In Other Waters, designed by Gareth Damian Martin, developed by Jump Over The Age, and Published by Fellow Traveller, is an adventure game that takes you through a journey in the oceans of an alien planet. Published in 2020 for Windows, MacOS, and Nintendo Switch, it is available for purchase today.
The game is very simplistic in design which is a little different from the high demanding graphics of the games of today but shouldn’t be counted out as a contender for a fun game to play. The controls, while easy to figure out after a few uses, don’t explain much when you first use them. Making it a little frustrating at first when playing the game. I enjoyed the simplistic nature but would have liked to take an actual deep dive into the alien ocean to see the plants and animals you interact with.
The player is the AI-UI (Artificial Intelligence User Interface) in an underwater space suit to help the xenobiologist, Ellery Vas, find her missing counterpart, Minae Nomura, who has gone missing on this alien planet and stopped sending communications on her findings. Dr. Vas finds out she has no control over the suit at all once she inhabits it and communicates with the AI-UI to control the suit on her behalf directing you to collect samples and document what you find in the water. Samples collected are taken back to the main ship to be analyzed or to be used by the suit to replenish life-sustaining components (I.E. power and oxygen).
Dr. Vas is an amazing artist and makes up for the lack of immersion in the game with her life-like drawing of the world around her once you collect samples, they are analyzed in the database. As mentioned the controls are very simple. While it boasts a large map you can only explore via points on the map which you have to continually use the search function to find. You can’t freely speak to Dr. Vas either but she keeps things interesting by commenting on the findings and occasionally asking yes or no questions to the interface.
It was nice getting to play something different and enjoy the story of the game and what it had to offer. If you’re looking for a great story to unravel before your eyes: This is the game for you.
DVS rating 8.5/10
