Reveal The Deep: A Scary Deal
17 Jun 2016
Reveal The Deep is a small indie title made by the folks at Lazy Monday Games. This game has some rough pointy edges in the gameplay department, yet the level of detail and the amazing atmosphere of this game make me want to hold it close. The game may not win any awards, but I definitely give it my award of underrated indie game.
One of the things that I like about this game is that it creates a feeling of unsettling and uneasiness about the world. It does a good job of lulling the player into a sense of security before throwing something unsettling at them. The sense of uneasiness the game is able to create is superb considering the minimalistic approach to the game. Without going into spoiler territory the story of the world is told by letters that are left on the ship. These letters help paint a picture of what the hell is going on in this world and why it is happening. You slowly learn of the horrors that the ship encountered, realizing that you must now escape the horrors of the ship as well. The atmosphere is definitely something to write home about, the clanking of metal, the ambient background noise, and the music make this game make for one of the better horror atmospheres.
The gameplay is one of the more lack luster points of the game. At the most complicated it is simple block puzzles that don’t take too much to understand. That being said the puzzles are there to tell you that you are going in the right direction. While this game is not hard to navigate it allows for backtracking to get to areas that you may have not been able to access before, so the puzzles help to make sure you are going in the right direction. The controls are more pointy edges on the game. When you climb the ladders your movement is locked into place with so if you climb down the ladder you will be automatically moving down or up. It can be slightly annoying but nothing to terrible. The last pointy bit is that your character changes the speed at which they move when you turn off your lamp. The diver gets slower when you turn off your lamp to a noticeable level, while not game breaking, it is pretty annoying.
These pointy edges might deter you from picking up the game and swaddling it like a newborn, but considering the game is $0.99 asking price and goes on sale for $0.39 you might as well wear some gloves and pick it up. The game took me about 1.8 hours to beat (according to my steam play time) which is amazing for how cheap the game is. Not to mention that this game came out on December 2015 and its last update was in April 2016. You can tell that this game was made with love and that even though it has not made gangbusters, the devs show passion for what they do.
If you are looking to pick up a game for only the gameplay element this probably isn’t the game for you. But if you are looking for a game that can give you a good scare this is one of the best value propositions out there. Overall while the game is definitely rough around the edges, it seems that the devs understand that and are willing to make the game cheaper as a result. The way the devs are able to build a world and the atmosphere surrounding it make me look forward to their next game, with hopefully less pointy edges.
Buy the game on Steam