Summary

Top down, 2D metroidvania style horror game about surviving and escaping an unexplored cave system at the bottom of the mariana trench. 

A huge underwater cave network was discovered at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. A small deep-sea research station was set up just within its mouth. Shifting tectonic plates left it trapped there. 

With limited time left before the entire crew starve, a way out must be found. The station is equipped with small submersibles capable of scanning and mining the surroundings, but with limited range. With waiting not being an option, the crew send out the submersibles one at a time in hopes of a life-saving discovery. 

You play as whichever crew member is manning the submersible. You must explore and learn the cave network, searching for a way out. To find it, you’ll need to collect resources and research to improve the sub’s capabilities. 

You don’t know what's out there. Its pitch black, only the ship's lights pierce through the darkness and the sound of its engine travels through the water. You must explore, learn and gather while trying to safely return to the station before your oxygen runs out, all while evading whatever is out there. The lives of the crew depend on it.

The Core Tensions

At the core of this horror game I see a tension between remaining undetected and running out of oxygen, one that is bridged by the players control of their sub’s power output and influenced by the limited information of their sonar visualising device.

The player can increase power output, increasing their speed and their headlight range (how much they can actually see) but also increasing the amount of noise the engine makes. Engine noise attracts nearby predators. 

The player has limited oxygen per trip, therefore they have limited time to explore before they die. The slower they move, the less distance they can travel with their oxygen supply. The faster they move, the further they can go, but the more attention they will attract from predators.

The player must balance these mechanics while utilising sonar to gather information about their surroundings, with this information influencing their decision making.

The information sonar gives is “fuzzy” and unclear, asking the player to try to discern how safe they are based on the rough shape of objects and any brief glimpse of movement in objects. The player can reduce the uncertainty of what an object is by shining their light on it, but in this process they make themself vulnerable to it.
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The Gameplay Loops

The idea utilises tried and tested loops, taking inspiration from metroidvania games. The player is motivated to engage with these loops by survival - to survive an encounter with a predator, to return to the station without running out of oxygen and to ultimately to escape this deep ocean cave system.

The First Prototype

The first prototype will focus on developing a single cycle of the minute to minute loop, with one resource to gather, one predator to evade and all of the necessary submarine mechanics to fulfill the core tension. 

The player will have to try and gather X of this resource to “win”.

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