South Scrimshaw, Part One

More than a third of all reviews mention the art, more than mention any other part of the game. Players describe watercolour and mixed-media panels, light animation over stills, and new artwork on almost every slide. "Every single art piece is a gorgeous landscape of unrelenting vastness and incredible depth," one reviewer wrote. A few took screenshots as they went ("One frame from about a third of the way through is my PC background now."), and a handful compare the look to Studio Ghibli or old children's books. One review felt a few panels looked "a little more amateurish than the rest," a point no other review makes.

Nearly a quarter of reviews bring up the documentary framing. Players compare it to Attenborough, Blue Planet, Planet Earth, National Geographic, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel, and some tie it to childhood memories of watching such programmes. "It really feels like a David Attenborough documentary from an alternate timeline," wrote one. A few say they briefly forgot the creatures were fictional. The praise for the tone usually takes in the writing, the pacing and the narration script together.

Reviewers who call themselves spec-evo fans, biology students or marine biologists say the creatures are grounded in real biology instead of being random monsters: "The creatures make biological and evolutionary sense." A pre-med student wrote that "the basis of this whole game are real biological systems and lingo." People single out the Brillo whale's ability to choose symbiotic partners and change its look, along with side creatures like the seabun, the chowper and the scheming octopus. All Tomorrows, The Future is Wild, Expedition, Subnautica and Scavenger's Reign come up as comparisons. One detailed critic wanted the creatures to feel stranger and less Earth-like, and found some adaptations underexplained.

About one in six reviews brings up the price of zero, usually with disbelief. "I wish this wasn't free so I could give the creator money for it," one reviewer wrote, and others say much the same ("this game shouldnt be free, but it is"). Players steer each other toward the paid artbook (described as more than 200 pages), the developer's Ko-fi and merch, and several say they bought the artbook to support the creator. A few say they would pay for Part Two. The only reviewer who objected to the artbook's price was a negative one who objected to the whole release.

Highlighted words open optional tangents that branch into the planet's history, the research crew and humanity's wider story. Reviewers describe this as a wiki-like rabbit hole, and some call it the best part: "The footnotes are some of the best parts, and you would be remiss to ignore them." Others urge new players to "make sure you click on all of the hypertext links!" One reviewer with ADHD said the tangent format matched how they think. The background lore gets praise for being hinted at and left for later instead of explained in full, and a few players say they replayed the whole thing.

Around one in ten reviews talks about the emotional pull of the story, and some say outright that they cried; one "cried for an hour at chapter 3 and 4." "I never thought I'd care so much about an alien whale," another wrote. One reviewer credited the restraint of the documentary format, saying "the documentary format excluded any heavy-handed emotional manipulation." A content warning in one review lists predators, blood and loss, and one parent called it suitable for a ten-year-old.

The soundscape gets steady praise for ambience, music cues and animal sounds that carry the big moments. One reviewer who read the credits was impressed that "they did an excellent job creating ambience using nothing but stock sounds and music." Another advises "Play with headphones if you can." None of this covers the narration, which is debated below.

A smaller group enjoys the range of tone: deadpan jokes and lines that became in-jokes in the reviews ("They did indeed flip"), alongside tense scenes over the abyss and a shark attack. One reviewer praised "the idea of horror from the perspective of something like a baby whale." A couple of reviewers felt the late jokes went too far (see below).