Sea Of Solitude

What ambiguity the mechanics and setting foster is resolutely steamed out by the writing

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Sea Of Solitude mixes dream with autobiography to create a vivid, but deeply dissatisfying, a tale of trauma and transcendence. It takes place on a shimmering tropical ocean, with protagonist Kay waking in a motorboat to find herself transformed into a beast. Not far below the water’s surface lies a city – a half-remembered, half-imagined labyrinth of pastel bricks, thickly molded domes, wave-lapped conservatories, and plazas. The city has no inhabitants, but it does harbor plenty of thoughts and memories, each as monstrous as Kay has become, with inky-black feathers and glaring crimson eyes.

Some of these phantoms take the form of spiteful children, shoving you back from doorways as you explore those parts of the city that are above water. Other, larger entities roam the skies on dusty wings or weave through sunken streets, crooning at you through mouthfuls of arm-length teeth. Your task as Kay is to reconcile with these menacing apparitions, unraveling the pain they make manifest, in the process returning yourself to human form. To begin with, you have to avoid some, like the creature in the depths. You can drive others back, firing bolts of light from Kay’s palm to evaporate the darkness that clings to them.

One obvious source of inspiration is The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which features another blissful ocean that veils and preserves the secrets of the past. Sea Of Solitude takes a similar delight in the heave and fracturing of water, Kay’s boat churning up a great carpet of foam as you pull up to the jetties that serve as checkpoints. It also borrows Wind Waker’s companionable seabirds, one of two kinds of collectible waiting to be dislodged from the city’s crevices. These points of comparison spark the hope that this game will put the myth-sodden geography of