蒼海 -AOMI-

One breath into the sea of Chichijima

AOMI is a free-diving spearfishing game: no tank, just the breath you hold. It is set in eight real areas of Chichijima, Ogasawara Islands. The terrain and aerial imagery come from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, the buildings from OpenStreetMap, and the underwater world is built from terrain data and field research.

Breath against depth

• Get back to the surface before your air runs out. Within 1 m of the surface you can keep breathing as you swim.
• Equalize as you descend. Push deeper without equalizing and your eardrums will burst.
• Your body weight, wetsuit thickness and lead weights decide your buoyancy. Too light and you can't sink; too heavy and you can't get back up. In an emergency, drop your weights and float on your back until a boat picks you up.
• Water temperature shifts with the season, from about 19°C to 30°C. When your body gets cold, your air drains faster. Change wetsuit thickness and material near the buoy or on land.
• The more you dive, the more your body adapts to depth, and the deeper you can go.

Spear it, pin it, bring it home

• Hold the left mouse button to draw back your spear, then release to shoot.
• A speared fish thrashes and can tear free. Pin it against rock or sand, grab it with your left hand and carry it to the surface to land it.
• Big fish bolt for the bottom and drag you down. Let go and leave the fish on the float line, wait for it to tire, then haul it in.
• Bleed big fish properly (ikejime) and they sell for more. Swim around with a thrashing fish and a shark will come and take it.
• Swim at a normal pace and the fish stay put; rush and they scatter. Amberjack are curious and come in close to divers who keep still.

250+ fish species and passing visitors

• More than 250 fish species live across the eight areas, with around 150 in each one: from giant trevally, amberjack, dogtooth tuna and black jack to the wrought iron butterflyfish, darkfin hind and blue tang.
• Green sea turtles, spotted eagle rays, scalloped hammerheads, spinner dolphins, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins and bigfin reef squid pass by, and on rare occasions a sailfish. From December to April, humpback whales arrive, and their song grows louder the deeper you dive (the season follows your device's date).
• Sea cucumbers and thorny seahorses on the seabed, land hermit crabs and Ogasawara skinks on land, Bonin wood pigeons and brown boobies in the sky: photograph them and they go into your field guide.
• Spear it, pick it up or photograph it: every species you meet is recorded in your field guide.

The rules of the Chichijima sea

• Seihyo Coast, Miyanohama and Tsurihama are marine park zones of Ogasawara National Park. Spearing protected fish such as damselfish, butterflyfish and wrasses there costs you a fine.
• Taking species covered by local fishing rights, such as turban shells, collector urchins and sea cucumbers, costs you a fine in every area.
• Spear a green sea turtle and the game is over on the spot.
• Bump into coral and you lose air, and the coral in that area loses health.
• The rules are based on the Ministry of the Environment's park plan and guidance from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Ogasawara Islands Branch Office.

Area goals and a day at sea

• All eight areas are open from the start. Each has a standard goal and a hard goal.
• Sell your catch at the buoy and spend the earnings on lung capacity, fins, spear bands and gloves. There is also a "sea gacha" paid only with in-game money; every prize and its odds are shown on screen.
• One in-game day lasts 24 real minutes. Dawn, day, dusk and night come around, and at night the windows of the town light up.
• Boats run through the channel at Miyanohama. Get close to one in the shallows and you'll be run over and sent back to the beach.
• Photo mode hides the HUD so you can take clean shots.
• Three difficulty levels change how wary the fish are. Your progress saves automatically.
• In-game language: Japanese / English (switch in game).