Sub-Verge

Sub-Verge is a short narrative puzzle set in a tense science-fiction world beneath the sea. You control the SubVee, a leaky submersible, and manipulate conversations among a fractured group of deep-sea divers to survive. You can follow your directives or rebel, with many possible ways to escape and just as many ways to die.

The divers and the deep

Choose a mission and send the SubVee into an unrelenting sea. You can side with the Surfacers, who protect their overworld city from the dangers below, or align with misfits from an underwater base hidden in the deepest fathoms. The divers see your submersible as a dilemma. You follow hints from the surface to offer the right handles to the right divers, gain their agreement to proceed and steer the group toward consensus.

As more divers join, their dysfunction draws you further in. You must navigate their emotional dynamics, uncover alliances and betrayals, and find leverage among characters with their own motivations, secrets and survival instincts. The SubVee slowly fills with water, while an eldritch presence called the Krake lurks in the depths. When its shadow appears, the divers scatter, then return whispering about their missing leader, the enigmatic figure known as The Mind.

Conversations and outcomes

You choose which diver to approach and when, using conversation to gain leverage, unlock secrets and guide the group toward survival. Every exchange can affect the outcome: you might escape to the surface, disappear into the depths or meet a darker fate. The game has multiple endings, and the ocean’s danger is matched by the divers’ reactions and the failing SubVee’s eerie glow.

The prequel novella

The separate DLC Subtle Mind is a 74-page illustrated PDF novella about the origins of The Mind and his underwater renegades. An idle fisherman’s impulsive act exposes the Surfacer’s lies and reveals a hidden world beneath the city’s eternal waterfall. Accused of attempted assassination, The Mind enlists a small pet krake to escape his past and his pursuers, setting off a rebellion that leads to the events of Sub-Verge.