Koi - Journey of Purity is a beautiful exploration adventure with a deep and meaningful story lurking under the surface.
You play as a group of koi who are trying to purify the lake they call their home by solving a number of puzzles and navigating the environment.
But there's more to it than that - this is a story about taking care of the environment. An issue that developer Dotoyou feels strongly about.
Zhou Quan, Creative Director at Dotoyou, believes that this story, combined with the wide variety of puzzles and the beautiful visuals, really sets Koi - Journey of Purity apart from its App Store and Google Play competitors.
Quan: "The unique feature of the game is a complete special experience, with simple graphics, fresh music, and rich content to explore.
"It has a complete story, which is unfolded through progress of the game. The variety of puzzle designs puts you right in the game, and enables you to enjoy challenges and success."
Koi - Journey of Purity is a minimal game with a surprising amount of depth but getting it to that stage was quite the challenge, according to Quan.
Quan: "The greatest challenge during development was how to simplify the game. We wrote a story and kept adding content.
"However, we later realized that too much content would distract players, or make them confused.
"Moreover, a long game would disrupt players’ emotional experience, so we finally packed Koi - Journey of Purity into a 3-hour experience by deleting a major chunk of the content."
Quan and the team are immensely proud of the game that Koi - Journey of Purity has become - particularly the first two levels which took the longest to develop but offer an amazing experience.
Quan: "The first two levels of the game made me proud. In this era characterised by the likes of fast food, it is difficult to catch players’ attention within the first few seconds of a game.
"Developing the first two levels took us four months, but I believe it was worthwhile. Various test results showed that players were attracted by graphics and music of the game.
"They became more patient, and their minds slowed down. The majority of players expressed such feeling, "the gaming experience is amazing"."
The work doesn't stop there though - Zhou Quan and the team plan to improve the experience as much as possible before moving on to add new content and features.
Quan: "We are a team centered on quality. In order to ensure that new content can bring surprise to players, we will seriously test and adjust the game.
"In the future we will bring regular updates, new levels and new features to the game."
There are also plans to bring Koi - Journey of Purity to consoles by the end of the year.
Quan: "Now we are working on PlayStation4 and other console versions of the game, which are expected to be completed by the end of the year."
Koi - Journey of Purity is out now in the App Store [download] and Google Play [download].