Have you played... The Majesty Of Colors?
Not much, what's kraken' with you?
I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors made, relatively speaking, a bit of a splash when it came out in 2008. It's a short pixel art game about being a big sea monster, and how you choose to interact (or not interact) with the weird wriggly creatures you see floating or steering machines on the surface.
It has multiple endings, depending on your choices (and some reflexes, although it's not very demanding). I was always fond of picking up all the humans, pulling them around a bit, then plopping them safely back down again. If you go swimming here the beast might wave you around a bit. It's just a thing that happens, don't worry about it.
I like that you're stimulated into this new awareness and curiosity by the pretty colours of some balloons. And it's got a strange irony now that it's more common knowledge how terrible helium balloons are for ocean ecologies.
The Majesty Of Colours came out at a time when the artsy indie game was starting to gain some recognition. A few games peeked out in the year or two before Gog proved the abandonware crowd 100% right, games like Spelunky and Minecraft detonated, Steam's tentacles spread across the industry, and all the elements came together to form the indie golden age. There were, of course, odd little indie games long before this era. They have always been here, just not as visibly or anywhere near as numerous. And now they are commonplace.
It's tempting to guess that if it were to come out today, it would go near unnoticed in the crowd, even with a Steam release. There are acres of short pixelly games that invoke a nice mood, say something good, or otherwise cover ground that Majesty did. But does that diminish it somehow? Surely not. It's a thing I remembered after 12 years of playing just about anything I could get my hands on. But then, how many perfectly good games have I cast aside after the barest glance because just being a good game often isn't enough when there are so many others to choose from too?
We are spoiled. There are more and better balloons than we can ever possibly hold.