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The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human

 
The best underwater gamesJul 26, 2017 - PC GamerUnderwater levels in platformers, token diving sections in open-world games—they're usually not great. Swimming controls usually fill us with dread because they don't get the same care or finesse as everything that surrounds them. If we're going to get wet, it's better when games dedicate themselves entirely to representing the experience of being underwater. That's what these games do.  They're not first-person shooters set at the bottom of the sea or games about fish who are also secret agents. The best underwater games draw inspiration from the life cycles of marine creatures, from what it's like to move through water, from all the dangers and wonders of the ocean. And fish tanks. Flow The bit in Spore where you're a single-celled creature working up the food chain was essentially an interactive screensaver, but still one of its best parts. Flow is basically that on its own. You're a microscopic wormy creature gobbling up plankton-like blobs: eat a blue one and travel to an ocean plane one shade lighter, eat a red one and travel to a deeper blue. Creatures one level over are always visible and as you shift, the outline of a ray three times your size might suddenly stop being a blur and become an orange threat ready to eat you. Then Flow stops being a peaceful interactive screensaver, abruptly becoming a game about the circle of life.  Insaniquarium Drop a pellet and one of your guppies either eats it and grows, or doesn't and turns belly-up. At the basic level Insaniquarium is just about owning fish: decorative wet idiots who can't be trusted not to starve. Then you get a snail who helps you collect the coins your fish drop, and a swordfish who helps you fight off alien invaders who teleport inside your tank and will eat your fish unless you laser that alien to death. Insaniquarium takes the inane pleasantness of owning a fish tank and video gamifies the hell out of it. Silent Hunter 3 As far as submarine simulators go, Silent Hunter 3, especially with mods, is as in-depth as they get. This is the game where people go for the full U-boat fantasy, playing without time compression so missions take literal days and they have to alter their sleeping patterns around it. If you yearn to fiddle with dials that let you adjust speeds down to the individual knot, then Silent Hunter 3 is for you. Grab some graphics mods to spruce up the 2005-era looks and dive into the simmiest sub sim that's ever simmed. Sub Commander If Silent Hunter III is for pretending you're in Das Boot, Sub Commander is The Hunt For Red October. But where the Silent Hunter series are all studio projects, Sub Commander is the creation of one indie designer and closer to FTL. Your nuclear sub will catch fire at some point, spring leaks, suddenly become radioactive. As much as any patrol or encounter, your mission is to keep the sub running, equipping crew and assigning them to emergency repairs and h...One-year-Anniversary Sale!Jan 19, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsIt's been a year since we released The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human today!!! We are eternally grateful to everyone that backed us on Kickstarter, voted for us on Greenlight and shared & supported us. It's - wow - really amazing that we have fans! and people that played and enjoyed our game! Thank you so much everyone! We have loved reading the reviews on websites, blogs and steam, and we always felt so flattered getting messages on Twitter and Facebook about how much people liked playing our game. To celebrate we're lowering the price of the game by 90% for two days! Tell your friends!!! We are doing this as a thank you to all the gamers, and so that anyone can buy it and give it to a friend, as well as for anyone that has been intrigued but couldn't afford it. We've been working on our upcoming game, Keep Driving, since last summer. There will be more info about that game soon, we're posting about it on our twitter sometimes. It's a game about going on a big road-trip. Thanks again, YCJY. Christopher & Josef.One-year-Anniversary Sale!Jan 19, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsIt's been a year since we released The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human today!!! We are eternally grateful to everyone that backed us on Kickstarter, voted for us on Greenlight and shared & supported us. It's - wow - really amazing that we have fans! and people that played and enjoyed our game! Thank you so much everyone! We have loved reading the reviews on websites, blogs and steam, and we always felt so flattered getting messages on Twitter and Facebook about how much people liked playing our game. To celebrate we're lowering the price of the game by 90% for two days! Tell your friends!!! We are doing this as a thank you to all the gamers, and so that anyone can buy it and give it to a friend, as well as for anyone that has been intrigued but couldn't afford it. We've been working on our upcoming game, Keep Driving, since last summer. There will be more info about that game soon, we're posting about it on our twitter sometimes. It's a game about going on a big road-trip. Thanks again, YCJY. Christopher & Josef.Listen to the best game music of the yearDec 28, 2016 - PC GamerVideogame music has its classics, and they’re usually easy to pinpoint as they trickle out every few months, and previously, every few years—but now, we can hardly keep up. To help sift through all the (lovely) noise, we put together a collection of our favorite soundtracks of the year. If you don’t see your favorite here, share it with us in the comments and let us know why it stands out. If you like the music, be sure to let the artist know—maybe buy a few records on vinyl, invite some friends over, sip some fancy wine and let a track like “Yellow Furry Mushroom Tune” take you where it will. Thumper Brian Gibson Listen here Thumper’s music isn’t comforting, it’s not easy to bob your head to, it doesn’t have delicious hooks that’ll pop up in your mind hours later for easy listening. It’s music designed to suffocate and overwhelm, composed around the violent, rhythmic game design, not as separate thematic entity. Completely intertwined with how Thumper plays and feels, it’s easily one of the best soundtracks this side of the fourth dimension. —James No Man's Sky 65daysofstatic Listen here Say what you will about how No Man’s Sky plays, but from a purely aesthetic point of view, it’s a vast, gorgeous collection of sci-fi paperback book covers. 65daysofstatic’s soundtrack works as a musical stand-in for the wonder one feels ripping through the pages. It’s not a huge departure from their usual sound—distorted guitars, swinging dynamics, crisp percussion, and eerie electronics samples—but it’s all a perfect fit, like they were composing a soundtrack for space exploration this entire time. —James Owlboy Jonathan Greer Listen here Above the jovial plucking of strings, another set sways in and out of a sad, mysterious melody. It feels like there’s a history to Strato, one that betrays the colorful pixel art and buoyant floating fantasy setting. Owlboy is spilling over with gorgeous, playful, and energetic musical motifs for every character and setting that would make classic Disney movies turn their head and stare. —James Slayer Shock Dave Pittman Listen here ‘Thirst’, appropriately enough, reminds of walking around after a few too many drinks. Like the rest of the soundtrack, it places a twangy bass front and center, and it walks around each sparse song, in and out of corners, scurrying across darkened dirt roads, all the while barely keeping itself together. It might be short, but Pittman’s score is a potent dose of whimsy and danger, one that can sustain as much supernatural sleuthing as you’re capable of. —James Abzû Austin Wintory Listen here As lovely a venture as Abzû is, without Austin Wintory’s reverberating, mysterious, and invigorating score, its best moments would fall entirely flat. The psychedelic und...The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human - Now available in german!Jun 22, 2016 - Community AnnouncementsAs the title states, The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human is now avilable in german! We will be adding more languages in the future. Select language in the main menu of the game under . (This only applies to the windows version for now. Will add this to mac/linux versions as soon as we can) habe Spaß!The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human - Now available in german!Jun 22, 2016 - Community AnnouncementsAs the title states, The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human is now avilable in german! We will be adding more languages in the future. Select language in the main menu of the game under . (This only applies to the windows version for now. Will add this to mac/linux versions as soon as we can) habe Spaß!Patch 1.1.1 Live for Windows and Mac!Feb 13, 2016 - Community AnnouncementsNew patch live now! Linux users should be able to get this next week. Here's te patch notes: -Map added! You can reach this from the pause menu. You'll have to discover everything even if you've already progressed in the game. -New Game+! This was requested by some here on the community. You can start a new game+ (find it in Extras in the main menu), once you've completed the game. In this mode you start with all your upgrades and are free to explore the game as you please! -Added 2 more starting lives in Boss Rush. Also you can get an extra life afterthe Chain Gang fight. -Saw can now be used to kill hammerhead sharks during the Chain Gang boss fight. -Added another secret upgrade in a previously empty area. -Aquadog -When the shield drone is aquired it will orbit much faster around the player. -Fixed a bug where you could "escape" from boss rush. -Added a new look for the submarine once you collect all secret upgrades. -Fixed spelling misstake in the Hardcore Achievement Patch 1.1.1 Live for Windows and Mac!Feb 13, 2016 - Community AnnouncementsNew patch live now! Linux users should be able to get this next week. Here's te patch notes: -Map added! You can reach this from the pause menu. You'll have to discover everything even if you've already progressed in the game. -New Game+! This was requested by some here on the community. You can start a new game+ (find it in Extras in the main menu), once you've completed the game. In this mode you start with all your upgrades and are free to explore the game as you please! -Added 2 more starting lives in Boss Rush. Also you can get an extra life afterthe Chain Gang fight. -Saw can now be used to kill hammerhead sharks during the Chain Gang boss fight. -Added another secret upgrade in a previously empty area. -Aquadog -When the shield drone is aquired it will orbit much faster around the player. -Fixed a bug where you could "escape" from boss rush. -Added a new look for the submarine once you collect all secret upgrades. -Fixed spelling misstake in the Hardcore Achievement The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human reviewFeb 11, 2016 - PC GamerNEED TO KNOW What is it? A post human submarine Metroidvania Expect to pay $10 /  7 Developer YCJY Publisher YCJY Reviewed on Intel Core-i7 6700K, 16GB RAM, GTX 980 Ti Link Official site The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human fasts forwards through the Metroidvania template, stripping it down to its most essential parts: exploration, atmosphere, and player growth. As the last human alive, you explore Earth in the far future after massive climate change submerged the greater land masses. In a tiny submarine, you putter around underwater ecosystems that have long since adapted to the new world, even if they still show the scars of trauma left from an excessive human civilization. You'll discover secrets, shoot innocent fish (big and small), and explore a mysterious narrative. It's a somber story, but nothing that can spoil the fun of turning my tin can into a mobile fish cannery. I m not here just to survive, I m here to upset the food chain. I m here to get power ups, baby.  Aquatic Adventure is short and the art is minimalist (but holy-cow-gorgeous), and yet it's one of the best Metroidvania experiences I ve ever had. It understands the best facets of the genre, and uses them to say something more while wrapping my attention around its labyrinths and upgrades and fierce boss fights.   Super soaker As with most Metroidvanias, you start out with super limited mobility and defense. The first upgrade available is a harpoon gun that can only shoot 180-degrees from tip to tail below the sub, so I spent the first hour or so struggling to stay above bosses to even have chance to shoot them. And without spoiling too much, by the end of the game, I went from controlling a freefalling pebble to a Cobra attack helicopter. Aquatic Adventure understands the hypnotic power of the genre; I traversed dense, interconnected environments layered with art that told tiny stories without saying a word. I fruitlessly bumped up against thick bundles of seaweed, and returned, vengeful, after gutting a big fish for a saw upgrade. I pressed down into the darkest depths of the ocean without the guidance of a map, navigating rusted minefields and the remnants of human civilization. The McDonalds was closed. It s short, five hours or so, and the map isn t massive, but Aquatic Adventure distills a greater sense of discovery, player growth, and mechanical growth into its tiny package than the majority of Metroidvanias today. It s the genre s most potent espresso shot: quick, bitter, and just as powerful. It even has the necessary genre staples for extended play.While I m unsure what kind of exploits Aquatic Adventure might be hiding, the labyrinthine map, the open order in which you can tackle bosses, and the skill level required to beat some of the bosses should be a gilded invitation for speedrunners. It s missing the platforming precision from gravity bound games of its ilk, but taking on the final boss with no hull...