Aquamarine: Explorer's Edition

Aquamarine is a good example of a development team that has fantastic art designers, but clueless tech/gameplay developers. I supported this game on kickstarter a few years ago, because it looked beautiful, and the game today IS beautiful. But on launch, more than a year ago, the game did not work, it soft-locked every 15 minutes, and the tutorial was garbage. Today, i tried getting into it again, and... well the tutorial is better, kinda. But the game STILL soft-locks every fifteen minutes, either the navigation buttons stops working, or you just cant move. I don't know how you ♥♥♥♥ this up, in UNITY ENGINE, but congratulations you did it. Extremely embarrassing. And even IF it worked, the devs decision to re-make this into a "Roguelite" instead of a relaxing experience is confusing and incompetent, they have no clue what kind of player base they were selling this game for, just.. WHY does survival mode exist? why is normal mode soft-rougelite? did you seriously think that people wanted to play this for difficulty, rather than for the story and journey? I personally view these developers as hopeless, and im out, i will now try to forget this game exists, and you should too.…

This is one of those games where I'm drawn right in from the moment the menu loads and the music starts playing. As a huge fan of beautiful and chill story-driven exploration, I really enjoyed the Explorer's/Story Mode that was added in an update and lets you opt out of the survival aspects and attacks. EDIT: While waiting for my crash issue to be resolved, I started a new playthrough in Relaxed Mode and actually stuck with it to the end. I guess having to be conscious of your resources and surroundings was more interesting, but for me story mode might have been a bit more fun. I didn't try Normal Mode that most of the negative reviews seem to be about. The comic-style graphics are gorgeous, the music perfectly atmospheric, worldbuilding great, I've really been enjoying the whole atmosphere and just spending time looking at the art and the creature animations. Researching alien ocean life obviously reminded me of In Other Waters. That one has more elaborate ecosystems, but tbh I preferred this game because it has more visual beauty and gives you bigger freedom in exploration. In Explorer's Mode, I was just swimming in resources and could do what it said on the tin. Relaxed Mod…

Pretty game, nice soundtrack, but the resource hunting is completely busted. I'm not sure if it's pure RNG, or if there's some sort of resource cycle, but I spent just shy of 2 hours trying to play this game. You have 2 main resources you need to survive - energy for your pod, and food for your player character. The first run, I was running low on food, and went hunting for some, and despite being proactive there just....wasn't any. My garden couldnt grow any in time. And so I died within 3 days. Annoyingly had to go through the tutorial again, and this time was a bit more careful with food, but eventually got stuck at a point where I was basically completely unable to get any energy, despite unlocking a number of different areas to look for it in. I broke my ship 4x running out of energy just trying to *find* any so that I could make my next mod. Ultimately I feel way too frustrated with this game, that its punishing despite my best attempts - I'm diasppointed cause I otiginally backed this on KS years ago, and was thinking I'd have a fun "relaxed paced" time when the game has been nothing but anxiety inducing due to frustrating resource mechanics.

Aquamarine is a quietly distinctive science fiction adventure that merges turn-based survival strategy with exploratory storytelling in a vividly imagined alien ocean world. Developed by Moebial Studios and published by Hitcents, the game casts players as a lone space traveler known as The Seeker, whose journey is abruptly interrupted by a mysterious signal that draws her ship toward an uncharted planet. Forced to land on a tiny island surrounded by vast, colorful seas, she must venture outward in a small exploration pod to uncover the truth behind the signal and ultimately find a way to leave the planet. From the outset, Aquamarine establishes a tone of isolation and wonder, emphasizing curiosity, restraint, and careful planning rather than combat or high-intensity survival scenarios. The core of Aquamarine’s design revolves around a deliberate, turn-based system where every action consumes energy. Movement across the ocean floor, harvesting resources, interacting with alien flora, and investigating strange relics all require thoughtful management of limited supplies. The tension in the game does not stem from constant danger but from the strategic balancing act between explorati…

Refunded. I got stuck without the ability to move my pod in any direction nor move up to the surface, after exactly 8 minutes of playing, during the tutorial. I've seen in the other reviews that this is happening quite often. Shame, as the art is really good.

Beautiful art, but seemed very hard on normal. A little buggy and just not that fun.