Hollow Tide Expedition: exploring without a walkthrough

Hollow Tide Expedition is the rare adventure game I'd tell people to play blind. The joy is in noticing, and a guide would rob you of that. Still, a couple of habits make the experience smoother.

Pay attention to the tide. What's blocked now often opens up later, so if a path is unreachable, it's usually not a dead end, just a matter of timing.

Read everything you find. The story is buried in notes and objects, not cutscenes, and skimming means missing half of what makes the world work.

Play it slow and with sound on. This isn't a game to grind through; it's one to sink into for an hour at a time when you can actually pay attention.