I Sink Therefore I Am: Last Dive

Large bodies of water terrify me. They don't even have to be large bodies, truth be told. Confronted with some of Zubmariner's horrors, I told Failbetter, live on stage, that I'm scared of paddling pools. Last Dive [official site], "a pixel art underwater platformer thriller", tells the story of a man who is stranded at the bottom of the ocean. That's a terrible place to be stranded, not just because you're relying on a suit to let you breathe and prevent you from being crushed, but because of the things that live down there.

The Last Dive is the work of Brazilian studio Pixel Cows, who have made a few games before now. My pick of the bunch is Super Fair Trial Show, which is a bit like Smash TV crossed with social networking. You're on a potentially deadly gameshow and the audience can change the rules by tweeting at the show. It's free, on Windows and Mac, and well worth a download.

That game is packed with procedurally generated bits and pieces, but The Last Dive is hand-crafted. The art style and setting drew me to it and I particularly love this little scene here:

And this is some good grappling:

But is that an eye that opens, glowing, in the background? Oh no.

The devblog is packed with information, coming in the form of weekly updates, covering everything from creating the title screen and designing a boss monster to getting the dialogue boxes just right.

The game should be out later this year. It's a much-expanded and reworked version of an earlier game made for Ludum Dare. That one is about fifteen minutes long and you can play it here.

Reading about this game reminded me of Fisher Diver's existence, so that has been creeping me out all over again. Scariest diving game ever. Even scarier is the fact that I wrote about it five years ago. I am as ancient as the old ones that dwell in the deep.