Anoxemia

Anoxemia is a great example of a game that wins you over with an elegant design, high quality narration and sound effects, and simple gameplay mechanics that are tough to handle but rewarding. It’s a 2D action game that takes you into the depths of a strange ocean and immerses you into an eerie atmosphere.

At the beginning of the game you are presented with a short story which explains how you ended up at the bottom of the ocean. You were sent to retrieve a specific number of seagrass samples for research purposes but your miniature submarine ends up crashing.

Now you’re stranded, scavenging for oxygen supplies and other means of survival, all while still being driven by the desire to complete the mission. And what a bad, yet admirable, decision that is.

The world around is dark, full of giant jellyfish and other monsters of the depths but you won’t have to worry about them. Your main concern is to avoid being blown to pieces by various types of mines or shot down by some strange and hostile robot submarines.

One of the main things that attracts attention to Anoxemia, is its apparently simple gameplay. Whereas the controls are intuitive indeed, the actual control of the character is very tricky at times. In the game you actually control an advanced robot drone and the human you follows it around as if he was tied with an invisible rope.

Whenever you stop the drone, your character might still move a bit passed it and it could spell disaster when you’re running too close to a mine. You do get to use a practical water jet powered mini sprint but even that can work against you.

At the start of the game, it feels like a simple ‘collect objects to win the level’ kind of game. Then, as you keep moving forward in each level, your character starts to speak his mind more and more, sharing some thoughts with you. All of which add up some tension and start to unravel a different story.