In Other Waters knows how to play to its strengths. Being a solo developed game about exploring a vast alien ocean the design had to be clever about its inherent limitations, which have been convincingly turned into strengths. The story is told from the perspective of an absolutely crisp minimalistic UI, in-Universe its the OS of a diving suit which has seemingly become sentient. Through the use of symbols and experimentation you must quickly work out how to work this unfamiliar dashboard without a manual in order to guide a researcher to safety.

I guess I should say, In Other Waters is a game about discovery and is best gone into blind, so whilst I won't spoil the plot specifics I will discuss game mechanics, so maybe you should go and play it before coming back (its currently 70% on steam and while its not perfect I definitely think its worth the 5 dollars its listed at)

I say it plays to its strengths because being viewed entirely through a topographic radar view of the ocean with select text blurbs describing the fantastical biodiversity of the planet it leaves a lot to the imagination, leaving your mind to picture these creatures. A very clever way to make a solo developer able to build a world which would be impossible to actually construct without either massive proc gen or a dev cycle measured in decades. Even more clever, completing the entry for a species reveals the researcher's sketch of it, rewarding exploration with being able to see a snapshot of the creatures.

Similarly the gorgeous UI and mild postprocessing colour filters to separate the feel of various areas like 8bit rpgs used to do (pokemon springs to mind) really do a lot with very little. Same can be said about the impecabble sound design which does a lot of the heavy lifting of the great atmosphere the game has going.

One of In Other Waters' failings is that it never really leans into the interface learning aspect. Figuring out the various functions of the suit are satisfying but pretty simple, and later additions are just straight up told to you. To the game's credit I don't think there was ever an obnoxious "use the fucking blowtorch dumbass" moment and the dialogue frequency strikes a nice balance of downtime/atmospheric silence and plot development.

The other wrinkle to the game are the various environmental hazards, managing oxygen and power as you explore various environments with several roadblocks. As you take samples of local plant and animal matter as well as take scans of the wildlife the base's entries get filled in progressively. There is however a limited inventory of samples which not only furthers the research back in base, but also serves as backup oxygen and power for the suit and even puzzle elements as their behaviour and interactions with other flora can be harnessed to proceed, which both builds the world and solves a puzzle simultaneously.

It reminded me a bit of RE4 in the way I had to constantly weigh up what to use and what to keep. I guess any game with inventory management but it led to a couple of agonizing moments when I was running out of power but the only source I had of it was a really valuable sample I would have to go really far out of my way to get another of. I held out until I was finally able to escape out of the cave and go back to base with the sample.

Unfortunately In Other Waters keeps the pattern here of just not leaning enough into this. For the most part the game is just not hard enough to really make these moments more than a fleeting few episodes. Most of the game is mostly just travelling through relatively empty space occassionally collecting samples, and I weep for those who did not find out the shortcuts for travelling cause man, thats too many clicks at times. At the same time, whenever the game does throw danger at you it demands speed in a game that is best enjoyed leisurely, reading the various blurbs and advancing taking it all in. My ass was not reading those blurbs when I was slowly running out of oxygen or swimming against a strong current.

I am sympathetic however, because for all my complaining there are several reviews both on this site and the steam discussion page complaining about the game being obtuse and not understanding what's going on, so maybe it would be unhelpful to demand it potentially turn more people off? The dev's next game Citizen Sleeper seems to have proven a lot more popular, though ironically I bounced off it pretty hard when I played it. I'll definitely give it another shot now that I have played this.

Another thing that might turn off some, your only dialogue options are yes/no answers to questions by the researcher, given the nature of your being an OS interface. But Im not too bothered by it. Whether or not these options change all that much Im not sure, but Ive always been of the opinion that smaller in scope, character decisions are more meaningful than the more literal choose your own adventure fractal development nightmare of splitting the universe in half based on whether or not I ate chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. In this respect, I think In Other Waters succeeds, for all the nitpicks I could continue making, I was looking forward to its unfolding intrigue and whilst some beats are pretty predictable, the game managed to surprise me a few times. Hell, I think when done well a plot point you predicted can be just as satisfying as one which took you by surprise, especially given the risk of having to do more ludicrous twists to keep people guessing.

In Other Waters was a lovely little surprise, I thought I was going to bounce off it hard when I saw it on my list of games, but it turned out to be a good match for me. I even caught myself getting out of bed from my groggy state by going "oh boy I get to play some more "In Other Waters" before going to uni in a couple hours; which is always a great sign.

I've played a lot (read: too many) video games in my time, so when I say something is truly unique, I'd like to think that means something. I've never played another game remotely like In Other Waters. Even more, the game manages to take a concept I've never seen anything remotely similar to (for those who haven't played, the player controls a diving suit AI) and run with it into one of the most fascinating gaming experiences I've had in years. While In Other Waters' story is fantastic, it wasn't the main draw for me. Every aspect of the gameplay is just as alien and unknown as the world you're exploring. Every time someone mentions wanting a unique gaming experience, I recommend this game to them.

Could not get into this one. So I was interested in Citizen Sleeper, because it looked my kind of game, but I wasn't sure about how it would play, with you playing as an AI and you mostly interacting with menus. So I thought I would play this one first since its cheaper, and has some of the same concepts, being from the same developer.

I will say the music is fantastic for this game and I definitely will purchase that in the future. The UI is also pretty cool and it definitely gave me that retro Sci-Fi feel. But the game just lacks good direction for the player and the story from what I did play just wasn't presented in a way that intrigued me. I have played similar non hand holding games like Morrowind which I got the hang of and started to like more, but this game just didn't hook me enough so I refunded it.

In no way do I think this is a bad game and it is a unique experience but its just not for me. Might still give Citizen Sleeper a try at some point.

Essentially a very cleverly disguised visual novel, though I worry that description isn't giving it enough credit. Imagine Subnautica played entirely on a topographical map, with a heavy dose of climate anxiety and Jeff VanderMeer/China Mieville-esque sci-fi. If the perspective sounds restrictive, don't worry; any doubts have will melt away as soon as you lose yourself in the writing and visuals. The sound design is excellent as well. I could nitpick but it's not worth it in the face of something so unique.

While it has a solid premise and I liked the core experience, In Other Waters strikes me as underdeveloped in some crucial aspects while simultaneously detracting from its core strengths with unneeded additions.

On the gameplay side things are fairly simple. You are traversing a 2d plane going from point to point and scanning your surroundings for local plant and animal life. Your scans give you new information which will provide greater and greater insight into the planet's ecology as you progress through the game. But while the info itself is interesting, the process of obtaining it gets boring quickly. The game makes some attempts early on to keep navigation interesting by having harvested resources impact the environment (for example, there is an item that retracts nearby reeds when deployed thus allowing you to pass through the area) but it’s never used in a particularly interesting way. It’s never a puzzle for what to do but rather a straightforward 'Do X to proceed' instruction. And this system is never used again past the first area anyway which left the game feeling less complex as it went on. Beyond that first area, the only function of the inventory items are to scan for research and to replenish the (already very generous) energy and oxygen meters. Aside from that, the gameplay is simple enough that it's not outright bad but also doesn’t contribute much.

While on the story side, the game has a solid core. Exploring the unknown planet and learning about its ecology is an interesting experience. It’s unlike any other game I've played and the writing does a solid job of making the world feel both fantastical and believable at the same time. But while I can’t go too deeply into it thanks to spoilers, I do think the storytelling takes a dip whenever humans or the suit AI is involved as the former is unoriginal while the latter is inconsequential.

I have to give the game credit. It’s unique in its core concept and does a good job when it sticks to that stuff, but there are plenty of other points where it fails to impress. And for such a short game, the amount of good content here doesn’t end up being all that much. I can’t be too harsh here since this does seem to be a pretty small creator, but I don't want to let leniency get in the way of honesty either.

But despite the game's shortcomings, I do think it’s worth playing. It deserves significant credit for its originality and while it does stumble at many points there is enough of interest going on with the atmosphere and story that I certainly don't regret the time spent playing.

The gameplay gets very repetitive. Waiting to research each new spot to travel on the map is tedious and irritating. The visual style of the map and its creatures leaves much to be desired. Each creature is shown as a dot or arrangement of dots. It’s too basic. I can’t even visualize these creatures swimming around. Also the game’s performance on the switch is shoddy with the fps dropping too often. It seemed to happen more often when in dangerous areas of the game, which made it all the more annoying. Also the way you interact with the main character is too basic, with your only interaction being essentially yes or no to their questioning. Nonetheless, the story is really thought provoking and impactful. It’s such an interesting premise that I haven’t seen in sci-fi before; the moral and ethical implications of terraforming planets to suit our needs.

A perfect example of a game that knows exactly what it does - and does not - need to have. There are so many games I've played that are bloated with half-baked gestures towards mechanics, purely for the sake of satisfying convention, and I couldn't count the amount of totally extraneous jump buttons I've encountered. It's really refreshing to play something that's pared back to the strengths of its premise, and the creative behind it. Those presumably self-imposed limitations - the visuals being limited to a UI and a topographical map, the comparatively tiny text boxes, the distance between the player and their actions in the world - really help slow things down, and make room for the space to be filled with that most precious of experiences in video games: contemplation.

The story unfolds steadily, and somewhat predictably. There's a degree to which it's stifled by the monologue format, and the degree to which the player has any input of expression drops off severely later in the game. It's a style of writing that grabs my attention much more in the short bursts of description and commentary you get while exploring the ocean than in the grand gestures or academic notes. 'Stuff' 'happens', but it's nothing terribly special, and doesn't need to be. More could have been done, even with the mentioned creative limitations, but what's here is easily enough to be enjoyed.

Like with many other brief, distinct titles, I really don't have any good reason not to recommend it. There's several reasons to bounce off it, sure, but it sets out to do something unique and intriguing, and it does it well.

Minor flaws cannot overshadow the brilliant simplicity of the design. The way the resource management gameplay weaves together with narrative and how they are presented by the UI are a true testament of the developer's creativity and vision. Repetitiveness does settle in after the initial wow, but if you are a lover of the nature, the youthful sense of discovery can carry you through. There is a mystery waiting for you to uncover on this watery planet. If you played enough indie games made by creators leaning left (which is basically all of them), you will know where the story is heading.

So close to a masterpiece.

It's so conflicting to me because it's fundamentally a story-driven walking sim with a story that 9/11s itself at the last second... but I still love it.

the atmosphere, the soundtrack, the simple but super original and memorable gameplay mechanic. the way the world unfolds and feels super realized.

This game kinda does the ghost trick thing of being super context sensitive but somehow feeling entirely immersive.

you play as a suit AI (sort of) and your interface makes you feel like you (the actual payer) is accomplishing that goal. so in a sense it melts the fourth wall away entirely.

A beautiful yet brief dive into complex and tenacious world. I respect this game's ability to create concise yet evocative text, turning little dots into intricate fascinating specimens within the player's mind. The game offers its mystery to you and it unravels as you explore, I just wish it wasn't spelled out quite so clearly, the wildlife entries are far better at teasing out your imagination and leaving things unsaid.

A nice atmospheric game about the complexity and tenacity of life. For me the descriptions of the various forms of alien life were the main draw. While the story and its layered mystery were compelling it's delivered to you pretty explicitly without a lot of room for pondering or piecing things together yourself.

The UI is extraordinarily pleasant to interact with, which is good as it forms basically the entire game, and the writing is evocative yet concise, it's unfortunate that segments with time pressure made

Aunque odie la frase, mucho texto para tan poco juego.

Pros:
- La idea de usar las mecánicas de exploración de un mundo alienígena de una forma tan minimalista es tremendamente original.
- El hilo narrativo principal se sigue con interés.
- El juego te da una cantidad inmensa de información para "sumergirte" en su mundo.

Contras:
- Quizás sea demasiado drástico decirlo así, pero no es divertido de jugar.
- Algunas mecánicas requieren de más "clicks" de los realmente necesarios, como si de esa forma intentaran aparentar ser más complejas de lo que realmente son.
- La dificultad es mínima, y los medidores de supervivencia no consiguen generar suficiente tensión.

É um jogo muito baseado em texto e não ter a opção de ler com mais calma, ainda com contagem de tempo para responder, não funciona muito pra mim que não tenho uma maestria no domínio do inglês kkkkk

Outra coisa em que ele se baseia bastante é no HUD, é como controlar um submarino alienígena, cheio de funções, símbolos e botões que você não faz ideia de como funcionam. Esse é o aspecto mais interessante do jogo, descobrir como funcionam esses sistemas (bem mecânicos) e explorar a narrativa e o ambiente alien a sua volta.

Joguei cerca de 1/4 dele, mas não me sinto apto a avaliar já que perdi parte muito considerável do conteúdo que é a história e os logs de coisas que descobrimos explorando.

Se eu encontrasse alguma tradução de fã, voltaria a jogar, mas não achei...

A pleasant exercise in minimalism to tell a characterful story in a vibrant world you can only visualise through dots and lines on a radar. Told entirely through a UI styled after a small handful of deep sea equipment, it does wonderfully atmospheric work with its evocative use of seabed imaging and ambient sound design. The narrative itself is fairly rote, but told through a lens so new to me I couldn't help but be enthralled to the end.

Come the midpoint of the game, I found my play cycle and just coasted to the finale with little to no obstruction. Something about how this and games like Killer7 throw an abstract control scheme onto your lap - then expect you to figure it out on your own, is great to me. When it clicks, it's always pretty special.

I dunno, pretty short but really interesting. I enjoyed my time with it, and lament that I don't have much more to spare. I'd love to get all the collectables, would be zen as hell.

i did not really feel like i was embodying the role of the AI construct the kind of bland narrative and the Y/N, "hey are you paying attention?" interactions with vas (also whats with...all the ellipses...) try to make the player out to be. but i DID feel more like an AI from the minimal ui and the specific control style that turns everything you do into a strict procedure, with split second decisions taking excruciating--in a good way--seconds longer to execute. it actually made me hear a computerized voice in my head that said "harvesting sample", or "sending signal", or "deploying nest weavers", with every action i took.

this methodical mindset the game makes you have, along with marine xenobiology studies you do, is really really nice. unfortunately the fiction part of the interactive fiction is not interesting enough for me to see it through, which is a shame.

They did a great job making what is basically moving a wee dot around so atmospheric and tense, and I'm a sucker for this kind of heavily involved UI so that ticked all the right boxes. But the story itself just left me feeling a bit deflated. It builds and builds then just kinda ends without ending.

It's barely ambiguous. I don't know, it just fell really flat for me.


EDIT: I've just read that there's an epilogue in the artbook that costs £8.50. Away ye go.

The game is atmospherically heavy, by which I mean two things: the entire narrative is very dependent on its atmosphere and it drowns you in its very weighty melancholy. As you play an AI, the visuals of the game are perfectly and inhumanly fit: you are not a human, you do not see like a human. Therefore, the world you (or rather, the person you guide) explore forever stays alien to you, you only get to know anything through meticulous descriptions that really allow your imagination to work. The soundtrack is very melancholic and I think it fits the themes of the game perfectly.

This is a very narrative focused game which makes you imagine an extensive in-game marine universe with rich environmental descriptions of the flora and fauna. The story itself is mainly told through occasional monologues and a few diary pages, which I found very depressing by the end of the game.

On the gameplay part though, the game is a bit lackluster. I think the ergonomy could seriously be improved. Having to constantly shift through the scan mode and travel mode is a pain and the worst is that you can't read descriptions, which are essential to enjoying the game, while in travel mode: this means that everytime you're in a dangerous situation where you need to move fast you have to stay still and waste your oxygen and outside of that is it also annoying because of the amount of time you spend watching your character moving without being able to do much. Fusing the scan and travel screens and having hovering text boxes would have been much better. The controls are also somewhat lackluster, I think it would have been better to simply click on things to travel rather than move the directional thing. I tried both keyboard and mouse and a gamepad, ultimately settling on the keyboard and mouse because I couldn't figure out how to use the shuttle menu with the gamepad.

The map being limited to such a small screen is also relatively annoying, in my opinion, as it really becomes a bother when revisiting areas. I don't think it would remove annoying to the unknown nature of your environment if the whole screen was used, they could simply use a fog of war instead. If these points were improved, the game would really be a great experience. Nonetheless, I still highly appreciated it.

A very unique game with an interesting premise - exploring an alien ocean and categorizing the life found there. Story wise, it starts off kind of slow, but as you uncover the mysteries of the ocean it really starts to suck you in. Discovering new species became more exciting, and the story explores some really poignant themes.

It also has a super unique style. Very minimalist, but by using different effects and colors, it somehow never got old.

Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is slow and clunky. Moving from point to point takes more button presses/clicks than one would hope. I didn't end up exploring as much as I would have liked to just because navigating the world took so long.

The story was fortunately short enough that I didn't give up before completing it. If you enjoy exploring and reading flavor text (or marine biology) - would definitely recommend giving this title a shot.