Empty the Ocean With a Bucket Review (PC)

It takes around four seconds to figure out whether or not a game like Empty the Ocean With a Bucket is a good fit for you. Like A Game About Digging a Hole, it doesn’t leave anything to the imagination. Instead, it tells you what you will be doing for the duration of your journey, and it leaves out no reason for you to misinterpret the situation. It is, as the title openly implies, a game about scooping water out of the ocean…one bucket at a time. And if you think this sounds like an impossible task, well, that’s because it is. Or at least, it leads you to believe that it’s nigh impossible, but then, pale by pale, gallon by gallon, it gives you the impression that there is more to discover beneath the seabed. A piece of trash; a new upgrade for your bucket; a crag, a crevice, or a peculiar pocket that needs to be explored. It lures you in, and it doesn’t let go until you absorb the entirety of its contents.

It doesn’t take much to come to grips with the idea, mind you. Take A Game About Digging a Hole, for example. In that world you had the monumental task of shoveling dirt in your backyard, unearthing stones and ores, and upgrading your shovel so that you could dig deeper and extend your blast radius. As it turns out, Empty the Ocean With a Bucket isn’t all that different, in that it follows a progression cycle that’s almost identical. Similar in design, it more or less involves taking small steps to gradually remove droplets of water with a shoddy tool, and then, with the aid of trash and upgrades, venturing deeper into the ocean to unlock better add-ons, trash and facts. And if you’re wondering whether or not there’s a hidden treasure beneath all of the ripples and endless grafting — there isn’t. Or is there?

Empty the Ocean With a Bucket leans on the notion that, if you give someone a slice of bread and a toaster waffle, then they’ll probably put two and two together to make, well, toaster waffles. It’s the same basic gig here, only with a bucket and an ocean. With little else to accomplish and nowhere to turn other than against the shoreline, you more or less have an objective that’s as transparent as one could possibly imagine. You’re stranded on an island with nothing else to do but grovel and wade, and all that stands between you and any form of endgame is an enormous body of water. What stands between you and an anticlimax is a long, long graft that requires little more than a stern effort and a lot of patience. You get the idea, though.

The game doesn’t bill itself as an action-oriented experience, nor does it fool you into believing that it’s anything other than what it describes itself as on the tin. It is, if anything, a bit of a joke that knows how to laugh at its own silliness. And I’ll admit, while it isn’t with the power of that all-important punchline, it is an inside jest that is annoyingly amusing to hear. It won’t resonate with every single person in the room, but to a select few—the folks who find A Game About Digging a Hole good for a quick giggle, to be more on the nose—it might just land and give you an excuse to crack a smile for an hour or two. But, eh, don’t expect it to bring anything great to the table.

It won’t come as too much of a surprise here, but as far as in-game mechanics go, there isn’t a great deal for you to wrap your head around. The fact is, if you can hit a button prompt and repeat the same tasks till your heart’s content, then you can pretty much sponge away the ocean and experience just about everything that there is to experience in Empty the Ocean With a Bucket — and then some. Alas, there are no real challenges or major hurdles for you to overcome here, only a series of repetitive tasks and general facts about the nautical world. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, then you’re in for a treat with this watery playground and its vast pool of submerged trash.

Visually, what you see is what you get: an independent sandbox with beginner-friendly animations and kiddy aesthetics that, frankly, aren’t all that great to marvel at for extended periods of time. To add, there are a couple of loose screws and technical flaws, though nothing particularly game-breaking, thankfully. But, it’s all in the title, believe me. Simply, this isn’t a big-budget game; it’s a passion project with a transparent hook. In other words, it’s best not to hope for a clean and smooth tide; turbulence is to be expected.

Verdict

To some extent, Empty the Ocean With a Bucket is a bit like building sandcastles at a beach with no shore — you make a real effort to define the edges before patting the bucket with a plastic shovel, but then, when you feel that it’s fit for the job, you realize that it crumbles the moment you pull your hand away. In most cases, you would walk away and accept your losses. But, for the sake of satisfying that child within, you would often start all over again and make the same sandcastle, knowing all too well that it won’t amount to anything other than more disappointment and frustration. The thing with sandcastles is, you don’t need a complete product to enjoy the act of building it. Annoyingly, it’s the same with Empty the Ocean With a Bucket. Go figure.

Let it be said that, while there is an incredibly basic game here that doesn’t go above and beyond to deliver a phenomenal gameplay experience, there is a game that does just enough to keep your attention for a handful of hours, nonetheless. And that’s all that this is: a cheap way to cure your boredom whilst you search for an alternate reality to plant your bucket and shovel. The point is, while you won’t find a great graft to put to the grindstone here, you will find something that will keep you entertained for a short while. And, let’s face it, cleaning up the ocean with a bucket is a lot cheaper than therapy. Take that as a small victory.