Aquamarine: Explorer's Edition

This game isn't ready for release, and doesn't provide even a shadow of what it promised. First, it's technically shaky. The game stopped responding multiple times, it's possible to click too fast and end up traveling to two places at once. Everything seems fine until you try to move again, and you end up panning to the second location, far out of range and covered by fog. Rather than locking out player input during an animation, the game simply misbehaves if too much input is recieved. This is compounded by a profoud lack of feedback. There's a delay between clicking and there being any reaction; combined with frequently missed clicks, this makes each input a guessing game. Long animations and waiting for the creatures to take their action without any real indication of if their movement is completed (unless you look at your move counter). This is a recipe for frustration. Moon logic puzzles abound, where you surface to get past some debris to get an upgrade, then encounter the same situation but are unable to surface. Slightly later, you have to use a module in a way that provides no feedback when you use it once, but needs to be very precisely done twice because you still can't surface, despite surfaced creatures being in the same area. Moreover, the ability to even use these modules is limited to three, and their recharge is both rare and unexplained. Since the situation resets when you leave a room but your power doesn't, this can create a soft-lock, with the answer being, "Whoops, restart the whole game and do better." Then there's the selling point that your actions have permanent consequences, a claim I now see doesn't exist on the Steam page. This is good, since the choices appear to be either kill the infinitely respawning creatures or they'll kill themselves. Resources as well seem to randomly appear or deplete. This is very much a linear item-collection story with extra steps. The artwork is beautiful, but that's really the only thing the game has going for it. It lacks the agency for a survival game, it lacks the depth for a strategy game, it lacks the rapid cycle time of a puzzle game, and it has too much piled on it to be an art game. It seems I am around halfway through the game, but I'm entirely uninterested in finishing. I spent my playtime wondering when things would pick up, and when I saw I was halfway through the second of three biomes, I knew that was never going to happen. A beautiful game with a poor gameplay loop is not a good game.

The art is amazing and it's almost worth keeping just for that, but unfortunately the gameplay takes a distant backseat to the visuals. The mechanics and controls are very counter intuitive, making the experience frustrating. In my short time playing I've already had multiple experiences of wanting to perform a simple task and just clicking around everything on the screen trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do. It feels like it was designed for someone who already knows how to play, and the visuals are focused entirely on looking beautiful, meaning they lack any consideration for how they can be used to guide your actions and make the controls feel intuitive. As a small example, the game sets up a simple movement routine when you're in your pod. Possible locations are indicated as circles, you click one to highlight it in orange as your intended destination, and click again to confirm your movement. This works well and is very simple to learn. However, when you go to make a long distance movement, a map opens with possible movement areas, you click one to highlight it in orange as your intended destination, but when you click again to actually move.. nothing happens. There's no buttons saying "go" or "move" and I'm left clicking around the screen and pushing buttons trying to figure out how to actually go to the location I've selected. In the end, you have to click on the pilot's speech bubble to move. There's nothing in the game that suggests that this would be a button, speech bubbles aren't buttons in other parts of the game, the speech bubble doesn't get highlighted once you've chosen your location, it isn't flashing or pulsing etc. there's no symbol popping up that implies it's a clickable "go" button. This is a small example but these kinds of things happen frequently enough that playing the game just feels frustrating a lot of the time. One other issue that the devs might want to know about is that I also ended up with a bug where my control panel disappeared, and I couldn't get it to reappear even when I restarted everything and tried to start a new play through. I don't know how you could replicate it but I was still in the tutorial, I'd just reached the area where it said something like "I know you're probably sick of me but there's lots more I need to teach you about" and I exited the game, then when I reopened the game later, my control panel was gone and I couldn't get it back. Without this bug I may have tried to power through the difficulties to learn all of the idiosyncratic controls so that I could enjoy all of the amazing art in the rest of the game. For now, I can't recommend the game but I would really love to be able to play it and hopefully it's something I can come back to later when some of the current issues are ironed out.

Aquamarine is a good example of a development team that has fantastic art designers, but clueless tech/gameplay developers. I supported this game on kickstarter a few years ago, because it looked beautiful, and the game today IS beautiful. But on launch, more than a year ago, the game did not work, it soft-locked every 15 minutes, and the tutorial was garbage. Today, i tried getting into it again, and... well the tutorial is better, kinda. But the game STILL soft-locks every fifteen minutes, either the navigation buttons stops working, or you just cant move. I don't know how you ♥♥♥♥ this up, in UNITY ENGINE, but congratulations you did it. Extremely embarrassing. And even IF it worked, the devs decision to re-make this into a "Roguelite" instead of a relaxing experience is confusing and incompetent, they have no clue what kind of player base they were selling this game for, just.. WHY does survival mode exist? why is normal mode soft-rougelite? did you seriously think that people wanted to play this for difficulty, rather than for the story and journey? I personally view these developers as hopeless, and im out, i will now try to forget this game exists, and you should too. Edit: so i did not see that the developers responded until now, a month later, i did not expect it to be honest, but i do always respect developers who actually reads feedback. However, im going to make something very clear, i played on survival mode because thats what i want, a challenging yet relaxing game, the only problem i had was that they spent time working on different modes when the game have several gamebreaking bugs that needed to be fixed first. I did not get stuck because i was in a tutorial, i got stuck because the buttons stopped working, and if im the only one experiencing this bug, then i don't understand why this game has so many negative reviews. Im sorry, but i have no interest re-visiting this game, however i do wish you developers good luck fixing this game. And i do apologise for making such an angry review, i have now been burned by so many kickstarter games, that my nerves are inside out.

This is one of those games where I'm drawn right in from the moment the menu loads and the music starts playing. As a huge fan of beautiful and chill story-driven exploration, I really enjoyed the Explorer's/Story Mode that was added in an update and lets you opt out of the survival aspects and attacks. EDIT: While waiting for my crash issue to be resolved, I started a new playthrough in Relaxed Mode and actually stuck with it to the end. I guess having to be conscious of your resources and surroundings was more interesting, but for me story mode might have been a bit more fun. I didn't try Normal Mode that most of the negative reviews seem to be about. The comic-style graphics are gorgeous, the music perfectly atmospheric, worldbuilding great, I've really been enjoying the whole atmosphere and just spending time looking at the art and the creature animations. Researching alien ocean life obviously reminded me of In Other Waters. That one has more elaborate ecosystems, but tbh I preferred this game because it has more visual beauty and gives you bigger freedom in exploration. In Explorer's Mode, I was just swimming in resources and could do what it said on the tin. Relaxed Mode I found mildly challenging, but it actually deserves its name even for someone as easily stressed as me. My pod got attacked quite a lot, but I never felt in serious danger of a game over as I always had resources to repair it right away. But yes, the crashes that a lot of people have mentioned. Apparently it crashes more for some people than for others and I am some people. I've had to ESC into the menu and reload the save lots of times, and in a few places I had to restart the whole game. Not a huge problem as the game autosaves so much that I've never noticed losing progress, and loading times were ok. EDIT: A more serious crash issue was apparently connected to my Linux system, solved through Discord and will get patched. I was able to continue, again without losing progress. The only other thing that really bothered me was the tedious inventory management. I get that it's more realistic than being able to carry around half a hardware store, a stack of 20 bowls of hot soup and whatnot in an invisible backpack, but it sure isn't more fun. I was promised by a dev that he'd consider adding more slots for Explorer Mode, which I think would make perfect sense. I saw another review mention achievements not working, but for me they worked and were very satisfying when they popped up unexpectedly. I didn't experience issues with using abilities, either. Content note, you decide if it's a pro or con: apparently to enhance the 70's feeling, some of the plants you find have psychedelic effects. Unlike some other games, I didn't feel like it was glorified or forced upon you. EDIT: I've now finished the game at a very leisurely pace and it left me impressed. The ending was a bit of a sudden info dump, but fascinating to find out that there was a lot more to the story than I'd thought. I liked it. It's a shame it's so unstable, but I'd still absolutely recommend this game's story mode for players like myself who are drawn to original settings, beautiful visuals and peaceful exploration, and the Relaxed setting for those who'd like a mild challenge. * * * If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35872486]Peaceful Adventures and Stories[/url]. You're also welcome to join the [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/chilladventures]group[/url].

Lovely art and music, but the game is completely unplayable. I don't understand how can you release a product in this state.

Pretty game, nice soundtrack, but the resource hunting is completely busted. I'm not sure if it's pure RNG, or if there's some sort of resource cycle, but I spent just shy of 2 hours trying to play this game. You have 2 main resources you need to survive - energy for your pod, and food for your player character. The first run, I was running low on food, and went hunting for some, and despite being proactive there just....wasn't any. My garden couldnt grow any in time. And so I died within 3 days. Annoyingly had to go through the tutorial again, and this time was a bit more careful with food, but eventually got stuck at a point where I was basically completely unable to get any energy, despite unlocking a number of different areas to look for it in. I broke my ship 4x running out of energy just trying to *find* any so that I could make my next mod. Ultimately I feel way too frustrated with this game, that its punishing despite my best attempts - I'm diasppointed cause I otiginally backed this on KS years ago, and was thinking I'd have a fun "relaxed paced" time when the game has been nothing but anxiety inducing due to frustrating resource mechanics.

I had originally given a negative review but have since had a chat with the developer and he brought to my attention that some of the issues I had previously encountered are now fixed. I will give this game a neutral review, since my experience was a bit bumpy. Pros: - Beautiful art. I love the comic book style of it. The scenarios are amazing. - Creatures are cute and each one has a specific behavior - Scanning life forms actually gives very relevant insight that is important for the game (and helps you get the achievements!) - The dev is super helpful and there's a Discord channel for people to talk about the game. Cons: - Couple of bugs here and there. The game sometimes freezes and you have to quit the game and reopen. Fortunately, the game autosaves. - A bit difficult at the start. I felt the learning curve was quite steep. Luckily it's possible to lower the difficulty (the lowest difficulty level is perfect when you are replaying for the achievements)

** Edit: I have been in contact with the developer who was interested in all my bug reports and is working on a patch. I have to commend the dev on the quick response and look forward to the game being in a playable state. Original Comment: I backed this project on kickstarter Jan 22, 2020, 2 years ago. It was released 2 months ago and now I'm finally playing it. The game is riddled with game breaking bugs and is in a barely playable state. The artwork and world building is fantastic, it's a shame that it's non-functional as a game. The game regularly locks up and requires to be closed and rebooted. It appears to become more frequent the further in the game you are. The game plays a lot like a point and click adventure, except when solving puzzles, often, and I mean OFTEN, following the correct solution just doesn't work, because the UI bugs out so often that it just wont let you do the correct solution. For example, when choosing the correct move, called a 'MOD', to solve a puzzle, the puzzle element will light up letting you know you're on the right path and should use that mod. Except often it just doesn't light up, doesn't let you use the mod on the feature and doesn't allow you to progress. And you move on, the only way to know how to move forward is by looking up the solution, then entering and exiting the area, rebooting the game and fiddling with the controls and moving back and forth until the bug resolves itself and allows you to follow through with the solution. There is another puzzle that requires you to stack rocks. Except it you can't stack rocks most of the time and have to toggle the rock 'mod' on and off until it finally lets you make a stack. Movement often just locks out which can be fixed with a fast travel, or a complete reboot. Sometimes just some of the controls lock out and you can recover by entering another area through fast travel. Often the game just hard crashes, and sometimes it just starts locking up for 10 second intervals and then lets you continue. The art assets, story and concept are complete and lovely. The actual gameplay needs to be fixed. I hope the developer works to salvage this project as it appears it would be worthwhile.

I really love the art style of the game, I enjoyed the mechanics and the theme of Aquamarine. The atmosphere is fantastic. While it was hard to understand the first basic steps of movement (I think some visual form of tutorial would work better than text in bubble) and I died or burned all gems to fuel the bubble vehicle few times, I switched to easy mode to learn all that and then kept it that way. Once I accomplished it, the progress in the game went fast ahead. Once I felt really stuck, then moved forward by accident because the game does not tell you how to reach the top of the two blocks (stand below the blocks/one step down from it - and use the button you use to reach the surface). I really enjoyed all the locations, various flora and fauna (also growing some edible plants). Finding the modules is quite rewarding. The ending answers some questions but also offers a new ones. So if you like the underwater mysteries, solving not very difficult riddles or getting few challenging achievements, while enjoying the hand drawn line art and captivating music, go for it. PS. the character sometimes froze on one spot without the option to move away you can just quit the game to the menu and continue again, very easy.

I backed the kickstarter and beta-tested it, as well as played it before on itch.io but wanted to support the devs for creating a new update after having a rough start. Yes the game was buggy upon release, but at the same time they were always really quick in their response to bug reports on their discord. It looks like the months of polish paid off because I haven't encountered bugs in the new edition yet! As for the game itself the mood is great, gameplay mostly delivers on the "chill roguelike" premise, and the puzzles are not too hard but engaging. I had fun exploring and making sense of the world of aquamarine. Controls quite well on the steam deck too!