The Waters Above: Prelude

Short prelude for a "The Waters Above" visual novel that was never released. The art is very beautiful! It's some of the prettiest art I've seen from Studio Elan Visual Novels. I liked how dialogue bubbles occasionally appear and disappear on their own to create a more natural dialogue effect. From the prelude the story also seemed to inhabit an unusually large-scale fantasy world, where SE Visual Novels typically stay in a small-scale fantasy world. I hope "The Waters Above" is finished and released some day!

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this is what peak looks like. <3

I almost wish I had not installed and played through these stories knowing that the full game will never come out, because before I knew it I was in love with the story and setting and wanting so much more. Especially knowing the usual quality of Studio Elan projects, I am sad that this will never become anything more... jk, unless? 🥺

Игра «The Waters Above: Prelude» — это атмосферная головоломка с элементами приключенческого жанра. Визуальная привлекательность, минималистичный дизайн и увлекательный сюжет о тайнах подводного мира завораживают. Геймплей сочетает логические задачи и исследование, но местами кажется слишком линейным. Уникальная механика управления водой и светом добавляет глубины, однако некоторые уровни требуют времени на освоение. Подходит для любителей спокойной атмосферы и интеллектуальных вызовов. В целом — достойное продолжение серии, но с небольшими недочетами в балансе сложности.

"The Waters Above: Prelude" is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This isn't even a complete e-book, it's just an advertisement, but the rest of the e-book hasn't been written yet so you can't buy it. There's a correct process to launch demos on Steam and the "author" of this complete garbage deliberately ignored correct process to mislead gamers and push an advertisement where it doesn't belong. And what is this advertising? A complete garbage high school anime club dropout fan-fiction about one topic... the authors imaginary anime girlfriends, who are underaged girl water nymphs. I'm pretty sure this got the author onto a few watch lists, and it's kinda hard to have an imaginary underage girl…