In Other Waters

Jumping into this game after playing Gareth's other games Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2, I believe this was one of his first projects before the Citizen Sleeper series. I actually went in blind on this much like I did the first Citizen Sleeper and while I did enjoy my short time with this one, I can definitely say it didn't have the same impact that the Citizen Sleeper games did. It is a simple game, you are exploring the ocean of another planet and discovering all the mysteries that present themselves as you do so which mostly is what services the story. You will be scanning various things, moving yourself between points of interest, maybe getting a lost a little along the way all while enjoying the sweet sounding music from Amos Roddy who did the composing for Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2 as well and I am a big fan of his work. This is not a game for everybody, but if it's on sale and you can just take a look at a trailer to see if it suits your vibe, I'd say go for it, it is very cozy and only took me about 5 hours to complete, you may get a little lost here and there but that is part of the exploration and I found that I mostly never got too lost to where I needed to go. The game will be a great experience for people out there, it just didn't quite hook me as much as I wanted it to.

Story seems interesting, but I'm just not interested in the movement mechanics unfortunately. It was an interesting puzzle to figure out, but after you figure it out it gets tedious very quickly.

[b]TLDR:[/b] In Other Waters delivers a serene sci-fi/ocean exploration experience, although you may find the gameplay puts you to sleep. [b]Story:[/b] It has decent writing and story, even though your interaction with Ellery is limited to yes/no responses and your own actions. I'm not really into reading detailed descriptions of how the flora and fauna work, but it's cool that so many details were poured into it. [b]Gameplay:[/b] The core gameplay loop is very simple: scan, inspect a few nodes (which could be flora, fauna, or other areas), and head to other area. There's no mini-map to tell you your current location, although I find this makes exploration more engaging. Initially, I found it boring, but it actually become fun after I decided to just head to the main destination with only a little detour. [b]Visuals and audio:[/b] Don't underestimate the minimalistic visuals. The bathymetric map (with few simple icons and basic animations) is a near-perfect execution of 'less is more'; it managed to emphasize both the story and atmosphere. The soothing soundtrack also does a great job of emphasizing the serene experience. I like how the HUD changes based on the area and story. But some HUD customization, such as hiding the HUD to see only the map would be a nice addition. [b]Other:[/b] Just like other Unity games, this game runs without any issues on my Linux device.

Fascinating alien planet and ecosystem exploration story. Theres a few mysteries to uncover lots of bio samples to take and observations to make. Travelling around in game is a bit of a pain though, it really stretches out the gameplay time without much reward if you're backtracking or trying to remember how you got somewhere.

Beautiful artstyle, wonderful story, love the lesbians, love being a little AI in a suit trying to keep one of my lesbians alive. While the screen is made up of dots and terrain, the descriptions are written so well and the soundscape so immersive i can almost see the alien ocean. I've played it twice through now and ill probably go again!

I can't believe that after it's been released for so long and there's been so many complaints about the mechanics it's still like this.... What do you mean we get to view a map with markers on where we should be going but we can't take it with us? Either double down and don't give us maps or let us look at the maps when we unlock the maps. I don't want to play with a screenshot of the map on my second monitor.

If you're interested in the concept of speculative alien life and/or biology/ecology, you will LOVE this game. I've played it again and again. The story is so engaging and interesting. Highly recommend this game.

Eh, mixed feelings. Decent set of ideas, halfhearted execution. The premise of you being the AI in the suit, locked away from seeing the world and whatever the actual protagonist can only describe as lying in it is wonderful; the little descriptions of alien ecology and how it all balances out are quite neat, and imagining what it must all look like beyond your little topographical map view is the best part of this, overall. Of course, for that perspective to work, to some extent you have to feel the clunkiness and weight of being that machine; and for the first few minutes, this works, all the mechanical knobbery you have to go through to scan and collect samples and such, you feel the intent behind that. But, honestly, the proof-of-concept and the appeal of that runs out by the first hour or so, and there's 4-5 more of you performing the same motions over and over and over again just to progress the story. And, I mean, the story is serviceable; it's what you'd expect from the premise. But, the more it goes on, the less I find the world believable; to merit having any gameplay at all, the game constantly makes the interestingly-described plant life into little puzzle mechanics for you to throw at (very Myst III), and every new plant that serves as a little resource/gizmo for me to use just makes the world less and less believable. Especially when, frankly, most of the 'puzzles' you have to go through are just trivial impediments that serve no interesting purpose and lead to no interesting thoughts, or, even worse, the completely misguided attempt at having 'difficulty' through a fail-state of having an oxygen and power meter (literally why?). It's a nifty little idea, but the fact that you have to slowly clunk your way to keep the story going does not merit the nice little ludonarrative integration of being the suit as its implemented. Better described (or watched) than played; one bit of nifty mechanics/story integration does not justify making the story a game to be played. Honestly, for a game in which the entire point of it being a game is to produce that kind of mechanical immersion, the fact that you are encouraged to *skip* the damn text descriptions because you're running out of oxygen is, like, just terrible; it'd be one thing is this was a tendency that the game analysed in some way, but it doesn't, it's just the game failing at the reason why it's a game. Honestly, if you have more patience to do the same things over and over again and feel more grabbed by the ambiance, this might be for you. But, at the end of the day, this just wasn't for me. Could've easily just laid back on having any mechanical friction and been strictly better for it. Play for a bit, when you get bored, go watch a longplay if you like the story's premise.