Swallow the Sea: In which an embryonic boi takes a deep dive to get big and strong.
The people of our world are plagued with many fears. Some of the most common being afraid of the dark, the ocean, and as my man H.P Lovecraft said, the fear of the unknown. If you happen to have all three of these fears, then by the gods this is your 10-minute worst nightmare. Swallow the Sea is a 2-D exploration adventure game set in the deep sea, developed by ItsTheMaceo on Itch.io, a collaborative game developing group.
In Swallow the Sea, you play as a creature that resembles an egg cell. You control this little guy by holding left mouse and pointing in the direction you want to go. The cell can also perform a dash by right clicking, which is necessary to break certain barriers. You’ll be dashing quite a lot to snag your prey, and evade the dangerous denizens of the ocean. Your visibility is limited to your direct line of sight, anything else is veiled in darkness, which becomes even smaller if you get hurt. Your objective is to consume anything smaller than you, and evade anything bigger than you.
Swallow the Sea does an excellent job of selling its setting. It’s murky backgrounds contrast with the saturated creatures, which are just bizarre enough to look like they came from the Mariana Trench without coming off as cartoonish. The music also strives to make you feel alienated and afraid as you scramble around, trying to scrounge up food. And that tense piece when that purple THING shows up... EUGH.
I’d highly recommend Swallow the Sea if you have nothing better to do. It will only take 10 minutes of your time at most. Until the next time, i’ll be here, trapped in my bedroom, thankful that i’m not trapped in the abyss instead.