Aquatico from developer Digital Reef Games and publisher Overseer Games is a “City-Building” game that’s set deep underwater in a future version of Earth that’s covered with water.
Aquatico kicks off by letting players choose a symbol for their underwater colony and then picking a map with a predetermined amount of resources. The game tells you if a map is challenging or normal and also tells you how many resources will be available on the map that you select.
Once you’ve picked this, you’re thrust into the deep end (Pun intended!) and it’s up to you to build and develop your underwater colony. The introductory cutscene that plays is about all you’ll get in terms of story and unfortunately this is quite a squandered opportunity in Aquatico. If the world was once a utopia that was ravaged by a meteor causing untold destruction by raising the sea levels, you’d best bet we’d like to know what else went on that forced mankind to adapt to the oceans. Instead you’re just given a basic rundown of how things should be built and the resources necessary to do this.
The tutorial does a fairly good job of getting you up to speed but it really could have done with some more story behind it. Maybe a character or two interacting with each other to explain why things are the way they are and how we’re using our fancy underwater tech to keep us alive as a species? Lots of potential here and hopefully the developers can look into this in the future.
Moving onto the actual gameplay itself, Aquatico is fairly straightforward. Much like most games in the genre, players will immediately establish their base of operations and expand outward, building new structures to meet the needs of their population. You’ll have to adapt to harvesting sea sponges, extracting oil from the ocean floor and creating plastic for building purposes. Good old expand and explore. Oh and the casual exploitation of natural resources eh?
There’s a research tree which unlocks new technologies and buildings can be upgraded to provide better bonuses and effects. However, all of this doesn’t really tie into the game’s theme that much (Deco banner? Clothes shop?) and even the disasters don’t really seem to be as pressing or worrying as they should be in a post-apocalyptic world.
Buildings are constructed using drones and these drones will be your workforce in the game. They will do your bidding and you need to monitor them otherwise some of your buildings will cease to function and the game starts to turn into a micro-managing nightmare. Speaking of which, all the buildings in the game need to be connected by pipes which deliver resources to each of them. Unfortunately for players though, buildings can only have one attachment point to the pipe network so you’ll want to think carefully about how you place your pipes and connections so as to not have a messy looking underwater colony with criss-crossing pipes everywhere.
Thankfully Aquatico has an 8 (Yes, eight!) times fast forward option so you can use that to speed up the gameplay and not wait around too much for resources to accumulate and be distributed. Players can also send out expeditions and it is all very standard fare without really leaning into the whole underwater theme as much as it should.
What the game does do that’s quite unique is that it has verticality introduced into the building mechanics. Players will have a “Ground” set of buildings and another set that’s vertically above these where colonists can live. This means that you’ll have to monitor two different sets of buildings to keep everyone happy.
Aquatico’s soundtrack is fine with the ambient music giving off an underwater/ocean vibe which is quite chilled. Graphically, the game looks decent too with the buildings and animations being visually appealing. The user interface is quite easy to understand too despite seeming like an information overload at first. There’s also quite a lot of building variety in Aquatico and while this is great to see, their systems are all intertwined with each other. This means that while they may look great in-game, having a tonne of buildings leads to an intertwined network that you will have to keep a close eye on. Especially if you want everything to keep running smoothly.
Overall, Aquatico is an underwater city-builder that doesn’t stray too far from the tried and trusted formula established by the giants in the field it finds itself in. Disappointingly though, the game just feels like it’s not complete and is missing that certain something to keep you coming back for more.
The lack of a story or narrative to drive it forward means that it feels like a sandbox builder and less like a post-apocalyptic underwater survival builder. If you were expecting an underwater Frostpunk or even something like the more recent Ixion, this isn’t it. Hopefully, the developers can continue to improve on the game though and mitigate some of the more tedious micro-managing aspects over time. Given the game’s low price point and the fact that it’s still undergoing updates, it’s still worth checking out if you’re a fan of city-building games.
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