![](http://www.clanofidiots.com//images.eurogamer.net/2015/articles/1/8/3/2/5/3/3/trawl-is-a-very-mysterious-game-about-a-boat-1464183480881.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1/format/jpg/1832533.jpg)
I find Trawl completely fascinating: a strange blend of the tangible and the entirely ephemeral that puts the player - and their ability to interpret events - right at the centre of the game. For the first five minutes, I was lost in the tangible stuff, learning how to move around my small boat, how to crank up the engine, how to lower and raise the trawling net, and how to keep one ear out, regardless of what else I was doing, for the little bell that signals that the net has actually caught something. Even this aspect is filled with mystery, however, as your guide to the seafloor comes not in the form of some kind of radar display, but an old radio in the wheel room that emits strange sounds when you're close to something good.
Once I'd started to pull objects up from the sea things got even murkier. A boot (of course), a battered chunk of briefcase, a hairbrush. An old clock? Or did I make that one up? All of these items have the same heavy physicality of the boat with its levers and motors. All of them can be rotated in your hands and placed down in the cabin after inspection.
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