Two years ago, I attended PAX West 2023. It was there that I got a chance to play the game with the chillest vibes, Everdeep Aurora. With no enemies to battle, the title is all about puzzles and exploration. I walked away intrigued, so I jumped at the chance to play the game properly for review.
Searching for Mother
The plot of Everdeep Aurora is relatively simple at first. You play as Shell, a kitten searching for her mother. A meteor shower is ravaging the planet, so everyone has taken shelter below the surface. Using a basic drill, Shell must dig her way through the ground, going deeper and deeper until she is reunited with her loved ones.
Things get more complex as you burrow underground. You’ll meet various NPCs throughout the adventure, each with their own stories and sets of problems. A girl is searching for a missing dog, a frog seeking to make amends with his daughter, a snake who swindles everyone he meets, and two otters who have fallen out of love, among others. Solving all of their issues is necessary to progress, as Shell gains access to a stronger drill, wall jump, and propulsion boost, so it pays to be kind.
Highs and Lows of Exploration
Everdeep Aurora is all about exploring. Shell will end up with so many items by the end of the game. These include hats you can wear, a load of documents that explain the lore of the setting, gems to refuel the battery of your drill, and extra containers to prolong said battery life. While the majority of the gameplay is 2D and features a Game Boy Color aesthetic, there are also surprising variations. You’ll roll the dice, play a crane game, solve computer puzzles, and even see events acted out in retro cutscenes. And while you can complete the title in a few hours, the last section has so many paths and hidden areas you can traverse that multiple endings are guaranteed. Discovery is the game’s strong suit and what I liked the most about it.
Sadly, exploration is marred by frustration. Everdeep Aurora does not offer waypoint markers throughout the majority of the playthrough, so it is quite easy to get lost. Yes, the characters you meet and the way you help them all out are rewarding, but it would have been an improvement to offer some kind of radar that wasn’t just a basic map. Also, there isn’t a quest log, so you’ll have to go off memory with which NPC needs what from another NPC. Not all locations show up on your radar, either, so you’ll be racking your brain trying to remember things like where the otter is that gives you the letter to deliver to the post office. And on Switch in particular, the framerate jitters just a bit when you scroll the screen forward. Not a huge deal, but I would expect a game like this to run well even on older hardware.
A Journey Worth Completing?
For me, Everdeep Aurora is a mixed bag. On one hand, the music is great, graphics are superb, characters are complex, and it’s unique to have a game with no combat where discovering its mysteries is the best feature. But that’s only when it works. To get there, you have to deal with a lack of guidance, spending a good chunk of time trying to figure out where to go next. By adding just a few guidepoints, the title could have been great. As it stands now, your mileage will vary greatly depending on how easily frustrated you are when lost in an underground maze.
