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She sells seashells by the she shore ... ahhh shi ... shells, I messed it up. Wait, I was typing. Nah, the readers won't realize that. In Mystery of Shark Island, nobody is selling shells - seashells more precisely - down by the sea shore no less. But! You do collect seashells in this fun, cute and entertaining puzzle game.

You somehow have come to be stranded on a remote island, and though you can't remember how you got there, you are determined to get home. You quickly begin to see clues of a lost civilization from the island you are on and get to work on figuring anything out — way off the island or maybe a way to this civilization.

Mystery of Shark Island is a game in which the objective is to find clues and valuable objects off various beaches as you traverse through the Shark Islands. Each island has multiple beaches you must advance through, and each beach will have a different challenge, while containing a clue you need to uncover. Once you uncover all the clues, you'll be able to assemble a statue and hop over to the next island through an old portal system.

Finding statue pieces and assembling them isn't enough though; you must reach the number of points designated as a goal. If you are skilled, you can attempt to reach a higher point total for expert status. The earliest beaches are, of course, the easiest; they are often littered with the largest shells, and your goals are clearly displayed for you. As you progress, the goals will often become more difficult to recognize, and at some points, no visual clues at all are given.

Some beaches will have different types of shells; some may have a lot of clutter, a lot of sand or big rocks covering what you're looking for. At times, waves will crash quickly upon your area;at other times, you'll be required to reach a challenging high-point total. Surprisingly, for a single game type, an excellent job has been done providing diversity to the task, and never did I feel it overly repetitive or boring.

Each time you get an item correct, your bonus meter on the left will increase. As it increases, it will start to give you a multiplication on the "value" of the item you picked up. Picking up a broken item will reset that to zero, possibly making you unable to pass some levels. Picking up items in the correct order will invoke a chain bonus and will help you with point multiplications even more, allowing you to reach your goals or even expert status.

There are two modes of gameplay: one is a storyline (which I mentioned the start of); the other is an arcade mode. The storyline involves moving along the islands and beaches and finding clues, while the arcade lets you pick one beach (they must be unlocked via the storyline) and attempt to last until you drop as the waves beat on you faster and faster. By playing both modes, you can collect medallions for achieving a variety of goals, from simple to very difficult, giving you many hours of collecting.

Even though there is a wave always pushing me to find those shells faster, for some reason, I remain calm and peaceful while playing. I'm not sure if it's the music, the colors, or the pretty graphics that do it, but I'm running out of time, and I don't seem to care! I think this must be the Valium of computer games.

However, there are some issues. I'm thinking that someone, with poorer eyesight than I will have troubles. The items on the beach are very often similar to what you need to find, but they are broken, so just small differences can mean you picked up the wrong item (a reset in your bonus multiplier will mean you fail the level at times), not to mention some levels the shells are very small and possibly hidden under an item that can't be moved. I did have some problems with hidden items. There were times where shells were more than 90 percent hidden under other items. Not only can't you see what they are, but they could be broken under there and make you lose the level entirely. Even with good vision, this will get a bit annoying. Another complaint I have is that it appears that some levels just can't be completed; your goals are fixed per beach, but the layout and items you need to find are very random. Enough poor luck, and you simply can't get enough points to pass, no matter how good you are. Take that expert seashell collector!

Back to the mystery. As you progress and see more seashells, (down by the sea shore!) you start to hear children's voices; they get louder and make you more curious. Lucky for you, you seem to heal very fast, and feel full of energy, so go find out the rest!

Mystery of Shark Island is a very fun and cute game you can play whenever you have a few free minutes. Replaying the levels are never the same, so there are many hours of enjoyment, even if the story is a little short. How often does a game leave a smile on my face like this? Not nearly enough for sure, so ... come play?