Press release

Our Life on Water revealed at Golden Joystick Awards 2023

A very different tale told through a life-sim RPG

Award-winning Polish studio & publisher Different Tales has announced  Our Life on Watera magical life-sim RPG inspired by floating villages on the Mekong River. As players, we'll step into the shoes of Rivertalker, befriending spirits of the river to restore and protect the community broken by the modern world. The reveal took place during Golden Joystick Awards ceremony in London.
 

Our Life on Water employs the soothing mechanics of farming, crafting, and building but steers them toward a more adult-oriented direction compared to most typical life-sim games. Infused with the poetics of magical realism, OLOW aims at telling a bittersweet story of a beautiful world in decline. The game takes place in Sahakom, a fictional country influenced by real-life Cambodian and Vietnamese waterborne settlements. This extraordinary part of the world grapples with environmental threats, societal issues, and conflicts that are reflected in the game's storyline.
 

Being Rivertalker, you will embrace a simple life replete with daily chores such as boating, fishing, diving, breeding animals, and many more. You will establish friendships with the locals, discover love, yet frequently confront challenging moral decisions to shape the story. Faced with growing dangers posed by the modern world, Rivertalker will be compelled to turn to the River Spirits, along with Yla... a conversational otter.

 

Different Tales, previously known for creating experimental and critically acclaimed games like Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest and Wanderlust: Travel Stories as well as publishing replayable indie hits such as Backpack Hero and Havendock, has decided to leverage its past experiences in a new AA-budget project. Our Life on Water is scheduled for its initial release on PC in Early Access in 2024.


Short synopsis

Start your new life as Rivertalker in this magical life-sim RPG. Befriend spirits of the Mekong River to build and protect your floating village. Drift, farm, fish, forge friendships, fall in love. Shape the tale of a world worth saving.

 

Features

Life-sim focused on relations

Enjoy slow life in a floating village. Use your charm and wits to bring people together. Find a way to create a strong, resilient community, where people help each other and can endure hard times together.

 

Living magical world

Enjoy monsoon scenery inspired by Cambodia with a supernatural twist. Live on the river, explore the enchanted land of Sahakom, travel by boat, dive to uncover mysteries of the past. Find mystical artifacts and deal with the River Spirits to rebuild your community. Do it all with help from your loyal shape-shifting companion Ylathe talking otter.

 

Well-known gameplay - now on a river

Collect bamboo and trash, recycle, craft items, build river structures and houses, fish, work with other people, take care of plants and crops, breed animals, explore, swim, dive. The river setting adds unique flavor to each of those mechanics.

 

Story-rich experience with mature choices

Experience life in a tightly knit community, where tradition opposes modern life, cultural identity is in danger and environmental balance is fragile. Your decisions can influence the whole community and how the village looks like. Can you get people closer, so they can help each other?

About the Developer

Different Tales is the home for bold creators. An independent Studio & Publisher based in Warsaw, Poland – developing AA games and offering boutique publishing to tiny teams. Following their acclaimed Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest and Wanderlust: Travel Stories, Different Tales has recently published Backpack Hero and Havendock. The company is led by gamedev veterans who previously played key roles in projects such as The Witcher 1 & 2, Dying Light, Dead Island Riptide, and Painkiller. 

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To find out more about Different Tales visit:
Official website: https://differenttales.com/
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/differenttales
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/different-tales
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/differenttales

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/differenttalesgames/
contact: krzysztof.masternak@differenttales.com