Let's help some aliens repair their ship in a cute bikini!
Lake Bottom Girl - Fine and the Sunken Starship is a 2021 3D underwater doujin Adventure Game by Fox Eye, who previously developed similar games such as Blue Port: The Summer Memories and Blue Port J: Summer Sky Prelude.
One night, a blonde-haired mountain girl named Fine was woken up by a bright light and a violent earth tremor near her home. In the following day, she followed an old path up the mountain towards the source of the tremor, leading her to discover a beautiful lake that she used to swim and play in. With only a striped swimsuit on her person, Fine dives into the lake to investigate the cause of the tremors, eventually leading her to discover something that is quite literally out of this world...
Similar to both of the Blue Port games, you play as a girl that must use her skills and smarts to venture through land and sea to solve puzzles and explore an aquatic locale, all in an effort to learn more about this mysterious sunken starship and help out the alien that owns it. Of course, as a Fox Eye game, the player must be mindful of not letting Fine drown while diving (which, also in true Fox Eye fashion, is assuming you're not intentionally letting that happen to her).
Find the website of this game here
. The game's Japanese and English versions can be purchased from DLsite.
This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: By way of free Downloadable Content from the game's website, the player can receive a bonus picture after finding all 100 Springgreen Stones, beating the game, and returning to the same spot Rudy's meteorite used to be after he departs in his starship for an Easter Egg pickup.
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Fox made sure to prevent this by clarifying that Fine's name is simply pronounced like the phrase "I'm fine!"
- Antepiece: The Outlet of Waterway inexplicably has a 5-post set of levers that Fine can't ever budge. Having these levers here would feel like a waste, but they're there to make you memorize how each of them are raised or lowered so that you can match up another set of levers with them in a deeper section of the Waterway, itself.
- Author Appeal: As a Fox Eye game, expect to swim and drown frequently in this game, since it focuses on a cute girl and her skin-diving adventures in a lake without any protective gear. Also, the game has different art for the Game Over screen that changes depending on where Fine drowns, such as near pushable blocks, being stuck in a current, or while exploring the Blackout Basement.
- Automatic New Game: The title screen takes place at the night that the bright light and earth tremor appeared and woke Fine up from her sleep. As soon as you press the button to start a new game file, those very occurrences appear and kick off the plot of the game.
- Blackout Basement: The deeper areas of the lake contain pitch black waterways that make it difficult to see. You will eventually pick up a flashlight to help illuminate Fine's sight in these areas.
- Block Puzzle: Similarly to the entirety of At Night in a Party: The Whisper of the Sea, there are several puzzles that must be solved by pushing huge wooden blocks into certain spots in the correct order. In a similar vein to Fox Eye's Metroidvania games, some of these puzzles can't be solved until Fine gets more upgrades, and Fine must first find an upgrade that allows her to push blocks to begin with. Her final upgrade in the game grants her a more powerful version of her Dolphin Kick move that allows her to smash through wooden blocks, completely eliminating the need to push them around.
- Fanservice: As the page image shows, you play as a cute girl in a skimpy blue and white two-piece swimsuit. Because this is a 3D game, at least Fine won't have to worry about any Clothing Damage.
- Gratuitous English: Rudy's first line from his meteorite is "Hello world!", even in the Japanese version of this game. This was likely done to emphasize his "foreign" presence to Fine.
- Green Rocks: There are Springgreen Stones that Fine can pick up. For every 30 she collects, they extend the length of her Oxygen Meter. The citizens of the Underwater City house a bigger one of these stones that can refill her meter without surfacing as long as she stays close to it, but this stone's shine also attracts giant dangerous fish into the city.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Fine is Fox Eye's blonde-haired heroine for this game in an increasingly-bigger number of them in the circle's roster. She is quite friendly and eager to help Rudy the Alien gather the missing parts to repair his starship.
- Have a Nice Death: The only way Fine dies in this game is via drowning. The accompanying Game Over artwork can change depending on where this occurs. For example, if Fine drowns while near a pushable block, the artwork will have her motionless body leaned against it. If she is drowned from a giant fish in the Underwater City, the matching art will show it outright eating her.
- Kaizo Trap: One starship part is set up to be waiting beyond an underwater current. If Fine tries to grab this treasure without first blocking the current's way with a wooden block, she will be pushed back towards the treasure's room and forced to drown, since she now can't escape from there.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: Rudy appears to be a robotic alien, and he initially speaks in an incomprehensible language with random shapes and symbols before talking to Fine in her native language.
- Minecart Madness: The lake is home to an abandoned coal mine. Fine will sometimes have to pull levers in order to move loaded minecarts so they can smash through barriers.
- Oxygen Meter: Always count on Fox Eye to include this. In this game, Fine swims at a faster and more desperate pace as she gets closer to drowning, and this pain and strain on her lungs can also affect how she talks at certain context points (such as hurrying to decide whether or not to move a lever, or finding a locked door that she'll very much wish was unlocked). The meter in this game can be increased by collecting enough Springgreen Stones; 30 of them per level up. In the Underwater City, sitting next to the bigger Springgreen Stone located in there automatically refills the meter without having to surface.
- Piranha Problem: Fine can encounter these while diving. Getting bit by them will knock a chunk of air out of her. The reason for this aggressiveness is because when Rudy's starship crashed, its fuel leaked out into the lake, releasing pollutants into it that makes sea creatures more feral. A bigger set of these fish appear in the Underwater City and act as the Final Boss.
- Rolling Attack: After showing Rudy a container with white liquid inside, he explains to Fine that she can wear the white liquid as lubricant and improve her arms and legs, making her Dolphin Kick even faster by making her twirl forward for the maneuver. The force of this allows Fine to smash through wooden crates and defeat piranhas with ease, and it is an important attack to use against the giant fish terrorizing the Underwater City.
- Run, Don't Walk: An underwater variant. If Fine brings a "role model" training book to Rudy's meteorite, he will teach her the Dolphin Kick technique, which will allow her to swim with a burst of speed strong enough to muscle through water currents. The only drawback of using this is that it burns her Oxygen Meter faster. Later on, she will gain a second upgrade of this that gives her a more powerful boost, strong enough to smash through wooden blocks and piranhas.
- Sapient Cetaceans: In the final area of the game, Fine discovers an Underwater City inhabited by mystical dolphin-like beings. Lue appears to be the leader among them as he teaches Fine about the city’s prized big Springgreen Stone and the violent giant fish that are attracted to its shine.
- Special Thanks: Fox credits all of his supporters on the Patreon counterpart Fantia as contributors to this game's development.
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Spiritual Successor: To the Blue Port series. Fox has billed this game as his "first 3D underwater Adventure Game in 10 years", following after the release of 2011's Blue Port J: Summer Sky Prelude, and this game shares some common ground with both that game and the original Blue Port. - Telepathy: Through a combination of a special hologram from Rudy's underwater meteor, and the missing translator Fine can recover for him, they are able to speak to each other through their minds since Fine can't talk underwater. This also allows Fine to talk with the dolphin-like Lue in the Underwater City.
- That's No Moon: The game's ending shows that Rudy's starship is a gigantic, floating metallic sphere. It even reminded Fine of the UFOs from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- Underwater City: The final area of the game. Soon after getting the super-powered Dolphin Kick, Fine is able to enter into an underwater city that was once built by humans. It is now inhabited by Sapient Cetaceans, with one of them being named Lue. After helping the inhabitants defeat the giant fish that have been terrorizing the city, Fine uses Rudy's meteorites to seal the city off from further fish attacks, at the cost of having no way to visit the city anymore, herself.
- Under the Sea: The majority of the game is focused on Fine diving and exploring different parts of a massive lake.
