Hidden Deep - A deep dive into the indie sector

Indie games from a lone developer have already become the talk of the town. Such projects wonderfully combine original ideas and crookedness, exorbitant complexity and ingenious leveldesign, scale and absurdity of implementation. Ridiculousness, for which you do not want to scold.
Hidden Deep lives up to all the stereotypes about indie games from a loner developer. Only a loner developer could pore over something for 9 years and not lose heart and ultimate vision along the way. The lone developer's name is Lukasz Kaluski, and this is what he's done...

Horrors in a Browser Game?

The plot of Hidden Deep is standard: in a certain underwater drilling station, scientists stumble upon something. This something initially seems to be something useful for science, but after 681 days it becomes hostile and kills almost the entire staff of the station. Communication with the station is cut off before the personnel have had time to report the cause of the accident. A second, more prepared expedition is sent to investigate the circumstances. Of course, the second expedition saw only a neglected complex and strange organic growths on the walls. In general, the classics.

Lukasz Kaluski admits that he was inspired by Ridley Scott's Alien, John Carpenter's The Thing and the slightly original Hife-Life. You won't find any attempt at originality in Hidden Deep. It's not Soma with its roofy, touchy-feely ending, it's not Penumbra with its mystical overtones, and it's certainly not Alien Shooter, but with a side view, Hidden Deep plays like a mod for the browser game Happy Wheels. If you have played Happy Wheels, you surely remember the physics, it is difficult to describe in words... Only in Hidden Deep the levels are generated procedurally, but with obligatory conditions.

For example, on one level an escort of engineers to a safe place will be a prerequisite, on another - turn on the power on a flooded level. Imagine that Resident Evil stopped leading the player by the hand, opened most of the doors on the level, but didn't consider it necessary to explain how to pass the level - approximately this way you can describe the whole gameplay of Hidden Deep, avoiding spoilers.

An unfriendly mine...

Hidden Deep is not the kind of game that will slowly get you up to speed. Already in the first levels, the player is faced with the tasks of intelligence and logic. Those underground monsters that you meet at the levels are only an obstacle, not the main danger. The main danger is...the force of attraction. In my memory there are only two games in which it is easy to die tripping on the level ground. Hidden Deep is the second.

One of the game's main mechanics is the cat hook. But don't think it's as liberating a parkour hook as it was in Dying Light 2 Stay Human, no, forget it. To get over the next hollow, the player is required to keep many variables in mind: will the hook get through? Is the rope long enough? Will I crash after the jump? Would the sound attract the attention of the local fauna?

By the way, the audio design of Hidden Deep is not only an enveloping ambient, but also full-fledged mechanics. It's dark on the map, the flashlight only illuminates a couple of meters in front of you. It's only by the sounds that you can tell if it's safe to enter the next room. And no, memorize the map by heart and kill monsters by guessing will not work. Not uncommonly those situations where you get the next job - "Find the lever," went into the room, and in the shadows on the ceiling waiting for a hungry "buddy. Play in Hidden Deep need only headphones, otherwise you will have to feed the "buddy" often.

Relying on sight becomes useful only when the map is already studied. Each time the player will be thrown into an unknown place, each time you will have to wander almost blindly. The mini-map will help only after the fact, when the level is at least halfway through. And the levels in Hidden Deep are long - you'll have to wander for half an hour.

People with topographic cretinism will have nightmares about Hidden Deep, it's easy to get lost. Lukasz Kaluski overdid it in the level design. The necessary actions from the player is sometimes so non-obvious that it makes you walk in circles. The only thing scarier is getting into a service vehicle and driving into a dead end. Then only to boot.

Speaking of transportation...

...but the miner is willing to take the risk.

However, the gameplay is not limited to one walkthrough. Hidden Deep gives the player not the warmest welcome, and as soon as the game considers that the player has already understood everything (spoiler - no), a new mechanic appears. It turns out that the player is given control of several characters at once without artificial intelligence. Yes, the characters won't move until the player switches to it personally. Here again the crutches are felt: on the one hand, alternating control of characters adds a couple of hardcore points; on the other hand, if one of the team gets gnawed on, the dummy will die, and you have to spend a revival point to respawn him. The number of revival points varies with the difficulty chosen and is veiled by the remaining survivors in the mine. On medium difficulty the player has as many as 999 survivors per level, while on realism there is only one life...

The few but useful miner's implements help you survive. In addition to the cat-hook, there is also a drone scout. Without it, it is sometimes impossible to scout the map.

And where would one go without a soil scanner? Sometimes the only way to the goal is to undermine the soil, but you can't visually identify the hollow floor. Multi-level locations are almost always built out of patterns, which forces you to adapt anew from time to time.

And the best part is that all the mechanics are elegantly introduced into the game and cannot be ignored. The design of the levels is such that everything, including all kinds of weapons, will have to be used according to the situation.

Conclusions

Hidden Deep costs pennies - only $2-5, the content lasts at least 10 hours if you don't delve into the co-op. The game is recommended for review, but with one caveat - Hidden Deep at times tests your patience with non-obvious tasks and accidental deaths of the protagonist.