Drink the Ocean: How to Play

The core loop

Begin by walking to the water with the straw. Use WASD to move and the mouse to look toward the sea. Left click to drink while you are using the straw. The water you drink goes into your belly, so treat this part of the loop as the collection step. Fill up before starting the walk to the PRESS. The full belly is what you take with you when you leave the water.

At the PRESS, squeeze the water you have collected into salt. This changes what you have available for the next step. Water is what you carry from the sea, and salt is what you take to the blue SHOP. If you are trying to make an upgrade, follow that order. Doing another trip to the water only makes sense as part of another trip to the PRESS.

Walk to the blue SHOP when you want to spend salt. The choices are a larger belly, a better straw and tools. Think about the next trip as you look at the shop. You will be drinking again, walking the water to the PRESS again and deciding when to spend your salt again. Choosing an upgrade is easier when you have a recent trip to compare it with.

What to buy with your first salt

Use a complete trip from the water to the PRESS to decide what to do with your first salt. Think back to what happened at the water and what happened on the walk. If the belly filled while you still wanted to stay at the water, belly capacity is the first upgrade to look at. It lets you carry more water, so it directly addresses the reason you left the water that time.

Take a different look at the shop if the part you wanted to shorten was the time spent drinking. In that case, look at the straws. The straw is the part of the loop you are using while you stand at the water. The belly still determines how much you can carry. Consider the two questions separately when making a purchase: how much water do you want to take, and which part of the trip do you want to work on?

Tools are the third kind of purchase. If you are deciding between a tool and an upgrade to the belly or straw, start with the part of the loop you actually want to change. You can use 1, 2 or 3 to switch tools as you play. After shopping, take another trip and pay attention to the same part of the route before choosing your next upgrade.

A faster salt route

A route for making salt has two essential stops. Start at the water, drink with the straw and fill your belly. Then walk the water to the PRESS and squeeze it into salt. The blue SHOP is the next stop when you are ready to buy, so you can keep it separate from the water and pressing steps as you think through the route.

Try following the same sequence on more than one trip. Look at the water with the mouse on the way in, and use WASD to move once you have finished drinking. When you reach the PRESS, complete the pressing step before deciding where to go next. If you want to keep collecting salt, go back to the water. If you want to make an upgrade, head to the blue SHOP with the salt you made.

Compare trips by thinking about where you stopped and what you were doing at that point. A full belly is your cue to make the walk to the PRESS. Once you finish pressing, decide whether to go straight back to the water or spend salt. If you also want to look at parts of the seabed that have been revealed, make time for that separately from the trip you are using to judge the route.

Keep the two halves of the salt route in order if you lose track of what to do next. When you are at the sea, you are collecting the load. When you reach the PRESS, you are turning it into something you can use. A decision at the SHOP comes after you have salt to spend. Keeping those actions in order makes it easier to see which part of the trip you want to shorten.

Common control problems

If you want to turn, move the mouse. If you want to walk, use WASD. Keep that distinction in mind when you are trying to get from the sea to the PRESS. On desktop, left click is for drinking and Space is for jumping. On a phone, turn the device to landscape and hold DRINK when you want to take in water.

Use Tab when you want to free the mouse, or P when you want to open settings. Use 1, 2 or 3 when you want to switch tools. E opens the duck’s gift, and T returns you to the island. Those controls have different jobs, so pick the one that matches what you are trying to do before continuing with the route.

Keep reading

Once you have made a few trips, use the upgrade guide to compare belly capacity, straws and tools. The FAQ covers quick questions about pressing water into salt, changing oceans and using the mobile controls.

• Compare belly, straw and tool upgrades
• Read the full game FAQ