izigame.me

The underwater is a very reassuring and happy place for me, but it's hard to find an underwater game that isn't about killing sharks or fishing.
Loddlenaut is everything but that. You're here to clean and pet Loddles, that's it. It's the definition of "cozy".
But while I adore the cleaning-feeding-petting, I also found myself enjoying everything around all of it.
You're not a superhero cleaning after an evil corporation, you're a cleaner from a corporation sent by the corporation that trashed the ocean to erase their mistakes.
You can ask yourself questions about their actions, why they lied about some stuff, why they ommited to inform us of others... Will it changes anything to the game? No. But it's called world building, and it's well done.

The + :

You're not restricted, besides the tutorial (which will take you 2 minutes). You have basic quests that you can follow, but if you don't follow them well... nothing. You're not blocked in your exploration Your coordinator Dave might be a bit upstet, but he'll get over it. You might be missing some upgrades to clean something but upgrades don't appear when you follow the story, they do when you come in contact with an uncleanable waste.
The world is surprisingly big. You have 5 main zones that increases in size (according to the quests order) but everything around also have some kind of trash or waste that you can grab or clean. My ADHD might be responsible but I often get distracted and end up spending 10 minutes cleaning up a random spot. And I quite like it.
The music is really nice. It matches every area and really gets you in the mood.
It's not because you clean a zone that the job is done. Waste reappears as you leave a zone unattended. It starts with a bottle or two... and then suddlenly half your loddles are goopy and looking at you with their "I love you. Please help me." faces.
You can pet the loddles. Dave isn't too fond of that either.
I found myself taking more care of the loddles than I thought I would. I'm more of an exploring type of person but the different forms are adorable and those loddles are also a little bit dumb. Some will do a beeline for the nearest tree whenever they are hungry but others will follow you around with a desperate face, waiting for you to drop a piece of food (or 15) in front of them. I can work with that.


The - (that are closer to "things I would like to have but it's okay that it's not in the game") SOLVED Hehehe :

We could really make use of a bestiary to keep track of the different loddle forms, as well as any type of herbarum to have more informations on the flora. I would love a definition and a way to keep track of each items and creature, and I feel like those are really missing to the game. Though I'm still hoping for a description of the flora and items, we now have a Loddlepedia, and isn't that fantastic?
Traveling can be a bit tedious. The first zone is small and quite close to your home, but the others takes longer to clean and are further away. Since the fast travel unlock after you've cleaned a 100% of the zone, you end up doing a lot of back and forth. While the fast travel is really rewarding, I feel like having an other way to teleport, maybe something like a limited use waypoint, or a one way one could be quite useful. Travelling has been made easier both thanks to the speedboost increase, as well as the new plants. I could really feel the difference, it made exploration much more enjoyable!
While the Loddles are lovely, the ocean can feel a bit empty. There aren't really any other creatures. You can occassionnally meet some sea slugs but I believe it's only if the zone is cleaned 100%? But as I said earlier, trash never really disappear, so you are rarely at 100%. The apparition of the critters is much more sooner, and the ocean feel much more lively as well.