and numbers can leave the player confused and uncertain of what to do. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as most of the skills are easy to understand, albeit a bit difficult to interpret their usage in-game. Though they work decently for the game, the controls and interface still have some room for improvement.
The graphics in the game look fairly nice. However at times, the graphics do appear a little on the blurry side; even on retina-enabled devices they don’t look perfect. However, they do get the job accomplished and feel particularly fitting for the game. Some graphical effects like smoke and twitching makes the game feel more vivid and real, even at times when the game is stalled. The music and sound effects fit the game very nicely as well. The music feels very ghostly and somewhat sinister, with thunder and thumps in the background. Sound effects are as they’d be expected to be, with nothing really out of the ordinary. The music to the game leaves little to be desired, but the graphics do have a small margin for improvement.
