Life Below

The game is definitely appealing to look at and the gameplay is pretty enjoyable early in. However, the more you play, the more its flaws become apparent. -Building structures takes way too much time. I find myself tabbing out and playing a different game or watching a video as the little minions are getting stuff done. It really takes that long. (Even though I always play on max speed) -In order to deal with game-ending disasters, you need certain types of crabs and such, which are obtained by placing lures that can only be made with specific grass from specific level zones. I lost a lot of games because I really didn't have a clue which lures I needed, or how to get them in the first place. -I may just have missed it, but in my experience, things are often not explained well or at all. I had to look up a lot of things online just to have an idea of how to deal with stuff. I still forget which zone is most optimal for what outside of the artic and volcanic biomes. -Then, once you do know what zones are important to unlock first and how to play optimally, the gameplay quickly devolves into even more sitting around and waiting for your workers to build stuff. There is no difficulty- there are only inconveniences that may end your run if you were unable to prepare for them. I wish the game had more (put not intended) depth and more quality of life to more easily keep track of your fish populations, etc.

The game is *painfully* balanced, I get that it's realistic that oil spills and trash is catastrophic to the ecosystem and that it's like part of the message but when it comes at the cost of gameplay in a GAME, then it's an issue. you get rapidly boxed in by the tech tree in how the story locks off upgrades that make progressing to said story beat a chore at times especially if you get bad spawns of rock outcrops to build on, and if you get REAL unlucky (like I did, you spend 2 and a half hours trying to weasel your way around a garbage fall, that blocks off a major amount of the land in the area that you need to go TO MOVE GARBAGE, also if you're going to make biomes where the "challenge" is seaweed that grows back, give a filter to the deconstruct or make the seaweed under a different menu, I dont want to have to tetris around my structures as the challenge to not deconstruct them and accidentally wind up in a failure spiral. granted if you get unlucky and the dice roll poorly too close together you can just wind up in a similar spiral as half your map gets covered in lasting hazards and even if you keep up your workers they literally cannot cover enough ground fast enough to not tank your biodiversity, and potentially just kill a run in one swoop. there's also an irony about having more furnaces than a late game frostpunk game in a game about ecological hazards just to have enough energy for basic upkeep, the tier 1 generator coral really need to put out more or the early structures they're tied to need to eat less cause needing generator batteries to keep up is nuts. even from someone who really enjoys brutally difficult builder/sim games like frostpunk and rimworld this one is just over that teetering point on how thin that razor's edge is before it gets into the irritation region, I dont think it'd take a lot more retooling to hit the point of thematically difficult but still enjoyable, but currently it's not there for me, Randy wants my head less than this game does after the first major unlock point plus, there was a major bug that required me to restart the game to craft and story progression (but not hazard restrictions) are locked behind rare spawns, so that's a choice.... my review may change after a bit of retooling, like I said, it's not too far off, but the balance isn't there currently

This is a city builder with an adorable twist. The game graphics are very pretty and the mechanics work well. If you plan well, check what research unlocks what carefully and monitor resources it can be fairly straightforward to overcome the hazards you are presented with. I actually like that there are hazards to overcome. It sure made me think about the impacts that happen. As with any game there is a learning curve so I'd recommend taking the time to really get to know how it works. I've completed the game on balanced mode and very much enjoyed the gameplay. The story is cute and not super intrusive. The characters are very sweet. I love watching the wildlife swimming around and getting visitors from bigger wildlife. Overall a very well done, chill, fun game.

Okay, Games fun and chill. Its worth a play if your into these kinds of games. But to the Devs I have two major nittpicks that made this game stupidly hard for no reason. Firstly... The Lures. Its not clear enough that not selecting a lure type is a lure. Or that you can pick the Large/Shiny/Gold Variants either. You need to have all options as a box with one of those boxes ALWAYS highlighted to show which one your going to craft. I was in T3 zones before I found out I had to click Shiny Lure to actually get it. Secondly.. The the Creatures/Sealife. Please at the very top of the creatures (Whether you have seen one or not) Put which region you need to unlock in order to get that creature. Oh My Lord... I never got a T2 Rocky area until the very end game - So I NEVER had Coral Crabs at my disposal. Meaning every single Oil spill was a complete rebuild of a zone. I've seen so many negative comments about Trash / Oil etc. You can fix this by making it was more clear which creatures fix these problems and WHICH ZONES to get them in. Again.. I never EVER realized the zones actually impacted the Seaweed stuff you got and thus impacted which creatures you could attract. Now I know the above makes it seem like I hate this game. I Don't. If they fix the above issues I genuinely think more players will have a better experience with this game. Atm there are a few really needed things that are cryptic but are absolutely needed. For example : the game gives you a quest to get 2 turtles (this occurs really early on) But If you don't have a T2 Reef unlocked you will be dropping lures that only have 1% chance of attracting that turtle. Its super confusing and alot of people (myself included) get hung up on a quest sitting on my screen and not being able to complete it before moving on with the main story. If you enjoy slow-cozy city builders. This games fun. If your still not sure/sold - Grab it on sale.

Great twist on a genre I already love! Since it's more "abstract" than a normal city builder, it's taking some time to get into but I'd definitely recommend.

It's a super beautiful game and I think it has a novel concept. A city management game where you build reefs out of coral and sealife becomes your citizens. The only issue is that the game becomes very tedious very quickly. Balancing energy consumption against resource production is less of a fun game mechanic and more of a chore in this game. There's not really any strategy, just put down as many moon corals as possible. Refining harvested resources into processed materials later in the mid-game takes a long time, so I was pretty much always on max speed. Which is fine, except that the "disasters" are a bit unrelenting and also tedious to deal with. It all comes down to building one of four types of coral: one to make it cold, one to make it hot, one to reduce acidity and one to increase acidity. There's not really anything interesting about it. I think it would be more interesting if the ecology of the reef directly impacted the temperature or the pH, and you had to manage that part of it. The disasters just mean I need to reload a save so I actually have enough time to cancel whatever else I'm building to add a few more acid corals to an area.

Potentially a really great game but i found it far too easy on challenging mode. I think it's probably overpriced too hence why sales are a bit low. If it get's more love could be great

BUILD THE REEF. SAVE THE REEF. PROTECT THE FISHIES! I came for the experience and left emotionally attached to approximately 1847 fishies..