Nintendo’s much-ballyhooed strategy to attract non-gamers was codenamed “Blue Ocean” and that plan has now evolved to the nth degree with Arika's Endless Ocean, a non-game.

In this serene scuba diving sim, you cannot die—not by running out of oxygen or even getting eaten by shark. In fact, in Nintendo Land, great whites like a good tummy rub. Basically, you are provided a tropical sea to swim in, coral to float over and aquatic creatures to find, identify and occasionally photograph. There's also sunken treasure and shipwrecks to explore.

If that's too complex for the casual crowd, you can even put your diver on auto-swim so all you have to do is point your Wiimote at the screen to make her/him move.

Now it’s been getting some flack from the hardcore crowd for being boring—a sandbox game without the toys—and truthfully Endless Ocean lacks the tension and release of most modern games. But there are precedents. Back in 2003, Wild Earth ruled the Independent Gaming Festival though it involved merely tracking and photographing wildlife on the African savannah. The music-themed Elektroplankton and Jam Sessions similarly features free-form fun without pre-established goals, time limits or a game-over screen.

Point is, Endless Ocean isn’t intended for your typical fragger. It’s purpose-built for three primary groups—kids, stoners and stress-balls. The former is the proper demographic—for children interested in oceanic biology, it’s a godsend, with countless creatures to catalogue and tons of scientific info that older folks would likely skip over. Really, non-game is just a new name for “edutainment.” Plus, by exchanging "friend codes" kids in far-flung houses can dive together online.

Stoners will enjoy the inability to accidentally die as well as the innate trippiness of underwater life while the stressed will benefit from the Zen design as they train a dolphin to do back flips, snap pics of a passing whale or just float around, zoning out to the bubbling water, Vader-like breath sounds and massage parlour music (thankfully, you can put your own MP3s on the Wii's SD card...I'd suggest The Field).

I tested the game while couch-bound from a cold, all hopped up on cough syrup, and enjoyed countless calming hours unlocking diving holes and petting butterfly fish. Um, anyway…