I found Life Below to be very refreshing. I’m studying for a degree in Environmental Science on the down-low, and it’s very easy to get into a depressive spiral. You just need to glance at the news to see the beginning of the next wave of climate disasters. The oceans and waterways are no exception. Increases in carbon dioxide are making them more acidic, they’re getting choked up with plastic, agricultural run-off is causing devastating algae blooms – the list goes on. It makes you want to just curl up in a ball sometimes. Having Life Below come along with a steadfast roll-up-your-sleeves attitude is quite heartening.
Granted, it doesn’t really offer any concrete suggestions for how to fix things in the real world, but a positive outlook is refreshing. It helps change something that is quite harrowing into something very serene. Serenity seems to have been at the heart of the design. It’s a city builder, but one that lets you go at your own pace. That has its drawbacks, of course, but the end result was very meditative. While its philosophy might not hit as hard as perhaps is necessary, I can’t deny that watching coral reefs go from barren to bursting with life put a big smile on my face.
Corralling The Reef
It feels a little strange calling Life Below a city builder. It takes place entirely on the ocean floor, which removes a lot of the usual city building trappings. Fish don’t use roads, for one thing. I will sing the praises of any city builder that doesn’t include traffic jams. More than that though, being under the ocean means that we need to think about the environment around us. Both plants and living animals require a reasonable temperature, a perfect pH, a decent amount of space and an ample food supply. Juggling all of these things in one reef has the potential to be quite a challenge.
At first, though, we start with a fairly simple biome. That’s where our centre of operations, the reef heart, lives. We develop it up with a few resource generators and plonk down some basic sea anemones for some clownfish. Soon though, we start needing more space, so we turn our eye on neighbouring reefs. Each reef belongs to a set biome, with its own challenges. Volcanic biomes, for example, need the temperature brought down sharpish. I really enjoyed unlocking each new biome, then figuring out how to make it habitable so it can flourish. Each new biome grows a specific ‘grass’, which can create a lure to attract biome specific fish. In this way, the reefs spring back to life.
There are challenges along the way, though, both natural and man-made. Cold and hot currents can mess with zones, for instance. Or you might get an oil spill or garbage patch. These can be mitigated with various upgrades and, most enjoyably, by luring certain creatures. Crabs can clear up rubbish, for instance. It gently encourages biodiversity, as you mix and match different sea creatures to best protect your reef. Crucially though, outside of hazards, Life Below operates at a very slow pace. Fixing up reefs is done at your own tempo, allowing you to plan and react without too much stress. It’s an immensely relaxing game.
Serenity Overload
That said, Life Below might be a little too laid back at times. A lot of the tools you need to mitigate hazards are unlockable very early on, so the temperature and pH issues become negligible. The man-made hazards are harder, but after experiencing them once, you can usually figure out a battle plan. So a lot of my time was simply spent laying down a few new buildings, then twiddling my thumbs. There’s little reason to expand to new zones, too, outside of story reasons. Wildlife in new biomes does generate more ‘biodiversity’, which is used for research. If the issues are easily mitigated, though, then research isn’t a priority. I feel it needs an overarching issue that we’re constantly battling. Something to light a fire under us.
The story does pick up some of that slack. I’ve not mentioned it before, as it’s a touch thin on the ground. We are a new guardian, called Thalassa, who’s tasked with restoring a devastated coral reef. She’s assisted by an army of water sprites, who are your basic workers, and Pontus, a grumpy assistant guardian. It doesn’t evolve too much from there, but it does have its moments. When you first encounter a ‘ruined’ zone, I felt a definite twinge. A field of white, bleached corals and dying remnants of algae. A grim reminder of what’s currently going on in the world.
I’d say it’s an important story, but I feel like it doesn’t quite hit the mark for me. The environmental undertones are very clear, but I feel like the ease with which we can solve the hazards undermines it somewhat. You begin to wonder why plastic in the ocean is such a big deal when we can just parachute in a few crabs. Glibness aside though, I think it felt a bit soft, if that’s the right word. Like it’s shying away from the fact that revitalising reefs is a long and complex process. Fair enough, I suppose, that’s a much different game. But some way of tying it into the real world struggle would have been appreciated.
Life Below – Beautifully Serene
Philosophical pondering aside, I will say as a final point that Life Below is a delight just to watch. I think that feeds into the serenity of the gameplay. When you lure fish to a habitat, you physically see them swim into the reef. The smaller ones will swim in schools around their homes, while larger ones will swim around the whole reef. It’s almost mesmerising. Doubly so when you get visitors; bigger wildlife that pass through your reef. I had a big, stupid grin on my face the first time whales visited. Seeing their giant shadows, and the smaller shadows of their babies, looming over my reef was wonderful.
That sort of sums up my experience with Life Below. It doesn’t have much in the way of challenge, but not every game needs to raise my blood pressure. Sometimes I want something that’s soothing. While the environmental message in the background is one of desperate struggle, actually playing Life Below is far from that. In a world that’s desperate for you to curl up in a ball and ignore the things going on around you, it’s nice to play something that has a spark of hope at its core.
