Let’s discover together, in this dedicated preview, the first work of the guys of the SeaRing Team, who have been able to give life to a magical, ironic and truly promising world: welcome to SeaRing
The international “independent” panorama it has a charm that seems unspeakable by now, especially in the creation of extremely interesting pearls such as Death’s Door, Omori or Disco Elysium, just to name the most recent that come to our mind. And on the Italian front? Let’s admit that lately we have struggled to find valid productions and, after the partial disappointment of Remothered: Broken Porcelain, we have not had particular stimuli from the local market. At least, until the writing of this article.
SeaRing is a two-dimensional action-puzzle developed by the SeaRing Team, a very Italian group of six guys, which has recently shown itself with a demo released on Steam. A title that seems to want to be a hymn and praise to the platformers of what were the great classics of the genre of the 90s and that, we tell you right away, has convinced us in almost every aspect, except for some refinement that could still be fixed between now and the official release (the date of which has not yet been established). Sit back and get ready to begin the journey of the Princess of the Seas: welcome to our preview of SeaRing!
At the bottom of the sea (no actually no, but it was fine)
The SeaRing demo opens with a cutscene that is full of everything that characterizes the title: ironic and funny dialogues, captivating aesthetics and an ability to not take oneself seriously that permeates the entire production from the very beginning. We will play the role of the Princess of the Seas who, upon her mother’s death, inherits her powers, heritage and responsibilities. For this reason, and certainly not because we have asked for it in a loud voice, we will find ourselves teleported into a world made of traps, dangers, strange creatures and environmental puzzles of various kinds and nature. And what is the peculiarity of all this?
Simple: in SeaRing you cannot attack. The guys on the development team have told us over and over in every sauce, but the Princess of the Seas is not one to raise her hands, so we will be completely defenseless in the wasteland of the Desert of the Sun. Perhaps, however, “defenseless” is not the more correct term, because there will be a “defense” at our disposal: the SeaRing. The power of the Princess is precisely that of to be able to summon, for a limited time marked by a bar placed right under the girl’s 2D sprite, a Ring of Water able to repel sand bullets, harden walls and other specific shapes and… put out candles.
Potato saladino | SeaRing preview: our first impressions!
Two factors will interfere with our path and cause some (sporadic, in our case, we must admit) death. The first is certainly the little resistance that is granted to us during the Demo, as the Princess will have “only” three hearts in total. The second is the powerful, fascinating and brilliant cat, Saladin, which will try in every way to stop our race towards the Volcano, a place from which it is possible to reach the King of the Sun.
On the way we will meet a huge variety of NPCs, all quite different from each other, sometimes perhaps even in a little “credible” way, but always ready to chat with us and spit out really funny lines of dialogue. Not just laughter though: talking to non-playable characters will also allow you to discover many interesting goodies about the lore of the game world, on the historical events that took place before our journey and on the fate of the Sun King. In short, it seems that the guys of the SeaRing Team have built a good basis for the narrative of the title, which is, at least for what we have been able to appreciate in the little hour that it took us to complete the trial version, which is quite interesting and thorough.
Enigma | SeaRing preview: our first impressions!
What else is in SeaRing? Enigmas, many and of various kinds, but purely environmental. During the demo we were able to experiment with different types, from the “simple” and daring escape from sand bullets (and then obsidian!) Fired by Saladin’s snipers, to other puzzles that require greater concentration and inventiveness. The ones we preferred were certainly the quicksand paths that will force our Princess of the Seas on a specific path… except for a little ingenuity and inventiveness in moving the boulders scattered around.
However, the basic idea always remains the same: the Princess does not raise her hands, does not attack and the only thing she can do is defend herself and use cunning and inventiveness. Solving the various puzzles in this SeaRing demo seemed pretty simple to us, and without any particular intellectual flicks. And that’s actually the only thing we’d like to see developed and advanced in the full game: more variety, more complexity (fair and not necessarily artificial), and a greater focus on what the team seems to do best, to get us racking our brains.
What a pleasure, what goodness! | SeaRing preview: our first impressions!
There is one other thing, actually, that the SeaRing Team has shown they can do very well. Well yes, let’s move on to the purely technical and artistic side of the title. SeaRing looks like a 2D game in pixel art of extremely fine workmanship and at times truly bewitching, both as regards the sprites of the various characters (even some NPCs) and for the various interlude scenes which, although static, act as real cutscenes. Another minutia that we would like to see in the final version of the game is a greater possibility of customization of the graphics options, really stripped down.
To accompany it all we found one surprisingly exciting soundtrack both in terms of quality and quantity of tracks, full of character and determination and able to accompany the various stages of the narration. Everything will be available both in fine and detailed English and in Italian and we assure you that, having played it twice in both languages, the jokes and puns have been rendered extremely well and with a particular eye for detail.
Let’s wait
What to say at the end of this preview of SeaRing? The title seems to be really promising for now, both from the narrative point of view, with screenplay flashes and interactions with comic and very natural NPCs, and from the playful one, offering an alternative to action in which you just shoot. The guys on the development team are definitely showing that to create an interesting, valid and above all fun video game you definitely don’t need an astronomical budget. And this actually for a simple reason: paper, a pen and good ideas are (almost) free.
We remind you that the SeaRing demo is currently available for download on Steam, and that the official release date of the full game is not yet known. Let us know if you have tried it and what you think below in the comments, we will continue to keep you updated with all the news, guides and reviews on videogame and tech! And if you are interested in game keys at advantageous prices, we recommend that you take a look at the InstantGaming catalog!