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Transmission #6 | Set Afloat

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!



Sub-Verge is OUT NOW!

Hark! It's the big day! Today, the debut game from both Interactive Tragedy and Pantaloon lands on Steam, launching straight into day one of everybody's favourite narrative games festival: LudoNarraCon.



We hope you enjoy the game. It's a labour of love from a team that love stories, and the way only games can deliver certain type of narrative experience. Sub-Verge is a small game, but does big things in the way it combines its story and characters with its puzzle logic.

Let us know what you think! The game's story is ripe for discussion and further conversation, so join us in the Steam discussions or over on Discord to delve deeper.

Some other exciting bits and pieces relating to the release...

[h2]Launch Broadcasts![/h2]
We're really excited to be hosting Raygan and Laura from the Short Game Podcast, for a special LudoNarraCon stream of the game. You can find this on the game's Store page now, where we'll be rotating this with a fireside reading of Subtle Mind...

There is also an upcoming podcast about the game, which we'll keep you posted on once it goes live.

[h2]Subtle Mind...?[/h2]
Indeed! Today also marks the release of Subtle Mind; the prequel novella to Sub-Verge, exploring events prior to the start of the game. Interactive Tragedy is led by Zach Dodson, an author and book-publisher who is bringing his literary prowess to both Sub-Verge itself, but also this accompanying work of fiction which expands the world and generally enriches the whole experience. If you're into the game and simply need to know more, this is the best place to start...



[h2]Sub-Verge Bundles[/h2]
We're incredibly excited to be partnering with two fantastic developers for some exclusive bundles here on Steam.

First, expanding on the themes of water and the sea in general, we've chummed up with Gareth Damian Martin (Jump Over The Age) and Fellow Traveller for the Strange Seas Collection - giving you Sub-Verge and In Other Waters in one package.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/890720/In_Other_Waters/

We've also worked with the fine folks at Wispfire to pop the game into a bundle with Herald: The Complete Edition, which also launches today into LudoNarraCon. Herald is an interactive period drama, and choice-driven adventure set on the high seas...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2199510/Herald_The_Interactive_Period_Drama__Complete_Edition/

[h2]There's more to come...[/h2]
While we've hit launch day, we still have entries from Zach's Transmission series to share with you over the course of LudoNarraCon, delving deeper into both the game's world and lore, and the development of the game behind the scenes. Keep an eye out for this in the coming days...

--

Huge thanks for taking the time to read this and check out the game - we hope you enjoy your time navigating the dark depths of Sub-Verge's world.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/

Transmission #5 | A New Cast

Name: Drint
Age: 29



The sea has always been a part of me, from my years as a sub-liner captain to the depths we now call home. When the Surfacers betrayed our trust, it solidified my resolve. The Mind had a vision, a sanctuary beneath the waves, and I, alongside my brother, helped him orchestrate his escape. Our expertise ensured our community could safely settle on the seafloor, but it came at a cost – the loss of my brother. That memory is a wound that never heals.

The Mind helped me put that all behind me. That’s why I became a Diver for him. He was the thing that brought life back into me. He said my duty was to carry on where my brother left off, to honor his memory and mission. I thought of him constantly. That made me realize my love for the sea. The Mind had the big ideas, I helped him action them. I will never leave our home now. I am only interested in securing it. His behavior has become erratic, but I know that’s only because he’s desperate to keep us safe.

As a Diver, I stand guard, vigilant against the threats that lurk in the shadows. Despite the challenges and the pain, my commitment to our cause is unwavering. Above all, my primary goal remains: the survival and security of our people. We are a community bound by shared experiences and the vastness of the sea that conceals us. We may be vulnerable, but together, united in purpose and trust, we will endure. It's my duty, my responsibility, to play my part to the best of my ability. My brother would have done the same.

-o-

Name: Trembath
Age: 36



Among the many inexplicable tendencies of people, their love for the mundane tops the list. I mean, why gather around the trivial when there's a vast, indifferent ocean to explore? Diving, you see, is my chosen escape from the theatre of the absurd we call society. While others engage in whispered secrets and shared glances, I've always been more at home with the unfathomable depths and the tales of my rather... unique upbringing. Ah, childhood - a delightful medley of humiliations, pain, and my grandmother's eccentric ideas of child-rearing.

I thought when I became a Diver, I’d find others like me, people who preferred to be alone. None of you are anything like me. I never fit in here. When I came to the base, I tried to be more like you people here. I changed my name, I changed my ways. People still ignored me, cast me out.
None of you know what it means to suffer. I suffer. I have been in constant pain my whole life. One of the few things that removes my pain from me is swimming, particularly in the pressure of the deep. It’s why I am a Diver. It keeps me alive. And away from people.

I wish I had had that recourse when I was young. My father was too traditional, too regimented to have a deformed child. He was a prominent Officer, he served the Surfacers. I was sent to live with my Grandmother. She had been married to one of the Landed on the surface, and she kept all sorts of strange courtly rituals. I had a very strict upbringing, with many rules to follow. None of them made sense. I was not allowed outside in the day, not allowed to engage in any kind of sport or pay. More often I was put with other girls, and kept inside with dolls and tea time, and long idle hours. In the city, my grandmother had remarried a pumper, and we didn’t live like the Landed at all. She said he was friends with the Mind, before we were yanked from the shores. She would often tell me about her conversations with the Mind, as though they were close confidants. I found out later all those stories were lies.

But they sparked a curiosity. That’s what led me to the Mind. I can relate to him, even now in his great suffering and pain. He may not be as pleasant to be around anymore, but he was always a little abrasive. He has a tremendous energy, and that is what has fed us all and truly kept us alive all these years.

You all have your own ulterior motivations for messing with this poor soul, trapped in a SubVee. Let him sink. That’s what will happen to all of us anyway, in some form or another.

-o-

Name: NcNist
Age: 22



In times past, as a Surfacer, I walked alongside those blinded by misguided ideals. Chief among the devout, my mother. She was a high-ranking Officer of the Commission. I served the Surfacers too, for a time. She made me do terrible things for them and their murderous ideologies. But I suppose she imbued in me a respect for dedication, even if I disagreed with her path. When the coup began, the Mind's manifesto opened my eyes, and I recognized that not all who claimed to be right, truly were. I almost saw him killed, you know. The first time.

I've always believed in a code of ethics, even during my youthful days of anarchy. Many misunderstand anarchy as chaos, but it's the ultimate order, people held together by strong ethical bonds. The coup forced my hand, and while I sided with the Mind, his recent behavior with the Krake and our base gives me pause. His once great intellect now spills scattered, paranoid rhetoric.

Throughout my life, various prisons constrained me: the service, family, even my fellow Surfacers. Yet, in our underwater base, I understand my confines and choose my actions deliberately. Every day, I'm faced with choices, and with each, I'm reminded of our responsibility to uphold the ethical order that binds us. The Diver's code is not just a set of rules; it's the very fabric that holds our community together.

--

To return to the story of Sub-Verge’s creation. Once Chris had the TicTacs working, it wasn’t long before we got an interface roughed in over it. The earliest version of the game looks surprisingly close to the final result. At least in terms of layout. What you’ll notice missing here is the fantastic art.



For that, I needed Tiia Reijonen. She’d been the Art director on an earlier prototype, KUU, and we’d worked on a number of projects together, starting from our time at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland where I was teaching and she was a student. Her powers of imagination have always astounded me. I asked for some sort of vehicle that the divers could be piloting, and got these fantastic jetscoots (or Seagways, as we jokingly called them). I really want to ride one: they look like a hybrid of Star Wars speeder bike and seahorse.



I asked for a Bathysphere, and one appeared.



But how would those handles work?



Oh, like that, with an incredibly satisfying ker-clunk! And who is driving?



Well, it’s you. And we don’t know what you look like. But you’ve got to have protective gear on in a SubVee, since look what you can do, when it all comes together:



Those animations were combined and programmed by Chris. Added to the diver portraits like those you saw at the top of the post, the game really started to take shape:



Chris did a fantastic job of getting it all to work. But then he decamped for Australia, for work, but also for better weather — he’s a diver himself, and warmer waters were calling. Around the same time I applied for, and was lucky enough to receive a grant from the New Zealand Film Commision’s Interactive Development Fund. CODE NZ didn’t exist quite yet, and the Film Commission was the only funding body in New Zealand that gave grants for interactive work.

So I had some money to develop the game further, but I needed help. A friend of mine, Michael Fallik, had been giving me sage advice about the game and game industry for a few years. He was a producer on What Remains of Edith Finch, among other games, and he really understands the business side of things. But among the many good bits of advice he offered, one was “You should meet this guy, Jason.”

Jason Heebl had been tinkering with games in his spare time for many years, and as American dads in New Zealand, we connected on many levels. When I asked if he’d be willing to have a crack at Sub-Verge, he was game, and we plunged back into the project.

Wishlist Sub-Verge:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/

Sub-Verge Now Optimised for Steam Deck!

A brief but important note ahead of the release of Sub-Verge in SIX DAYS time (!)...

While we've yet to attain the all-important 'verified on Deck' badge (Steam still needs to collect data from players and learn about the game), we've taken great efforts to ensure that Sub-Verge is fully playable with controller, and thus, on Steam Deck, too.



The game suits the handheld format well, and plays nice and smoothly on Deck. If this is your preferred way of playing the game come May 1st, then go for it.

See you next week for launch - if you haven't already, please wishlist the game, which helps us hugely as we go into launch.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/

Transmission #4 | Announcing Subtle Mind

There’s a backstory. There’s always a backstory.

Alongside the news that Sub-Verge has been selected as an official title for LudoNarraCon 2025, we announced that Sub-Verge will be releasing alongside it's own prequel novella; Subtle Mind.

If you've not already, you can get an exclusive excerpt from the novella from our newsletter.

Today though, we descend further into that backstory, and give you a glimpse at the beginnings of The Mind...



"Suddenly, the silent surface of the pool was broken. A green, gelatinous bubble surfaced, glowing from the inside. It slid towards the edge and emerged onto eight spiked crab legs, clicking on the cavern floor. They transported the green bubble they were attached to, like a jellycake, wriggling along on scissor-legs.

It was a krake. One or two had ended up in my fishing nets in the past, but always dead, with the jellysac like a tiny limp parachute. In contrast, this one was very much alive. I watched it closely. It was the only life in the cave, if I didn’t count myself—and I wasn’t sure I did.
The movement of the krake was unsettling and comical at once. Its spindly legs barely able to keep up with the weight of the floating jellysac, lurching this way and that. It was lit from within by a pair of small, glowing yellow eye-orbs. I remained motionless, and eventually it approached my landing place. There was something else in the jellysac, and I couldn’t make it out at first, but as it got nearer, I saw that a skrillamander was floating there, inside. The krake’s most recent meal. The jellysac was a head and stomach in one, where the poor little lizard was suspended. A novel thankfulness occurred to me, that most creatures don’t have translucent stomachs."



The skrillamander twitched, and I knew it was still alive, at least partially. Probably the sac held some paralyzing fluid, and the creature was being slowly digested, alive. A tortured way to die.
I suddenly felt a kinship with the skrillamander. I would be made to endure a similar fate, should the Surfacers catch me...


(from the letters of The Mind)

When we agreed that publishing Sub-Verge with Pantaloon was the perfect partnership, Jamin, the man behind the mask, asked what else we had for fans of the storyworld. The art is amazing, but there weren’t enough extras to make an art book (Tiia is just too good). And the eerie underwater soundscape that Thomas created (with thrumming heartbeats and otherworldly krake screeches) is too tied to the world to be called a soundtrack on its own.

But I’m not so disciplined in my art, so I had plenty of words left over from the crafting of the Sub-Verge’s story. I thought I could weave them into a short novella, and shine a light on the larger world of the story.



But what I found was something else entirely. I needed to know more about The Mind. And once I found him, I couldn’t stop following him. It was the same for the miniature krake that appears in his second letter.

I went looking for the beginnings of The Mind. And I found him in the Surfacer’s city, at the eternal waterfall, supposedly for a bit of idle fishing. But when the High Commissioner of the city appears above him, he takes an opportunistic shot. Accused of attempted assassination, he is cast into a subterranean labyrinth, where he uncovers the scaffolding of lies that has kept the city sundered from the sea. He survives with the help of the krake, but the creature has strange appetites of its own. With this unlikely pet, he flees from the city and Officer Cromby, determined in her murderous pursuit. His actions foment an accidental rebellion among those who aid and abet him. Cornered, his hidden motives confront him in the dark. Will he be caught first by his hunters or his long-buried past?

Tiia helped visualize the rogue gentleman, and his unlikely companion. Once I was on his trail, I couldn’t stop. And the novella took a shape I wasn’t expecting. Subtle Mind is a prequel to the narrative in Sub-Verge. You’ll see many familiar faces there, before they donned the facemasks that help them breathe beneath the sea. But above all, you’ll come to know The Mind and the depths he must go to in order to find himself once again.



The prequel will be available to download from Steam on May 1st.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/