Strange Ocean

Video: https://youtu.be/qeIx9_1r-js Strange Ocean is a weird fever dream of an experience. It's such a weird experience I sit here wondering how to properly explain the experience I had in the 1.5 hours I played. You're Captain Marina, a jubilant young girl who sets out on a strange sea in order to fight the world's deadliest foes of the ocean. Dolphins. I mean, that could be the story. I imagine Marina has never seen the ocean, and this is her fever dream of what it would be like to be travelling the ocean. In reality she's likely suffering from some literal fever induced dream, a la some kind of twisted Twilight Zone episode. But, maybe that's me trying to make sense of it all. It's pure chaos. The game has you in a boat. A boat that jumps, and uh.. Travels over the ocean, which is basically a water snake. Or one of those alien water life form things from The Abyss. Controls aren't really awkward, so I think the tag for that is a tad misleading. The controls consist of speeding up, slowing down, shooting, and jumping. It's not really that strange, it's just somewhat hard to manage those few controls when there's so much chaos going on around you. Each stage has a…

Is Strange Ocean as weird as its name suggests? Yes, absolutely. Is it fun? Yes, oddly. I feel like this is a game that will unfortunately slip under the radar for many people, which is a real shame as it's a very unique premise and pretty well executed. The MS Paint style graphics and homemade-sounding effects are charming and add to the fever dream-like style of the game. Captain Marina is cute and amusingly animated, and her presence at the side of the screen adds another layer of madness to gameplay. All in all, it's worth a try, especially considering it costs about the same as a fancy coffee in a dreary chain cafe. I don't know if I see myself putting tens of hours into the game, but who knows? To the Dev: Great work. It's easy to see how much you enjoyed making this game. I hope it gets more attention. Consider promoting it a little online, maybe on Reddit subs like r/IndieGaming and r/IndieDev to try and get some traction!

Frankly it's tragic that this game has not received the recognition it deserves it's gameplay and visuals are very unique and despite being very tough at times i have had a lot of fun playing this game while i have enjoyed this game it does have some drawbacks like the map menu being kinda confusing to navigate and the upgrade screen being unreadable on my display as i write this review i have not finished the game but i do plan to some day good luck on your game dev journey and may your games get the love they deserve ^w^

A unique take for an on-rails shooter.