SAMUDRA

In this exploration game designed to raise awareness of ocean pollution, your playground is the ocean depths, filled with jellyfish and plastic bags. The hand-drawn environments are a beauty to behold. The gameplay is accessible to newbies and the whole atmosphere thoroughly dreamlike. A poetic game, Samudra is nevertheless an extremely immersive one, and filled with twists. A little masterpiece!

A child falls into the sea, wearing an ancient diving suit. This is the intro to Samudra, a fantastic game with an eco-friendly soul. Your aim is to battle your way through the underwater wildlife, as well as through a strange factory inhabited by weird, ferocious beasts.

Along the way, you'll meet other undersea creatures who will help you find your way through this polluted ocean. In exchange, though, you'll need to help them, usually by using your lantern to free them from waste.

Samudra is a 2D adventure and to make your way you'll need to climb ladders, hide in hollows, and avoid enemies, not to mention jumping on conveyor belts so that you don't get caught. And to cap it all off, the game is littered with little puzzles that let you get machines back up and running and make progress through the game.

We loved the super-simple gameplay: Indonesian studio Khayalan Arts has served up a game that's really easy to pick up and play for gamers aged 8+ (with adult help), or for gamers who like to take things easy. The stealth sequences are accessible and straightforward.

But rest assured that you'll never get bored, and the atmosphere in Samudra alone is as captivating as it is oppressive.

And to make things even easier, you don't need to know how to read! All of the actions are explained in speech bubbles with easy-to-understand diagrams.

Our favourite part? The game's poetic atmosphere, provided by its beautiful hand-illustrated environments. You really get a feel for the deep ocean, so dark and so blue.

You're always walking the fine line between dream and nightmare, with beautiful environments filled with the threat of ever-present enemies. It's a dreamlike experience, but it'll never send you to sleep.

As for the environmental aspect, you won't have to put up with being lectured; you'll just move through environments that show plastics, FFP2 masks, and household waste dumped in the sea. The game also contains no dialogue: it's your imagination that writes the story, and it works really well.

We really loved this poetic little game that also raises awareness of the need to protect our seas.