Review: Tulula: Legend of a Volcano

Sometimes you don’t want to dive in to an epic RPG or intense first person shooter. Enter Tulula: Legend of a Volcano. Ported from the PC and now available on the Mac App Store, Tulula is a casual puzzle / hidden object game that takes you through the story of rebuilding your village and scared Totem. With varied puzzles and eleven levels, there’s enough here to keep your attention. And if you have younger gamers at home, this is the perfect choice for their entertainment.

The story in Tulula is simple and cute: you are the lone survivor of a tragic event of your people and your village has been destroyed. You need to go around the world collecting blueprints and Totem pieces to rebuild. Each of the game’s levels has you recovering pieces of the Totem by finding hidden objects and solving puzzles. As you progress through, the puzzles get a more in depth, from simple object finding to memory puzzles, as well as sending you off the spirit world to find key items. A hint system and in-game notebook are there to help if you get stuck, and some puzzles can be skipped if they get too difficult. Once you recover everything in a given level, you’ll be able to transport yourself back to the Totem room to return your wares. Between levels, you can visit your village and rebuild everything that was destroyed with in-game currency you earn by completing levels and finding blueprints. It’s simple in nature and fun in execution. Completing the game and rebuilding my village took roughly 6-7 hours.

I ran into an issue with version 1.0 of the game where I was unable to drop an equipped crowbar in an undersea level and couldn’t progress further, but the version 1.1 update now available in the Mac App Store fixes this issue, so make sure you update to the newest version. Aside from that, I rather enjoyed Tulula: Legend of a Volcano. It was a nice change of pace from most hidden object games that are overly simplistic and some puzzle games that might be too difficult. It hits that sweet spot that makes it a solid casual game and ideal for gamers in the 8-14 year old range (but is fun for older gamers as well). At $6.99, it’s worth picking up to satisfy your casual gaming needs.