Sub-Verge on Steam

[IBJamon]

PSYCHOLOGICAL NARRATIVE/PUZZLE GAME SUB-VERGE IS OUT NOW
Conversation is a dangerous game

LONDON / WELLINGTON, MAY 1st 2025 Pantaloon and Interactive Tragedy, Limited have released Sub-Verge on Steam, launching into day one of LudoNarraCon as an officially selected title.The game fuses narrative and dialogue with puzzle logic, creating a unique interactive experience.

“Our first game is a psychological puzzle game that turns high-stakes conversation into a core gameplay mechanic,” said Interactive Tragedy’s founder Zach Dodson. “Players must navigate tense interpersonal dynamics among a fractured crew of deep-sea divers, working to escape their submerged vessel before an unseen horror emerges from the depths”

Sub-Verge is a psychological narrative puzzler that plays out at the depths of the ocean. It’s built around a question that feels increasingly urgent: What happens when we’re isolated in a cultural bubble, locked out of a conversation that may determine our fate?

As the silent driver of a sinking submersible, players must navigate a fragile ecosystem of distrust and shifting loyalties. The game asks whether people already in crisis should help outsiders—or protect themselves and their community from further harm. These tensions play out through conversation.

The game marks Zach Dodson’s foray into games, as he brings his critically-acclaimed writing to a new medium.
“I have been experimenting with narrative forms for many years, with my small press, featherproof books, and my own illuminated novel Bats of the Republic—and storytelling in the interactive space opens up a whole new puzzle, one that is difficult and rewarding both.”

Sub-Verge challenges conventional narrative approaches in game design by making conversation the core mechanic of survival. In many games, dialogue is flavor. In Sub-Verge, it's everything. The player, sealed in a leaking submersible, can’t speak. They can only offer “handles” to the surrounding Divers. Who pulls, and in what order, becomes a layered puzzle and a metaphor for influence. It’s a narrative system built on emotional logic, where progress requires not just deduction, but empathy.

PANTALOON

www.pantaloon.io
Pantaloon is a home for misfits; a game label and pedestal for bold and bizarre indie games, and a nexus of resources and services for developers looking to self-publish. Pantaloon helps indie game studios bring their games to market whilst remaining fully independent.

INTERACTIVE TRAGEDY

https://www.interactivetragedy.com
Interactive Tragedy, Limited, is a small, sad studio in Wellington New Zealand. Creator-driven, they subscribe to many strange fictions. All the drama is in the games.