Into the Belly of the Beast

This is the most impressive and beautiful aquatic world that I have experienced in the video game medium. Even more than Abzu or Subnautica. Thanks to its oneiric and surreal nature that distincts itself from other counterparts.
A fascinating and immersive journey full of sense of wonder, that you need to experience to believe.
And it looks gorgeous on the Steam Deck screen, running out of the box without any extra configurations.
One of the most underrated indie gems.

Pretty amazing game. Seems like a rip-off of Spore's cell stage at first, but there's more to it than that. There's strategies, abilities, mechanics, whereas Spore's cell stage is you mindlessly eating other cells and growing bigger.

Into the Belly of the Beast is a visually attractive aquatic themed game that features beautiful 3D backgrounds. Game itself is played in 2D format with relaxing/slow based movement and combat.
Game requires you to swim around levels pushing buttons, avoiding enemies and traps (minor puzzle elements in places). Power-ups are in the form of eating different types of fish, some make you swim faster, others make you scare or befriend enemies. There are also collectables to collect that give you more health and power.
Overall it's a easy "Highly Recommended" from me.

Marked as free because i played it on my sis account.
I noticed how much this game was made for controller but it is till very playable with keyboard for at least the first few chapters (i played like 3 i think)
Its very cute and very beginner friendly as it starts very easy and gets more challenging in a good pace.
Death feels bad but it does only bring one back to the start at most so its not punishing
I dont really know what to say else because it was a while ago that i last played it

It's "kind of" an interesting game; I had high hopes from the theme and the similarities to Spores' cell stage, but the gameplay isn't really my style. It's a rather slow-paced, fairly "casual" experience. I guess you could call it relaxing?
Anyway they did a fairly good job with the controls and all, better yet with the theme, looks and feel imo. I don't think it's worth $17, but if you like the style and are looking for a chill game, then grab it on sale.

NOTE: This game was given to me by the developer for review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way.
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---------------------------------------OVERVIEW-------------------------------------
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Note: Into the Belly of the Beast is currently in Early Access. The version reviewed was released on 20160204.
Into the Belly of the Beast is a fairly slow-paced two-dimensional action/puzzle game with a unique premise: you play a strange skeletal worm-like sea creature who must rescue its children from a giant monster of the deep that has swallowed them -- and you.
The game was created in Unity using what I assume to be completely original assets and has very high production values. Although still in Early Access it has obviously been well planned out. This is not just another "grab some free assets from the Unity store and bundle them together for sale as a game on Steam" game. No, Into the Belly of the Beast is a real, playable Early Access title with planned development and impressive originality.
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----------------------------------------QUALITY-------------------------------------
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Graphics - The graphics in Into the Belly of the Beast are very pretty indeed. The game begins with a brief introduction in the sea, but after only a few moments you'll find yourself in eerie internal tunnels and cavities within the sea monster's body. So far these each have different graphical themes for the different parts of the creature's body and each is well done, if a bit gruesome in places. As you control a sea creature inside another much larger sea creature, each level unsurprisingly is under water, but with different lights and colouring, and different levels of murkiness prevalent in the different areas, it all looks great. Water effects are nice and the 'waviness' of movement of some of the objects and creatures in the game convincingly portrays a gently undulating environment. There are no boring still backgrounds here; everything pulses and wiggles and sways in the current. Still screenshots just don't do it justice.
Even though the game is played in the 2D plane of the screen, the graphics are three dimensional. Models are well made and mostly extremely well animated, with your swallowed children in particular oozing cute personality; I found myself going 'awwww' when I rescued any of them. And the creature that you control as the player is well made and animated, too, although rather strange looking!
Graphics settings are fairly limited and, strangely, don't include the nearly ubiquitous Unity "Fastest" to "Beautiful" presets. Instead all we have are resolution, quality (low, medium, and high), and two on/off toggles for effects: bloom and vignette. ALT-ENTER also seems to work to toggle between full screen and window.
Sound - The game's title music could have come straight out of a Tim Burton film. It's fun and quirky and sets the scene well. It seems to only be the one track playing through the standard game levels as well, at least so far, but it has a number of different aspects to it. Sometimes it's strong enough to be almost orchestral, pushing you along as you play, and at other times it's only a distantly heard note or two scattered every few seconds, leaving you to listen to the gentle bubbling and gurgling of the giant beast's body around you. There's also a more dark, foreboding, and panic-laden music track that plays during the end-of-level boss stages. This is also good, but not as fun as the main track.
Sound effects are nice, with thematic burbles and gurgles throughout, as well as booming and crunching when various objects move about or shake. The creature sound effects are also good, with the high-pitched mews of your children being particularly endearing.
Gameplay - The first level of the game is an easy tutorial stage that introduces you to the game's simple controls and concepts. You can move around freely, open your jaws and bite objects or other creatures, pick up or drop something (e.g. an electrical charge, which can be used to stun enemies or open 'doors'), and use one of the available special abilities, and that's it. Biting can harm other creatures or open up areas of the environment, as well as allow you to heal or consume DNA cells of certain colours. consume enough DNA and you'll mimic other creatures of that colour, who will then allow you to pass without attacking you. So far i've found only one 'set' of special abilities, but it changes depending on the colour of DNA you have picked up: green DNA speeds you up when you activate the ability, or purple DNA scares off other creatures. Activating the ability also uses up some of the DNA you've eaten, thereby limiting use of the abilities.
After you've completed the tutorial you find yourself in the Heart, which functions as the hub for the game. From here you can select other levels to go to, and find different coloured DNA cells to alter your affinity with other creatures, as well as heal from blood cells floating about, to prepare for the next level. You select a level by swimming through the fleshy tunnel leading to it from the heart.
At the moment there are already plenty of levels, each with multiple stages and a 'boss', but there are also a number of 'under construction' signs humorously placed around the heart showing where development will occur as the game moves through Early Access. There's also a bestiary where you can presumably see the different creatures you've encountered while playing the game, but at the moment that is also under construction and thus inaccessible.
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-------------------------------------PROS & CONS------------------------------------
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Pros:
+ Fun and cheerful music, great sound effects
+ Good graphics, particularly water and DoF effects; great creature and 'water' type animations
+ Main character and its children are given a lot of personality through their models, animations, and sounds
+ It's fun!
Cons:
- Not very intuitive or usable default keyboard controls and no way to change them through the settings menu
- It's not always obvious when you're at the end of a level, so you may end up leaving unintentionally
- many of the stages within each level are sort of samey; I was getting a bit bored of the first level's theme by the time I reached the last stage of it
- no trading cards, and no achievements to promote replayability; at the moment the only real goal in each of the intermediate (non-boss) stages is to get to the end (although you can find some secret caches of upgrade DNA to improve your creature's abilities if you look around a bit)
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Into the Belly of the Beast is a very creative and highly original casual action / puzzle game. It's slow pacing and unique setting won't appeal to every gamer, but I am already very impressed with it, and I think it's only going to get better.
8/10
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