Aye, figured you'd come by…😌
Dev Diary #2 is here. Last time we talked about why we made the game. This time, we want to walk you through how you actually play it.
DIVE OR DIE is an extraction diver at its core. Every day you send a survivor into the Abyssal Pool. They go down. They look for resources. They try to come back.
That’s the loop. But the loop has teeth.
THE LOOP ➰
You pick a survivor, equip them with whatever tools and gear you've crafted, and send them into the Pool. Down there: scavenge what you can, go as deep as you dare, and make it back alive.
The goal is simple. The Flood is coming, and the only way to survive it is to go deeper, find the Rainmaker's idols, and keep the camp from falling apart in the meantime.
Stagnate, and the camp starves. Push too hard, and the pool takes your diver.
What you bring back determines how far you can go tomorrow. Every dive is a step forward or a body lost.
OXYGEN ⌛
We wanted every dive to start with a full tank and a countdown you can't stop, where every choice counts.
Oxygen depletes constantly. Twice as fast below 50 meters. Twice as fast again below 200 meters, unless you've upgraded your Rebreather. Spend too long on that ruin, and the screen starts fading to black.
Surface in time, or don't surface at all.
LOOT & EXPLORATION 🎒
We designed the Abyssal Pool to never give up its resources easily.
Minerals. Blueprints. Consumables. Idols. Each works differently. Some are grabbed instantly. Others require a held interaction that leaves you exposed for precious seconds.
And the best ones are never within comfortable reach. The pool rewards risk taking and punishes greed. The further you push, the more likely you'll find what you need, and the harder it gets to make it back.
As you unlock new gear and eldritch powers, new areas open up. New biomes. New dangers. Better loot. The deeper you go, the stranger it gets.
RUN OR FIGHT 🏃♀️➡️
We had a specific vision for the creatures down there: nothing wants to negotiate, and you'll need to make quick choices about which ones to fight and which ones to run from.
Some creatures are best avoided. Others are worth fighting for what they drop. Every encounter is a split-second call: do you have the gear, the health, and the oxygen to commit? Or do you cut your losses and surface with what you have?
Getting greedy costs divers. And dead divers don’t come back…
CRAFT OR BUILD ⚒️
And when the loop, the run, and the fight is done…that’s when you take account of the inventory collected.
What you bring back feeds the cycle above the surface.
Resources go into crafting better tools and upgrading camp structures. A better Diving Deck unlocks new entry points. A stocked Infirmary keeps your survivors functional. Every upgrade is an investment in tomorrow's dive.
Nothing is free. Crafting, upgrading, surviving: everything pulls from the same pool of resources, and there’s never enough to go around.
DIVER STATUS 🚦
We track three things for your diver during every dive: Oxygen, Health and Sanity.
Health is persistent. Damage taken in the pool carries back to camp and doesn't reset between dives.
Sanity depletes from encounters and low camp morale. If it hits zero mid-dive, your survivor becomes essentially non-functional until treated at the Infirmary.
Death is permanent. There are a few ways to cheat it. Don't count on them.
Every dive is a gamble. The pool takes what it's owed.
-- Théo, Achille & Julien (Drop Rate Studio)