Oceanheart is a game about sailing, exploring oceans and discovering islands.
If you like the following things: Wind Waker, Animal Crossing, The Sims, consider this a warning. You are most likely about to fall in love with this game.
Oceanheart is adorable. You play as a character called Mami and you do things like fish, craft, sail, and decorate your ship.
It looks like this:
And in motion it looks like this:
Much like, say Wind Waker, the ocean is tempremental. Storms can destroy the world as you know it, re-arranging the game , providing you with new objects to find and new areas to explore.
The game is being developed by Alec Holowka and Karen Bitmoo. It’s been in the works since April this year. They have a really interesting development blog you can read here.
It has gorgeous artwork that describes some of the games early goals and mechanics, like this…
And also this:
It looks utterly beautiful.
No idea when Oceanheart will be released, but it’s currently slated for PC/Mac. The team has been messing around with consoles so hopefully it’ll see a release on other platforms too at some point.
Comments
13 responses to “Oceanheart Is Like Wind Waker Crossed With Animal Crossing”
Kinda reminds me of that Proteus. Not that I ever got around to actually playing it.
I really enjoyed that. It’s barely a “game” but loved the feels. I would looooove that on google cardboard
I picked up the Humble Bundle that had it in it with the intention of checking it out on the Rift. Never got around to it, of course.
reminds me of Oceanhorn.
definitely not a bad thing, Oceanhorn is fantastic.
Yeah, it’s a great game. Sort of A Link Between Worlds meets Wind Waker.
main reason i like it coz its one of the few games on PC that scratches the zelda itch.
that, and it looks stunning.
It’s strange how hard it is to find games like Zelda on PC. A FPS or MOBA does well and all we see for years is knock-off after knock-off, so you’d think there’d be a mountain of Ocarina of Time-like games out there.
not so strange really – a FPS or MOBA just needs a few core systems and some linear or unrestricted maps, and a multiplayer focus ensures replay if it takes off… but a proper Zelda-type needs a whole lot more world building, with a structure based on unique item actions instead of generic RPG abilities, and subsequently gating the otherwise open world in ways that aren’t too easy to break… and then to get notice it needs a solid soundtrack and visual style.
It’s a hard sell for a large dev without a name/franchise to leverage, and a big undertaking for small indie studios who want a decent amount of content. There are some short and sweet ones like Guardians of Paradise and Ittle Dew, but I think the current preference is going the Metroid route instead of Zelda (same principles but as a platformer), and there will at least be several more of those appearing thanks to successful Kickstarters from a couple of years back.
From a programming perspective the core stuff isn’t that hard. It’s all about as easy as the core stuff for a FPS or MOBA. The items are actually super easy since they tend to revolve around simple attacking and basic manipulation of the environment/player’s location. They almost always have clear activation hooks so the average item doesn’t require much digging around elsewhere. The investment scales like anything else but we’ve seen a lot of big money sunk into FPS and MOBA games.
I don’t expect there to be a ton of good Zelda-likes but I find it strange that the games are extremely influential and part of most developers formative years yet it’s rare to see serious attempts to follow in their footsteps. The 2D Zelda titles get a bit more attention, but not as much as I’d expect considering just how basic they are.
oh I know from a coding perspective it isn’t such an issue, especially with some of the current tools available, but the creative worldbuilding is where they really have to define themselves (which isn’t usually a concern for your typical zombie survival shooter) – the only really big PC titles I know to capture the Zelda feel would be Twinsen and Beyond Good & Evil to an extent, and even the Zelda series itself has had a few missteps from segments which seemed too much about an arbitrary item function instead of a useful tool in the environment and subsequently broke immersion somewhat.
There have been a couple of games which take the concept but stick it in something like a twinstick shooter instead though – might be that it’s one of those ideas which influences more outside its genre than inside.
Bottlemail!
Yes please. Shame we cannot give them our money already. Throwing it at the screen didn’t work.
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! Assuming my PC will handle the game.