Embark on an eco-friendly adventure in “Clean the Ocean,” a captivating game set on GUP-14, a small ocean planet tarnished by the remnants of the once-thriving GUPPI corporation. Dive into the murky waters to commence your mission of restoration, faced with the daunting task of cleaning up oil spills and scattered junk.
During your quest, you’ll encounter the endearing Loddles, amphibious alien creatures reminiscent of axolotls with flowy tails and external gills.
As you navigate through the challenges, gather recyclables to repurpose debris and contribute to the planet’s revival. Utilize recycle-bots to deposit collected items, unlocking upgrades for your bubble gun and jetpack. These enhancements are pivotal, enabling you to venture into the depths of GUP-14 and unravel its secrets.
Our Review
Let’s start with what we loved about this game! Here are our top 5 things:
1. Launched with No Bugs
Kudos to the developers for a smooth launch – a rare feat in the gaming world. “Loddlenaut” sailed into the market without any game-breaking bugs. From launching the game to the endgame credits, not once did the game crash or even stutter.
2. Thalassophobia Not Found
Right from the start, the game captivates with its adorable aesthetic. It’s a visually appealing underwater world that manages to be charming without triggering any deep-sea fears.
3. Satisfying Chore
The mechanics of cleaning up ocean debris are surprisingly gratifying. There’s a certain therapeutic quality to it, turning what could be a mundane task into an addictive gameplay element.
4. Calm and Casual
“Loddlenaut” provides a laid-back gaming experience. It’s the kind of game you can sit back with a snack and play without the pressure of intense challenges, perfect for a mellow gaming session.
5. Multiple Language & Environmentally Responsible Influence
A commendable feature is the inclusion of multiple languages because saving the ocean should be universal activity we can all take part in. Always great to see these come from indie game studios.
Here are 5 things we think can improve for this game:
1. Bombs Felt Weak and Underwhelming
The inclusion of the bomb in the game felt unnecessary as it seemed easier and faster to just continue using the bubble gun, and their lack of impact makes them less appealing as a gameplay element. Hopefully the dev can tweak the explosion radius a bit to make this tool more worthwhile using.
2. Light Beacon
The Light Beacon, while an interesting concept, also seemed unnecessary as the biomes don’t appear dark enough to warrant its use. Throughout our play-through we’ve only deployed this once, and only once because we needed to free up an inventory slot.
3. Mouse Aiming
Whether you’re throwing a bomb or placing down a structure- which ever direction our little diver is facing will be the direction the deployable will be going. Enhancing the precision of placement by allowing mouse-controlled aiming would be a welcome addition.
4. Puddle Scribber’s Turn Radius
The maneuverability of the Puddle Scrubber could be improved with a tighter turn radius for a more intuitive experience.
5. Auto-Save?
During our play thru, it appears as if there is no autosave feature, and if there is we sure haven’t noticed its execution. A simple notification at a corner of the screen would certainly help with the look and feel of the saving process.
Some Things To Know Before You Play
1. Drowning and Death
When life gives you lemons, drop your loot but keep your tools. Running out of oxygen and drowning is the only way to die in this game, and when you do- your character will only drop SOME of the collected loot. Once respawned back at base players will notice that all crafted structures, tools, and bombs are retained along with the other half of their loot. Player can then feel free to swim on back to where they’ve drowned and pick up their dropped items.
2. Bubble Gun – Packaged with Aimbot
An interesting observation is that the Bubble Gun auto aims even when gunk is off-screen and your character will sometimes do an automatic 360 no-scope.
3. Gadgets and Helpers
There are currently 3 upgradable cleaning gadgets and a throwable cleansing bomb. These have their special use cases and keep the cleaning process interesting. The game also includes little helper pets called Loddles that you first find in distress but with a little bit of TLC AND some snacks- they can evolve and provide cleaning support.
4. Graphics & Sound
As this varies from one gamer to the next, we will let the clip run so you may enjoy the ambient music while we show case the three Pixelation settings that’s provided by the devs.
5. Replay Value: Moderately Low
As you complete the 6-zones that you’re told to clean up and launch off the planet, there are little to no incentive to reload into the game unless you’d like to maintain the cleanliness of each zone as they do get polluted again overtime.
- Genre: Adventure, Casual, Indie, SinglePlayer
- Release Date: November 16, 2023
- Platforms: PC(Steam)
- Published By: Secret Mode
- Developed By: Moon Lagoon
- Website: www.loddlenaut.com