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In Other Waters is a title that strips the player of most autonomy and stimuli you'd expect in a game about discovering alien species. You are provided with only a topological map of the sea floor and a compass/UI through which you assist the 'protagonist', Ellery.

She comments on the surroundings, marking them as potential vectors for traversing the ocean. She sees a coral arch, you see a small '▲' on a radar. This creates a very unique dynamic, similar to that of reading a book.

You have to fill in the blanks for yourself with the descriptions she provides. Even the environments themselves are abstracted down to their most basic form; lines drifting across the screen as Ellery does the same through Gliese 677Cc's waters. Never before have I felt the disconnect between my actions from those of the character before me in quite a way as I did between Ellery and I. Yet, I still felt incredibly connected to the environment. Namely, through the only method interaction between us, the UI. The soft glow of yellow and turquoise displayed at higher depths is swiftly replaced with alternate hues, representing a Ellery's shifting attitudes toward her environment as she traverses the various ocean biomes.

Most notably, a deep tone of blood orange is reserved for the most distressing areas of the ocean. The RGB equivalent of the same 'shiver down your spine' that Ellery surely feels as she delves into the secrets underneath the seafloor.

All this to say, in a game that strips you of so much vision. It is the game's artistic vision that provides the player with all the sight they need to still feel the incredible emotional storybeats of curiosity, awe, dread, panic and sorrow out in the alien depths of a ocean that only Ellery gets to witness.

The first bass lines sound like the trepidation of stepping into a new role, or feeling out of your depth after barely beginning to grasp the basics. Doorbells and buzzers, commonly associated with success and failure, sound after the first 'verse' and at regular intervals during instrumental sections further contribute to the idea of repetitive action and the slow march of progress over vast periods.

The instructors second spoken segment can be interpreted as a slow descent into mindless, automated action - there is nothing left to be learnt, only the continued completion of assigned tasks. The humming and 'la~ la~la~' vocalisations connote daydreaming and restlessness while the childish tone of the choir convey a sort obliviousness to the slow wear one feels as they slowly start to disengage from work.

The track becomes more open and airy, with faint synths reverberating throughout, consistent with 'an absent mind at work' but the irregular, robotic vocals of the 'learner' and sharp shreeks of guitar are symbolic the cracks in the learners sanity beginning to brake apart after suffering the aforementioned 'slow ware' for too long. As this continues, the airy synth becomes darker and a new percussive synth pulses from ear to ear, louder with each bar that passes. An acoustic guitar is plucked asynchronically, reminiscent of strings breaking from stress and excessive torsion and overuse. By the final phase, a feedback loop of whitenoise threatens to overtake the entire soundscape.