Nauticrawl puts you in control of a massive machine filled with dials, knobs, buttons, and devices. What do they do? You’ll have to experiment to find out. Hopefully without dying.
This big machine was supposed to be used by the ruling elite, but since you’re in a spot of trouble, you’ve stolen one. Well, you will steal it, if you can ever get the thing moving. You’ve had no training in how to use this complicated machine, so you’ll have to figure out how it all works by screwing around and hitting buttons. Given that you’re being pursued by dangerous forces AND in a world with a crushing atmosphere, you’re messing about is likely to bring about your demise.
Nauticrawl is all about experimentation. What do these buttons do? What happens when you divert power to this machine? It’s one colossal puzzle to figure out, with your success deciding if you can get yourself to safety. Even if you fail, though, you’ll still have that knowledge you gained in messing around with the machine. You can screw up, but still learn, steadily building a comprehension of how the device works.
The game can feel a little bit like learning to fly a plane without any training – utterly overwhelming at a glance. As a game, though, it can feel extremely fulfilling to find out what even the simplest monitor or device does, and each of these tiny discoveries offers hints at how the machine works as a whole. It’s a deeply fulfilling game as you tug at its various clue threads, and once you understand how it all works, there’s still a full game of survival and escape to work through.
Nauticrawl is available now on the Humble Store, itch.io, and Steam.
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