ABZÛ is an underwater exploration game with a distinctive, breathtaking art style and a soundtrack to match. Diving through open oceans or sunken ruins, the player experiences vast numbers of oceanic life of all shapes and sizes. There is no violence other than a basic food chain among the fish, and there’s not even any way for the player to die. Despite this, there is plenty of suspense and anxiety as the player encounters darkness and dangers in the deeps. The story is vague – told only through hieroglyphics encountered in the game – but it is emotionally deep and engaging. Its gameplay is simple but creative; it is peaceful and immersive in a way that must be experienced to be understood.
Upon starting a new game, the player watches a short intro sequence before being given control of a Diver floating on the surface. The player is instructed on how to dive and swim, and before long…
Screenshots do not do this game justice. Rest assured, there is a full range of lights, colors, sounds, environments, and wildlife in the relatively short few hours it takes to complete one playthrough of this game.
Now, onto a more analytical description of the game. The learning curve is quick and easy: the controls are simple, the only goal is to explore and progress forward through the world, and the map appears open but is designed to attract the player’s attention forward. The interest curve is steady, and since the game is so short, it is difficult to lose interest by the time it is over, especially as the plot events unfold interactively. Core mechanics primarily revolve around movement and using the action button to unlock doors, although there are many subtle mechanics that are not necessary to complete the game but add immense value to the feel and spirit of the game. Play balancing probably involved only movement as well, since the pace of the game is set by the speed at which the Diver can traverse through areas at various magnitudes of scale. The only real semblance of skill comes in for a short period later in the game, where the player must swim through several increasingly difficult minefields that would temporarily stun the player if hit.
Feedback loops are an interesting topic about this game in particular, for a few reasons. For one, the fish around the player react to and follow the player’s movement, even going so far as to leap out of the water along side the player. More mechanically, if the player attempts to swim outside the intended bounds of the current area, they are nudged backward and a holographic indicator appears on the Diver pointing in the intended direction. Then there are more unusual additions: the action button also causes the Diver to emit a vocal sound, which some fish or the encountered drone companions will respond to with their own sounds. In the extreme case, there is no input and no feedback at all – the game includes an option to Meditate upon one of twelve statues located throughout the world, a state which can be activated or deactivated at any time once each statue is found, wherein the camera focuses on (and can be moved between) the fish in the local area.
It is difficult to apply notions of Game Theory to a game like this. There is no pattern to recognize, no satisfaction to be had from beating the system or other players, no mistakes to learn from. If anything, Lazzaro’s theory fits the most, where ABZÛ could be described as easy fun and possibly serious fun. Its audience is obviously Explorers, and only Explorers, as per Bartle’s taxonomy, but how does one quantify or qualify a game where exploration and emotion are the only resultants? Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see a game succeed while being so unique and divergent from the industry standards of killing-centric shooters and RPGs.
Ultimately, in ABZÛ, the player’s choices involve (1) where to go next, and (2) how much else to do before moving on. The nature of this type of game dictates that the state or journey of playing the game is more important than getting to the end of the game. The player can spend several hours swimming in circles with the fish, holding on to a fish and directing it where to go (or what to eat), exploring every nook and cranny, collecting all of the collectible items, trying to understand the obscure history of the world the Diver exists in via the writing drawings on the walls, finding Easter eggs (like the reference to Finding Nemo), or even just Meditating… or, the player can rush through the game in about an hour. Either way, it would be time well spent.
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