The Good: Charming, elegant presentation
The Bad: Poor structure and interface
In a distant future Earth’s resources are scarce. Humanity trusts a biomechanical device the task of exploring ocean’s depths looking for a newly discovered energy source dubbed Gaia.
Abyss brings a nice premise for a mobile/handheld quick exploration game, and its presentation delivers it: the one-eyed, angled (like those deep sea fishes) alienish probe is charming, the environment is beautiful and the sound design is inventive and fitting overall.
What keeps it from being essential is how it’s structured.
Each level has 6 Gaia pieces scattered all around, and gathering every single one is mandatory to finish it; the problem is the game never informs you that, so one may bump a “Mission Failed” message when reaching the level’s exit a few times before realizing what should be done. Also, the fact that a single touch in the environment walls can kill you together with the lack of checkpoints or the simple ability to beat the level and get back to complete it later can sum up for some frustrating moments.
Other than that the interface works poorly: the touch screen—which could be used for unfolding a map, for instance—barely shows the amount of Gaia collected coupled with a chronometer used for score purposes, while even entering your initials in the board feels clumsy.
Abyss clearly had some nice art direction behind it but could have been executed better.