A lot of people have dreams about flying or swimming through strange places...this game lets you do both fluidly,while also telling an engaging story.
A dark corruption is warping the land,and Aria must go on a journey to restore a magic locket,and find the "mother" in order to try and restore things to the way they were... we'll come back to this later.
First things first,this is PRETTY AS HECC,with sprawling and vibrant worlds,and a soothing ambient soundtrack.
The game revolves around a really neat mix of swimming and gliding as you explore big environments full of strange scenery,and normal-but-far-too-large objects. You move/swim with the mouse and boost with the spacebar...was a bit odd at first,but I got the hang of it after a bit.
To glide,you boost out of the water with space,you then have a limited amount of boost stamina to propel yourself,but you can glide without propulsion for a fairly long time. You can only land in water,which also restores your boost,this was COOL but also resulted in a few reflexive "oh I'll land on that rock...WOOPS I crashed! Forgot I can't land on land." moments. There are also flying bubbles that you can fly into and press E to get extra speed.
Your glide controls are very smooth, There was only one part where you had to get through several narrow gaps in succession that I found annoying,after several retries I got it.
I'll mention here,the only moderate problem of the game is the physics get a little funky sometimes. Examples:
Not quite getting in the water properly.
Hitting that thing when you thought you were clear of it.
Getting disoriented when landing in smaller pools.
Not quite being close enough to interact with that item.
Etc. However these aren't game breaking by any means, you get used to them in short order,just slightly annoying sometimes.
The levels have a nice variety,Most consist primarily of exploring.
The first level had you hopping through water cubes in space gathering pieces of a house.
One level had you fly to various windmills to untangle their power tethers.
One was a massive uninterrupted freefall.
Another had you race a plesiosaur for a magic gem,that you popped in a turtle shell that looks like a face to make it open it's eyes...which was awesome.
And the last level was a high speed escape through a crumbling lava tunnel.
If you get lost,your pet Dolki can point you in the vague direction of your next goal.
I played thru the game in a little under an hour,it supposedly has multiple endings,so I'll probably try for the others at some point.
...now lets get back to the story,SPOILER ALERT:
Pretty sure Aria's mom is dead,she's at the very least gone,and this whole journey is Aria trying to cope.
From trying to put her house back together at the beginning,to literally untangling her thoughts at the windmills...trying to find a magic item to make the feminine face on the turtle's shell open it's eyes again...The main goal of the game is to reassemble a broken locket with a photo of her parents inside. [don't know where her dad is]
All the characters in the world are Aria's stuffed animals,her dreams and fantasies and consumed by the loss,aka the corruption...Maybe the other endings give additional details,the one I got was probably a bad ending,as Dolki got left behind,and reassembling the locket did nothing to stop the corruption.
This storytelling was actually really good! It would be very easy for this subject matter to becoming jarringly heavy-handed,but the game keeps things simple and understandable,without getting bogged down...while also keeping the theme intact.
Honestly,this whole experience was fantastic!
Mild jankiness aside,the feeling of freedom while gliding around,the pretty artstyle/atmosphere,the subtle storytelling...absolutely everything was great!
I know it's a shorter game,but I honestly can't believe this is free.
If that all sounds good,grab it and enjoy a somber,but beautiful swim.
