Day 48 - Mourning Tide
Sports, Horror, Short and Free ·
Skeeter’s Take:
I’ll just tear the band-aid off early here - I was not able to take any screenshots. My windows screenshot tool does not work, and the snipping tool was not playing well with the “Minimize on Loss of Focus” bullshit Mourning Tide was feeding me.
On the surface, Mourning Tide seems right up my alley. A horror themed fishing game? I love Dredge! The graphics are even in that popular “demake PS1” style that I still haven’t got burnt out on. Unfortunately for me, the premise and atmosphere alone don’t carry the gameplay for me.
For me, the fishing Mini-Game (core mechanic) ended up being more annoying than engaging, and since that is the main way the game progresses, it’s unavoidable. I can already hear the cries of “Fake Gamer” and “Hack Poser Trash”, but I did not finish this game. As much as I wanted to see what happened in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to play that stupid fishing mini-game again to do it. After losing the last fish I needed for the 7th time (this is after sifting through several encounters with fish I had already caught), I thought “Why am I playing this accelerated Yo-Yo simulator that has decided to dig up Newton himself and hock a big ol’ looking right onto his dry dead teeth? I don’t have to do this. I could be playing something fun.” And so I decided not to spend anymore grains of sand in what is my hourglass ticking down to my inevitable end and I QUIT THE GAME. Yo, pro tip gamers! You can actually QUIT a game at any time and there won’t be adverse side effects! And if anyone accuses you of “rage quitting”, just tell them you had to quit because their mom just showed up at your front door.
All jokes aside, I really like fishing horrors out of the ocean, and I’m a sociopath who’s favorite activity in Minecraft is fishing (and no, none of those yee-yee ass auto-fishers, we do that shit manually or not at all). I thought the overall atmosphere was good and I liked being stuck on a lil’ fishing boat in the middle of a sea that is slowly working its way to turn blood red. I just care for the fishing mini-game itself. I think part of my issue with it is since it’s in a 3 dimensional space, and the controls and reaction lag quite a bit, it’s really easy to over-correct ro get off track and fuck up the whole catch. The indicator circle also disappears under the ocean way too often, so I found myself relying on sound indication more times than I cared for. Also, occasionally if the indicator circle is further out in the ocean, the fish can swim down prompting the player to move the pole up. There is a cap with how far up you can look, and that lost me a few catches as well since I physically couldn’t move the fish up anymore to fit the circle.
Alright, I’m done nit picking (and biased - thanks Dunkey). Going to go play my favorite circle themed mini-game, Kanye Zone, the first inverse circle type game.
Recommend: I’m going to recommend it. I didn’t like the fishing, but maybe someone out there will. Complaints(or lack of skill) aside, this is pretty well made and reminds me a bit of Iron Lung.
Replay Percentage Chance: 0%
Time Played: 25 mins
Sam’s Take:
Don’t worry everyone I got the screenshots:
Oh yea, look at that fishing circle:
We catchin’ some NASTY bois on this boat!
Just some lil guys here so say lil hi!
Okay pretend Skeeter had a few of those in his review. Wow! Great review Skeeter!
Also it’s been a whole two days since I last called Skeeter a fake gamer so…
I BEAT THIS GAME ON A TRACKPAD SKEETER GITREKTGITREKT GGEZ Y PAUSE 4 RAGE!!!!!11!!one11!! WE GOT A FAKE GAMER OVER HERE, YOU’RE NOT A REAL FAN, I BET YOU DON’T EVEN BE ON BOAT!
For real though, Skeeter is right that the atmosphere is pretty strong (just look at my INCREDIBLE screenshots), but the fishing minigame (also known “the gameplay”) is mostly annoying. I actually think finishing the game has given me a more negative view on it. Ima spoil the ending so if you’re curious, the game is short and free so discontinue your reading this instant, you can come back later.
As the game goes on, the sky slowly turns into a reddish hellscape, and at the very end of the game you pull a human fetus out of the water and then hold it like a baby.
Then this poem appears on screen:
I think having the literal meaning of the game spelled out in plainish text like this really dampens the atmosphere. We don’t have details, but we know he has an unborn child because he believed his wife was unfaithful and did something to cause the child to not live to birth. To me, this makes all the mystique created when pulling out other creepy fish pretty much moot. They aren’t part of some big reveal, they are just weird things that happen before the big reveal. I don’t look back on those first few fish and think, “oh that one represents his jealousy” or something. Fishing up the fetus is the only thing that matters, and it’s all explained so plainly that there just isn’t any other way to interpret it.
Keeping it more open would allow us to try and dig for meaning in the moments before things get more surreal, or planning out a series of smaller revelations throughout the game could have made the thing feel more whole. As it is now, it’s a neat atmospheric fishing trip that decides it’s about guilt at the end. Outside of the weather changes, there is no growing sense of dread. I think there is space for a lonely fishing game with light horror elements like this, but it’s got to either tell a story, or really paint an emotion. Mourning Tide is trapped in the middle.
I know I’ve recommended some dumb games (especially recently), but I hope y’all do see the difference between me not recommending a game that really tried and didn’t quite get there, and recommending low-quality/minimal effort trash that made me laugh. I respect Mourning Tide more than Mammoth Hunting, and another game based on Mourning Tide would be much better than one based on Mammoth Hunting. The difference to me is Mammoth Hunting has nowhere else to go. It’s the best it will ever be. It’s stupid, I laughed, why not recommend it. Mourning Tide can be great. Make the minigame less tedious, decide what you want the game to be, and try again. There’s magic in there somewhere, but making unique good and interesting games is real fuckin’ hard.
I have certainly never done it.
Recommend: No
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 30 Minutes
Random Review