Hi! This is the first devlog for Deep, a first-person sea horror about thalassophobia and observation. It’s inspired by Exit 8, Subnautica and FNAF.
The idea
You’re out in open water among a line of buoys. Every location looks the same: the same buoys, the same sunken ship, the same giant statue rising from the sea. But something may have changed. The statue may be holding a different pose. Maybe there’s a boat that wasn’t there before, or a number on a buoy now reads 666. Your job is to look carefully, both on the surface and down in the depths, and decide: is this normal, an anomaly, or something alive?
Core loop
- Compare the surface and the deep. Some anomalies are only visible underwater.
- Point your resonance compass at an anomaly to dispel it.
- Watch your oxygen when you dive.
- Don’t provoke the entities. Something invisible is always with you.
- Clear the location and move on to the next buoy, from 8 down to 1. If you miss an anomaly, you get sent back.
- There are no hints. If you missed something, it’s on you. Some cycles have no anomalies at all, so you learn to trust your own eyes.
What’s in so far
- About 25 anomalies above and below water: chains rising into the sky, a floating anchor, a lighthouse in the fog, a sun that keeps growing, a man on the ship waving at you…
- A special event in which the whole location turns into an ice field. You surface under solid ice and have to find the one hole in it before your air runs out.
- A survival mini-game among the chains after death.
- A discovery journal: an anomaly stays “???” until you dispel it yourself.
Next up
New underwater anomalies for the ship and statue, more entities, and polish for a Steam demo.
I’ll keep updating this thread as development goes on. I’d love to hear what scares you most in open water!
Follow the project
🎮 itch.io page: https://24-ravens-games.itch.io/deep