The Mermaid Mask 2026.07.19
The Mermaid Mask is a point-and-click detective mystery for Mac from SFB Games, the fourth entry in the Detective Grimoire series. Players guide Grimoire and Sally through a locked-room murder aboard a strange submarine, examining fully 3D clues and interrogating a voiced cast of suspects. It combines hand-painted art, an orchestral score, and a self-paced deduction system.
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SAFETY
The Mermaid Mask 2026.07.19 Story
Premise The story is set in the pitch-black waters beyond Silkwirm-on-Sea, a long-abandoned fishing town. There, aboard a submarine known as the Mortuga — described as "the world's strangest submarine" — its enigmatic captain, Magnus Mortuga, is found dead inside a locked room. Rumors about Mortuga himself are part of the mystery: some crew members claim he was an immortal time-traveler, others insist he was a centuries-old vampire cursed to hide beneath the waves. The Crime Mortuga is found alone, with a single fatal wound and no weapon anywhere in the room. The only unusual object at the scene is an ancient, barnacle-covered stone cauldron — recently opened for the first time, and mysteriously empty except for deep scratch marks inside it. The Investigation Players step into the roles of Detective Grimoire and his sharp-tongued partner Sally Spears, summoned aboard by the submarine's current captain, the mysterious Captain Seafoam. The duo must interview the Mortuga's eccentric, fully voiced crew — each with their own motives, secrets, and inconsistent stories — while exploring the submarine's hand-painted rooms for physical evidence. Core Mystery Threads Was Mortuga's death connected to whatever was sealed inside the cauldron for so long? Is one of the crew members responsible, or is something stranger going on? What do the legends surrounding Mortuga — time-traveler, vampire, or something else — actually have to do with how he died?
The Mermaid Mask 2026.07.19 Gameplay
The Mermaid Mask is a single-player, point-and-click detective adventure. There's no combat, no fail states, and no time pressure — the entire game is built around exploration, observation, and deduction at your own pace. Players guide Detective Grimoire and Sally through the hand-painted rooms of the Mortuga submarine. Clicking anywhere in a scene triggers a voice line or reaction — some clicks are just flavor/scene-setting, while others flag genuinely important evidence. This is the game's signature mechanic. Instead of the flat, zoomed-in clue images used in earlier Detective Grimoire titles, every important item is a fully realized 3D object. Players can: Rotate it to view from any angle Open or shake it to reveal hidden details Read expanded case notes attached to it (some clues, like the Case File, have multiple pages of written detail) The submarine is crewed by a cast of eccentric, fully voice-acted suspects. Talking to them advances dialogue trees where players can select questions or responses that probe inconsistencies in what each suspect claims. As clues and testimonies accumulate, players piece them together to form and confirm theories about what actually happened — rather than being funneled through a strictly linear reveal, the game lets you connect evidence at your own pace. The story is split into chapters, but within an unlocked chapter you can usually move between accessible rooms in whatever order you like. Some areas stay locked until you complete a specific objective elsewhere. Progress saves automatically as you play, so sessions can be picked up and left off freely without manual saving.