Waking Tides Reviews

Kinda meh game. Bugs and puzzles are kinda bad.

Great atmosphere in this game! Lots of creepy moments. The sound does a lot too, especially with headphones. The AR stuff is fun, but the puzzles are rather easy. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

I finished the game in roughly 45 minutes. I didn't do much exploration because there's not a real reason presented that explains why I should. For the most part you can completely avoid the AR aspects, and just find the things you need hidden around the game's various environments. The AR will either just give you a picture that tells you where to look, or potentially an actual clue you can use. It sadly feels far more like a gimmick than anything truly useful. It would have made much more sense to have items you could pick up and inspect to find the hints or whatever. But that's just me. The story is.... I have no idea. Your dog disappears. Maybe. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's been gone for a long time? I don't know, and it isn't explained. I can only assume this happens because your dog barks open a portal to some kind of eldritch horrorspace. And even then I'm mostly guessing, because aside from a very few minor plot points we are just left to our own imagination to put the pieces together. And my mind became more focused on pizza, because I'm hungry. The game is essentially a bunch of levels tied together through portals, without any understandable connection. A shame, because the set pieces are quite good for the most part. There are some clipping issues, and a variety of areas that simply don't look right... But overall the atmosphere looks and feels good. There's just no reasonable justification for any of what we're experiencing. This is definitely a time I wish Steam offered us the ability to make our recommendation somewhere in the middle between Yes and No. It's a short experience with no real replay value in my opinion, so while I'll give it the most hesitant of recommendations - you may want to wait for a sale.

Absolutely stunning graphics & audio. The game really immerses you in a dark atmosphere. Maybe after I play Half-Life 2 back in 2004, this is the most similar game like feel and gameplay. There's good puzzles & augmented reality, which is awesome idea & realisation! Support indie devs!

The trailer makes the game look good but it dosent show the cheap assets and terrible clipping problems combined with a uninteresting story and drab dialog not worth the money

I love walking simulators, so when I saw Waking Tides recommended in my feed and how cool the trailers looked, I had to try it out. I did wait for a sale price, however, since reviews were mixed and people said the game was too short. Honestly, after finishing multiple plays, I wish it didn't cost me anything. The augmented reality elements seem to only exist to literally point arrows at the easily missed key objects that blend too well into the environments, which are too dark (frustratingly not in an atmospheric building way) and full of cheap assets you didn't see in the trailers. The lack of intuitive direction is compounded by your cursor barely indicating when you are hovering over interactions and the key objects being tiny. Some areas are large to explore, but full of nothing important until you hit invisible walls (or you just fall into the void and die). If you don't believe me, find any "walkthrough" on YouTube, where the players invariably spend most of their time lost, desperately trying to figure out what they are supposed to do to proceed in the game. There is one in particular which shows only the demo (just the first area, small enough to complete in a minute) that lasts 45 minutes while they desperately seek a singular key (apparently they did not use the AR on their phone, which I resorted to after 10 minutes of frustration just to see the photo that points to where the key is sitting in right in the open, too blended in and small to notice). The story consists of a bit of narration and few lines of spoken dialog (which lacks any sort of dramatic read). It's not all that compelling, nor does it add much to the cosmic horror the game attempts to establish. Again, stock assets that add little cohesive depth to the scant narrative are scattered about, and you'll soon stop searching for them. Looking at the controls for the game, there are a ton of different actions which indicate an experience more like Amnesia, where hiding and peaking around corners might be elements, or you may need to manage limited ammo for a pistol. However, the actual game can be completed by movement and clicking only, with one area being dark enough that you must use a glowstick or lighter and a couple portions of forced damage where you will need to restore health. I was able to speedrun the game in under 10 minutes due to how short and limited it is. Overall, I would not recommend this game to even the diehard walking sim fans. Your time and money is better spent elsewhere. Don't be fooled by how nice the trailers and screenshots may look or by how the marketing describes this. It's shallow, emotionless, and frustrating.