Firstly, before we dive into the next Transmission, a huge THANK YOU to everybody that has picked up Sub-Verge so far and supported us with the launch. Sub-Verge is a small game, but the world and lore surrounding it is rich and deep - the game very intentionally leaves space for you to interpret and inject your own ideas and explanations into the gaps in the story.
It's been hugely rewarding to see all your responses and reactions to the game so far, and we're looking forward to shining a light on other areas of this world - and the characters within it - as our Transmission series continues.
Speaking of which!
Be careful what you cling to.
We’re now married to the sea. Or buried in the sea. It depends on your point of view. Don’t misunderstand. We love the sea. It’s how we ended up here–we refused to be denied it. But it was never meant to be the only thing we had. There is no leaving now. Unless we want to confront the Surfacers. And they would kill us on sight.
The Surfacers are about control. Why else would they drain the waters that surrounded their beautiful city, only to leave a desolate, lifeless dry flat? They said the sea was dead, poisoned, full of monstrosities. Nothing edible lived under the waters anymore, it could
bring us no benefit. We said that the things that still lived there were beautiful, even if they weren’t edible. We didn’t know all of them, then.
The Surfacers called the sea dangerous. They weren’t wrong about that. But not for the reasons they claimed. They thought the Floaters could come and attack the city too easily by ship. They thought the sea made them vulnerable. It was too big. Things could sneak up to the border in the night.
The Surfacers didn’t listen. They didn’t care. We were a vocal, but small, minority. It wasn’t till the Mind came that things changed. His attempt on the life of the High Commissioner was inspired, and brave, even for one of the Landed. But it was more than that. The Mind minded us: he listened. The Mind was mindful: he thought about the problem. But above all: The Mind minded: he would not let the sea be sundered from us, its devotees.
And it was inspiring to hear him talk. You should have seen him, back in those days, on the edge of the seacliffs, always in his wetsuit, under a cloak the color of the wine dark sea. He was not the sort of dissident that got angry or railed against authority. He was mannered and measured. He spoke of the positive aspects of the sea, of the freedom of air and movement and life that should be granted to all people. Somehow the sea became a metaphor for freedom from all the oppression of the Surfacers.
It was an ill-conceived coup. What can we say about it now? We can pour over the details, the missteps, the poor planning, but it was doomed to fail. We were too few.
The Surfacers had a stockpile of harp-guns. Combined with telespectacles, they were deadly. Barely half of us made it out of the city alive. The details of that time are too painful to recount.
So the Mind led our retreat. Over the dry flat, towards the sea. And down, into Maraea’s sealed sub-liner. And it was peaceful on the seafloor. At least for a while. At first, the gigantic Krake was a rumor. Some said it was just a squid or jellywhale, something that wouldn’t take much interest in us. But then, on the day of the Winter Festival, when we were all out in our diving suits, basking in the lights, it revealed itself. It was attracted to the lights, and the light revealed what a horror it was. A jelly-sac head bigger than our bunks, and pincers to feed it. Invisible, almost, with skin that seemed to suck in the light. A cluster of Medusa eyes, watching everything.
We scrambled back inside our underwater base. It circled us. We turned out the lights. It circled us. We shot gaffs at it. It batted them away. And, for the first time since we had joined his cause, the Mind didn’t know what to do.
After that, we Divers especially were scared of the Krake. No one wanted to be a Diver then. We patrolled, and did our jobs, but we were suffocated by a terrible fear.
Then, one night, one of us saw a SubVee, just hints of light gleaming from its cracks, sinking towards our base.
With Jason on board, and Tiia in full swing on art and animation, we finally had the whole team assembled. The game really started to take shape. Originally imagined for mobile, we reformatted and re-designed it to work on desktop. We added an opening section, complete with custom art and the oh-so-consequential loyalty choice. That brought in new characters and new variations to the gameplay.
We brought the game to New Zealand's home-grown GDC and set up playtests, where we received fantastic feedback. The students from Victoria University's Visual Narrative Lab helped to run those sessions (and test the game!). In fact, they're still helping. Just this month Ben helped set up achievements for the game, while Erin added a whole new layer of awesome SFX to the underwater world.
Tiia's art caught a lot of attention, and we always had someone testing the game at our table. It was fun to see people's reactions in real time. They ranged from 'I don't really read in games.' (In which case, this one's gonna be tough) to three friends who got so into it that they had to return after their panel talk was over, to finish it, so that they could see the conclusion. That was a great feeling. As was being nominated for an Excellence in Representation award from the Pavs, the New Zealand Game Developer Association's yearly awards.
We kept adding to the game (I mean, look at this translucent fish-thing!), and improving gameplay, based on the feedback we got. And we finally decided it was time to go on a hunt for a publisher. By this time CODE NZ was up and running, an excellent industry support and grant-funding body dedicated to leveling up the games industry in New Zealand. We were lucky enough to get one of their travel grants for Sub-Verge. And all the support that came with it. This included pitch reviews, coaching sessions, and workshops, that got us in good shape for the pitching gauntlet that is GDC in San Francisco.
It was eye-opening, taking meetings with publishers, and watching the churn of the larger industry in full force. There were many ups and downs in pitching, and we learned a ton about our game, and what we wanted from a publisher. But the most fortuitous meeting was one late night cocktail event where Michael introduced us to Caspar Gray, with the Arsenal Agency. After discovering we'd been at the same Guy Fawkes night in Lewis in 1999, we hit it off, and a few months and many zoom calls later, he became our agent.
And that's how we met Jamin Smith, at Pantaloon. This also felt like a really fortuitous stroke of luck. He was just about to launch the publishing side of Pantaloon, and looking for bold and bizarre games, of the sort that he had built his wildly popular newsletter around. And Sub-Verge just happened to be that small strangely-shaped thing that was looking for a 'home for misfits'. The misfit was a fit, and the rest is history.
It's been a long road, starting with riffing on game ideas with Darren, all the way through the refinement, pitching, and release of a tightly-scoped narrative puzzle set in a lovecraftian sea. I couldn't have done it without all the support along the way, all the folks mentioned in these blog posts. Great things have already happened for the game - becoming part of the Pantaloon launch, and being selected for LudoNarraCon alongside some amazing games. Thanks for following the journey, and we can't wait for you to dive in.
Sub-Verge is Out Now...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/