Illustration by Michael DeForge
Submerged
Seki + Sienna (Yuqian) Sun
Seki + Sienna (Yuqian) Sun
Submerged - Trailer
+In one or two sentences, describe the main themes present in your game.
"Submerged" explores the emotional cost of discovery, where each step forward comes at the quiet expense of something forgotten.
+What was the inspiration of the game?
What made your team decide to make this game specifically?
The inspiration for the game comes from the novel With Her Eyes by Liu Cixin and the game Enjoy the Diner. We decided to create a game focused on a solitary person in a quiet, isolated place because, as 'light' human beings, we enjoy slow-paced experiences. We believe that time itself can be enriching, and we find joy in spending it alone.
+Were there difficult moments when developing the game? What led to those difficult moments? What did you learn from it?
The most difficult challenge we faced was in the world-building and narrative design of the game. We struggled with how to approach the story—whether to have a complete story from the beginning or to develop it as we went. It was hard for us to find the right elements and place them in a way that felt satisfying. What we learned from this challenge is to embrace our limitations and use them as inspiration for our design process. When stuck, we found creative ways to work within these constraints. The solution in the end we had is realizing that narrative isn’t just about words; it’s about the entire player experience and behavior. So we shifts our focus from expression through written texts to interactions in the game.
+Were there features you had to remove, and if so, what were they and why were they removed?
We removed the audio sonar from our first prototype. Initially, we used a sonar sound to attract players to explore, but as we shifted the core mechanic to photography, the sonar began to complicate the exploration process. We wanted to focus more on the cycle of gathering information, storing memories, and forgetting, so the sonar no longer fit with the experience we aimed to create.
+Talk about your teammates! What was everyone's role?
Seki: everything visually, 2D artist & technical artist, level designer.
Sienna: everything that is not visual, programmer and system designer.
Other parts are done by both people.
play this game on itch.io