Indie Journal 19 || Panthalassa

A crash, circuits are melting, the screen is shattered. Just barely you recognise a figure and with the help of an autonomous AI you transfer your programming over to the giant machine since your submarine hub is beyond repair.
As you find yourself in a new body, a quick look around shows a foreign world you can’t match with your database. A facility so deep underwater. Alien technology with no instructions attached.

That’s your intro to the beautiful world of Panthalassa. Your character is as clueless as you are. The helpful AI introduces itself as Tetra and while they exist in this place, they can offer little guidance and even less knowledge.
This is what leads into the beautiful theme and mystery of Panthalassa. What is this place, where does your new body come from and most of all, how does anything around you operate? You spot a scope that offers a view of the landscape outside the building you inhabit right now.
You can make out some tubes, algae and another building, but that’s pretty much it.
Interacting with the door prompts a round device. Circular buttons with weird symbols. You insert the plug and it opens up. A display on top and a keyboard below it. „Entry No.“ shows the display but you don’t know what any of that means.

Left with confusion you press a few buttons, see what they do but you lack the necessary understanding. That’s how the first hour will look like. You interact with strange devices that work as alien as they look. Weird shapes, different buttons and dials. A lot of cables, panels and screens. Exploring these, trying out their functions and slowly gathering an understanding is a slow process that feels extremely rewarding once it begins to click. Mind you, the sense of wonder stays throughout the whole game. Understanding the technology is only the first big step to navigating the place. At some point you find yourself mumbling „Ah of course! INSIGNIFICANT means 2 algae and now I need to subtract this from BRIEF and I will gain the code for AGAIN. Then I can use that as offering!“ Sounds strange? Yes and I love it.

Navigating this alien technology feels like learning its own language.
With each new area you encounter new machines and gather more knowledge. The odd interfaces starts to feel like home. The obvious Y2K inspiration with its Frutiger Aero aesthetics makes this hit even harder. There is this sentiment that Frutiger Aero is the future we were promised, the vast and curious digital world that would create a collective and shared wisdom.
It’s how we envisioned technology to look and feel like. A clear and hopeful vision. A sense of community.

This theme of community in Panthalassa is like a red string throughout the whole world building. How can the machines gain a fresh lookout in what seems like stagnation? Does an objective reality exist? Will being able to live in harmony solve all problems or will it create new ones that nobody can answer since that state was never reached before? It makes you crave more of this alien yet magical world.

Dive deep into Panthalassa, get lost in between the strange panels and colourful fish to gain a unique experience you should not miss out on.