Submariner’s Sleighride
What slice-of-life game is complete without a holiday sequence?
Fish aren’t naturally loving parents or prone to celebration, but after earning some spending money at the boardwalk bodega and learning about various landfolk gift-giving traditions from Bradley Bigshot, Gilly resolves to give back to his offspring.
The player begins controlling Gilly as he browses the catalog at Nile*. Based on Gilly’s performance at the Boardwalk Bodega, his budget ranges from $10 to $5,000 to shop for his 209 offspring. The player will have access to the entire Nile catalog and can add any number of items to the cart, as long as the total number of items meets or exceeds the number of offspring.
When the gifts are delivered the next day, Gilly loads them into a sack, borrows a red tracksuit** from Bradley Bigshot, and commandeers a submarine from the harbor. The player is tasked with using the submarine’s airlock to drop presents into the nesting grounds of his offspring. The player pilots the submarine along the seafloor and can release presents as he passes over a nest. The player scores points for each present that successfully lands in a nest, and a smaller amount of points for landing outside the nest within a certain range.
As Gilly finishes his run as jolly gift-giving submariner, he turns his attention to the underlying motive of his return to the sea, the secret lab of Dr. Eely Eeveel. As the holiday tune comes to a climax, Gilly strips his red tracksuit to reveal his highly-compressed cummerbunned alter ego, James Bends.
*An online shopping platform with millions of items for sale and a promise of free next-day shipping
**with obligatory white trim
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