In Other Waters

I found this game the other day while looking for new games that i could play on my macbook without toasting my lap, and it turned out to be the most pleasant of finds. The setting of the game is on an alien planet and underwater on top of that. With vast areas to explore, hazards and researching alien life forms, and all of that in a minimalistic top down 2D perspective of a radar, this game makes your brain envision the additional details for you, kinda like the old NES games used to. And the more imaginative your mind is, the richer the game will become for you. Every species is meticulously described in the process of research, with plenty to read. You’ll be collecting additional bio-materials if you want to complete your research on each of the life forms you discover. The story that unfolds alongside all that is intriguing, and the whole journey will last you for about 7 hours, plus an additional hour to complete 100% of all research if you are into that. I found the end to be quite abrupt and it just screams for a continuation. There’s just too many questions left unanswered, too many elements left unused and huge question marks over some characters’ fates in general. Either that or i was overthinking and craving for more story developments. The UI itself also boldly suggests that there should be more to it than what the game currently provides. Fingers crossed for them to give us a part 2 sometime soon. Speaking of the UI, it’s just so polished and makes so much sense. I loved the interactions and the little animations and scanning stuff and descending into dark underwater places. The simplicity of it adds a lot of freedom in how you see and imagine things for yourself, and at the end of the day that is what i think this game is - a playground for the imagination.

I got captivated for the first 2-3h of gameplay, I was reading all the life overvation around in the hope it would reveal the grandeur and the complexity of the life on this planet. I would have liked to discover how this ecosystem works and being able to see it in action and even have a big puzzle related to it... A bit like Myst has been. Some codes exchanged between species etc... Instead, the game seems to focus on telling the story of this scientific who misteriously disapeared on this planet. The info about the life you gatter doesn't serve much, other than sometime to be used as "Keys" to open some "Locks"... From that point, the game feels very repetitive and is more like a Switch and Door based game... Some paths are blocked, you need to advance the story to get there. Etc. Graphicaly, the game is very solid, I love the minimalistic reprensentation of the environment, this is well done. It works in your head, just like a novel. The music is awesome and very well suited. The ambiance is strong, you feel lonely and underwater. I loved. The gameplay elements are interresting, sampling collection, cartography navigation is great. Movement between waypoints, is a bit slow and become cumbersome at some point. The story is very strong. The only lacking element is, it requires a grand coherent scheme gameplay wise. Switch and Door gameplays are kind of old now and unfortunately, the story isn't enough to keep me involved. I wanted to use my brain a bit more to enjoy. To me, this game is a missed opportunity.

Graphics-wise, the game consists almost entirely of a simple, fairly self-explanatory user interface laid over a 2D topographical map. Waypoints are represented by triangles and creatures by clusters of dots, and the rest is text descriptions and your imagination filling in the gaps. If you don't like reading you definitely won't have the patience to get far in this game, but if you enjoy text adventures you'll probably find it a pleasant experience and doggedly seek out samples of aquatic life to learn more about this alien ecosystem for the sake of satisfying your own curiosity. It's a fairly short game without a lot of depth- no pun intended- but is immersive and relaxing and manages to convey a sense of atmosphere via the movement of the dot-creatures and a shifting of palette colors in different environments, in addition to the well-written text descriptions. There's a slight survival element, as you have to keep track of your power and oxygen levels, but they are easy to replenish and a drone is standing by to haul you back to base in most situations. This does lead to one minor gripe about the game, though, as reading gradually-appearing text descriptions is rather stressful when you're in an environment that is rapidly draining your oxygen gauge in real time, forcing you to rush through those sections without looking closely at what's around you. Being thorough in your explorations rewards you with the one visual representation of the alien life you find, sketches made by your scientist partner in the game, but these are a bit underwhelming since the majority of the creatures are fungal stalks or blobby jellyfish-type things. Still, these small flaws aside, it's a decent game to occupy a few hours if you're in the mood for an exploration-focused, mellow adventure.

Don't be tricked by the stylized graphics and UI: the actual game is a bad novel with a tacked on "exploration" game that's barely interactive, incredibly repetitive and slow, and ultimately boils down to "find next type of key, open next type of door, proceed down predetermined path, rinse and repeat". Yes, the game about exploring an alien ocean is in fact a highly linear adventure: the store page claiming you can "Freely dive into an expansive section of seafloor" is misleading at best.