Sub-Verge is a puzzle game in which you’re trapped in a sub that’s filling with water while a deadly creature hunts the deep. You must secure the help of divers from the base below, who are full of interpersonal drama and will only grab onto your sub in a certain order you have to figure out based on clues, in order to complete your mission and survive.

Official Description:

Conversation is a dangerous game. Manipulate a fractured band of renegade divers to reach the depths of this short narrative puzzle. Uncover alliances and expose betrayals — before something horrific from the dark abyss silences you all. Don’t let the conversation get too deep.

Long Review:

Unfortunately, this game disappointed me. It felt like a case of trying to do two things (puzzle and story) but not putting enough focus into either.

What I Liked:

– The art style is so pretty. What you see in the trailer is what you get, no extras, but it’s nice.

– The characters, their backstories, their interpersonal drama, and some of the things in this world that they revealed were really interesting and memorable. I really liked the interactions between the divers and learning more about them. This could’ve made for a great game (or book), but this specific gameplay just wasn’t the right medium for it because it didn’t go in-depth enough. *SPOILER* I really wanna know more about whatever Imphrey and Trembath have going on. It seems so toxic. Or maybe it’s good for them. I don’t know, but I’m fascinated. I’d love to know more about them individually too. Imphrey, so angry and dabbling in dangerous things, and Trembath, so macabre seemingly as a result of her chronic pain. I’d also like to know more about Drint, with the grief she’s been through and then the revelations and emotional arc of putting her full faith in The Mind and then losing that faith and feeling lost and unable to trust her own decisions anymore. *END SPOILER*

What I Disliked:

– The missions and the endings made no sense. For starters, I had no idea what my mission actually was for either faction because the intro was so vague. Looking back now, I can see one says, “Make it to the bottom,” and one says, “Get them up here,” but it was casually dropped amidst other confusing dialogue while I was still trying to understand what was even happening. And then every ending I got baffled me. Something would happen that the characters just said was impossible. Or the game would tell me that XYZ happened, except nothing prior indicated that. Or something would happen that was apparently part of a plan I was never told.

– Choices were confusing, and there were actually only two. You start the game by choosing who to side with, with no real info. Then you can eventually choose to go up or down, but as far as I can tell, that’s only in the very last puzzle. I spent the first playthrough or two confused because it was so unclear if I had any say in each puzzle, or if there was one predetermined correct answer. And the description puts so much emphasis on steering the convo, choosing to obey or rebel, etc., even says, “There are many ways out,” but it doesn’t follow through on that. Conversation steering is accidental based on the order you guess in the puzzles, and as far as I can tell, there’s only two “correct” paths.

– The puzzle gameplay was mediocre. Sometimes the order was too arbitrary, there was no reason for why this character couldn’t go before others, characters would do the opposite of what they just said they’d do, etc. I like this type of puzzle, having to figure out the order based on clues, but there are better games out there if I just want that. With characters involved, it requires motivations and reactions that make sense.

– The music was basically just this “dun dun dun” sound which was more annoying than atmospheric.

– UI was glitchy. Sometimes the thing on the side would get stuck in the out position, covering text. Sometimes I had to click all over to get text to change. Space bar worked better.

Everything Else:

– There’s no voice acting. (The trailer makes it seem like there will be.)

– Achievements are broken (maybe it’ll be fixed if you’re seeing this in the future). I don’t care about that, but some people do, and it would’ve helped me know if I found everything.

– I found four endings. Side with Surface or Below + go up or down. I found one mid-game failure too. I don’t know if there are more.

– My first playthrough took 80 minutes. I played four hours total because I wanted to know what the other endings were.

– It’s not very fun to replay because you have to click through a lot of the same dialogue and do all the same puzzles. And you can’t skip. But I did at least get some different dialogue by doing things slightly differently.

– I played mostly on normal mode. I tried the easy and hard modes but could not figure out what was different. The game seems pretty lenient, on normal at least. I had to try hard to get that one failure, and I think that was on hard mode.

– Save and exit will set you back to the start of the current puzzle.

– I bought this and the DLC in a bundle on sale for $5.58.

Overall:

I can’t recommend this as a puzzle/choices game, and this medium didn’t allow for much exploration of the characters’ stories. But if you just want to meet some interesting characters and look at nice art, maybe it’ll still be worth it to you. And if the devs ever want to turn this into a book, I’d be down to read it.

Short Review:

– Pretty art style
– Interesting characters and ideas
– Mission and world were vague
– Endings made no sense
– Choices were minimal and felt a bit pointless
– Puzzle element was mediocre
– Overall, had potential but disappointing

Accessibility:

(May not include everything)
– Not accessible for blind players or screen reader users.
– Does not require sound.
– Difficulty options, but I have no idea what they do.
– Requires a mouse, as far as I can tell (don’t know about controller).