Shell, a young black cat, is waiting for her mother on a park bench as a cataclysmic meteor shower begins to rain down. She is then told that her mother went down into the shelters beneath the earth to look for her, and is handed a drill to aid her progress. This very simplistic beginning is somehow both very appropriate and wholly inadequate to prepare you for what lies in store in Nautilus Games and Ysbryd Games’ Everdeep Aurora. A very simple mission to reunite with your mother quickly spirals into a mission to resolve the issues of everyone in the underground, uncover lost secrets, and face the truth of what truly caused the circumstances facing Shell and everyone she meets.
At the start of Everdeep Aurora, your mission and the gameplay is very simple. You can move, jump, drill left, right, above and below, and hop down ledges. Certain stone blocks have crystals in them which serve as the game’s currency and also how you charge your drill when it runs out of power. Your general goal is down, but you can return back up to save at one of the campsites or explore one of the many offshoots where much of the game’s content actually lies. Though it’s possible to dig in such a way that you can’t climb back up, it’s not possible to softlock yourself; even when you’re out of drill power you can use it at a much slower rate, you can also always hit a button to fast travel to the nearest camp (except in a few situations), and you can even toggle a setting to restore all the blocks mid playthrough if necessary.
As you explore downwards, you meet the many denizens of the deep, all of whom are richly designed and most of them have a story to tell or a sidequest to complete, or both. Doing these gets you lots of information on how the underground people live, what caused them to live underground in the first place, why none of them can go beyond a certain point, and since this is an exploration based platformer, upgrades – well, also Collectibles, but upgrades first. As you explore, eventually you hit a layer of stone that your basic drill can’t handle, so you need to explore within your area to find either an upgrade or some other item to improve your ability to move, like boots that give you the power to wall jump once, or a companion who can hold you aloft for a short time. Upgrades to your drill, which usually come after learning an important bit of lore, lead to the ability to break deeper rock and open up more map and thus more to explore.
Everdeep Aurora uses a deliberately limited color palette to evoke an early Gameboy aesthetic. It continually shifts the palette in order to best fit the area of the game you’re in, shifting to warmer tones close to campfires, blue near water, green in a secret garden, and red when things start to get very strange. When I say there are secrets to find I mean both that there are people keeping things hidden from the Shell, but also there is just plain weird stuff to discover in the game. One of the many collectibles is a pair of glasses that allow you to see otherwise hidden objects and which makes certain other objects vanish, you need to re-explore a lot of the map with these to find not just extra collectibles like accessories and music tracks, but also strange lore about the cataclysmic event no one seems to dare – or perhaps is unable to – speak directly about. I’ve hit the credits twice at the time of writing and I still haven’t quite unlocked all the secrets behind Everdeep Aurora.
While there are no overt enemies in Everdeep Aurora, progress is not always as simple as drill downward. As mentioned, there are many side paths, and these areas require the player to engage in some pretty clever platforming to complete. On top of this, you might not always be able to complete an area immediately when you first find it. There was one segment that I discovered that required finding a companion with a hover ability to be able to fully complete. Figuring out what you can do with what you have is part of the puzzle of Everdeep Aurora, and while it doesn’t hold your hand, it’s designed well enough to indicate that you probably need a new ability if you can’t progress or if you just need to figure out how to best execute what you do have. The platforming is no joke, and you will have to get good at it to find all the hidden chests, accessories, letters, sketches, and items. As for replayability, in addition to the several endings, the game also has achievements for speedy completion.
Everdeep Aurora is a game you can just lose yourself in for awhile and explore. There’s no autosave as far as I’m aware, but you’re usually only ever moments away from a save point if you use Shell’s meow. I played it on PC but it’s also extremely well suited to handheld units like the Steam Deck. Ironically for a game about digging, it’s not breaking new ground, but if you want a simple game about a lost cat finding her mother, it’s that. If you want a deeper game about uncovering the lost secrets of the past, it can also be that.
Tim reviewed Everdeep Aurora on PC with a provided review copy.
