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.

At first, the limited gameplay and simple, almost unchanging graphics didn't quite scratch the exploring alien planet itch I was hoping it would. The game withholds the visual aspects of these wonderful ecosystems it describes, using only descriptive language to evoke the environments. After an hour or so, however, I found that collecting samples would unlock more biological information about the creatures, and if you completed them all, you would be able to view a sketch, and finally see the creatures you'd been imagining for so long visually realized. It's an amazing reward system, and I obsessively collected the samples, truly feeling like a scientist and an explorer. The music and the writing is beautiful, and the ending made me tear up a little bit.

Great narrative game with minimalistic nautical control console visuals about discovering and cataloguing an alien sea and the first non-human life that's been found within. Can be slow and backtrack-y at parts, but overall satisfying controlling the dive suit as it's very tactile to use. The narrative is interesting and unique, although to me it ended unsatisfyingly.

Theres often some conflict between all the nicely written text and you needing to move quickly through dangerous waters, so you end up missing a lot of text or dialogue because you cant waste time reading it, which is a shame. You get all the necessary information, its just extra fluff that's missed.

Very satisfying and natural reward system for collecting all the specimens across the ocean

it's a bit like Alien but from an ecological POV.

a very rewarding game if you like checking systems and keeping things in order.

beautiful colour pallette. some really nice descriptive prose that does more than maybe realistic graphics ever could in terms of transporting you into an alien world.

i remember at the end of jurassic ian malcolm was like "humans are so egotistical and stupid for thinking they could end the world. we can end ourselves but not life", and i remember michael crichton feels really contemptuous here. but in other waters is much in love with all forms of life, it's only really down on corporations and capitalism, not human beings, which i think is nice.

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.

I really liked this game. The "gameplay" part might look boring or tedious at first glance, but as someone who loves exploration in games, it didn't feel that way after 5 minutes or so, for the most part at least. It's simplistic, but works perfectly in line with the rest of the game. The music and sound effects also really immerse the player; replicating the feelings of traveling a vast, alien ocean full of life all alone, while also discovering new things at every corner. Additionally, I love how the taxonomy feature fleshes out your discoveries and rewards your efforts with the drawings of the creatures in the end. The main story is also really interesting, so I really recommend this to everyone who might look for a relatively short yet memorable experience. The negatives are that the game mechanics DO get tiring sometimes, and the lack of any kind of quest log could confuse someone who picks up the game after leaving it for a while (or it could be just me).

It's a bit like Subnautica but in a minimalist and linear way. You are on an aquatic planet where you discover for the first time life outside the earth. There are two characters, a human and an AI, the player is the AI and the goal is to help the human search for his partner who is supposedly lost on this planet.
The gameplay is unique and immersive while being very simplistic. It gives the same feeling of discovery of strange underwater creatures, but In Other Waters leaves room for imagination. However, the heart of the game is the well-written story and the lore you discover by scanning objects and reading analysis. It is more linear than Subnautica and there is quite a bit of text where you discover the mysteries of the planet.
It's a weird game that I wouldn't recommend to everyone, but if you want a relaxing sci-fi game, it might be worth a try.

What starts off on a high note with its otherworldly soundtrack, interesting narrative and feeling like you're exploring an alien ocean drags itself to a hault by the third hour. The clunky traversal system means you spend most of the game waiting to get to your destination. And the overwhelming amount of text thrown at you can get super tiresome. It sort of has some survival mechanics but they are easy to manage and ignore. Where they just shouldn't have existed.

I don't like criticizing games that are different like this but this really should have been a book. Or even a visual novel but there is just so little visual storytelling going on. To the point where I skipped large amounts of world building because it was large text info dumps. Which don't really do anything for the marrative and arguably hurts the world building.

Exploring alien oceans is one of the things I enjoy most in gaming but In Other Waters it was mostly exploring the world in my mind and listening to the music. That makes it hard to recommend.

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.

Masterful narrative/exploration game oozing with atmosphere, but probably not for everyone.

Game is mostly focused on linear story which is very well written, thoughtful and immersive, both in terms of character/events and environment of the planet with all it's little details. Little choice you have is mainly relegated to exploration. In terms of gameplay, it is very minimalistic, you basically move on graph of nodes and scan, occasional other activities require max 2-3 mouse clicks. There are few places where you are time/resource pressured, but margin for error is large so it should not pose any challenge. Graphics while very limited do amazing job of environmental story telling and creating atmosphere with simple shapes and colors. Music is phenomenal, greatly adds to the mood of the game.

The only negative I could find is that movement is bit clunky, requiring more clicks then it should.

In the end all elements of the game fit together very well and create something memorable and unique, well worth the time, as long as you can put up with the simplistic and slow gameplay.

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.

It's very unique in its core concept but that wasn't something that dragged me in and kept me playing.
The whole game is meditative and finding the exact mood where I felt that connection strongest certainly wasn't every day.

Given the themes of the game, I find it very interesting that practicing a mindfulness in approaching and playing the game felt like the appropriate way to play it.
I think this also matches up with the colours and soundtrack of the game. Both are simple at their cores but absolutely soaked in pure colour and bleeding life from them.

There was never a doubt that I was on an alien planet, far beneath the surface, studying all the I could see, giving time to the study, and feeling the world embellish itself through Ellerys notes and sketches really struck a chord. With everything else tied to the feeling of discovery, the game aligns itself into a soft pace of diving, finding, and making peace with what you find.

It was a real pleasure to play and it'll be stuck in my brain from here on out.

This game was gorgeous, simplistic with wonderful sound design. Just the little things like the music cues being tied to when you advance some text segments and the overall atmosphere of the blue and yellow HUD for the pod is just beautiful.

The game keeps it very simple and just gives you a great experience all the way through. Not so sure about the post-game content, it seemed a little hard to find the stuff I missed and research it (especially since you can't look at a map while in the pod), but the game was distinct enough during the game that I just fell in love with what was there.

I might have to check out Citizen Sleeper now that it's on Game Pass.

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