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For as long as humans have been creating stories, oceans and seas have been a constant source of wonder and adventure for many, but they have also been a source of terror for others due to the sheer frightening mystery of what may be lurking deep below the surface.
Video games have often explored both views of the oceans, with titles like Endless Ocean focusing on the tranquil aspect of diving peacefully alongside real-world fish, and other games, like Subnautica, delving more into the terrifying nature of stumbling upon horrifying sea creatures in dark, isolating ocean depths.
Dear Villagers and Drop Rate Studio's DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain is far more aligned with the latter's characterization of the ocean, resulting in one of the most intense, bloodcurdling, and stress-inducing horror experiences I've played all year.
An Ocean of Black Rain
One of the most famous and greatest writers to depict the ocean in a horrifying manner is H. P. Lovecraft and from DIVE or DIE's outset, it's clear that Drop Rate Studio was heavily influenced by Lovecraft's work to make their own Lovecraftian horror game.
DIVE or DIE's story begins in an alternate world where one day a mysterious black rain begins to pour all over the planet, causing all those unlucky to be washed in its waters to inevitably go insane, die, and disappear into seemingly unknown fates while those who evaded the rain's touch were forced to flee their homes as sea levels rapidly increased, flooding most of the world to the point that mountaintops became the last few islands of dry land.
Years later, DIVE or DIE properly begins as players are told about the modern state of the world and guided by a mentally unstable man called Old Jack, the only living resident of the game's mountaintop island.
As a roguelite game mixed with metroidvania, survival horror, and city sim elements, DIVE or DIVE doesn't have a definitive protagonist like other titles, with players instead being able to manage the island and recruit survivors who can then be tasked to man certain occupations or go diving in the treacherous Abyssal Pool.
While some of these survivors do expand upon DIVE or DIE's world a bit, most of the game's story will be told by Old Jack as they progress through the game, discovering collectible journal pages, or simply by environmental storytelling that players will encounter as they explore the Abyssal Pool.
It's this environmental storytelling where DIVE or DIE truly shines narratively speaking, as each underwater biome is completely distinct from one another, each featuring their own types of monstrous sea creatures, obstacles, and ruins to discover that increasingly paint the horrifying picture of what became of the world after the Lovecraftian rain enveloped the planet.
DIVE or DIE features a perfect blend of wonder and horror, as I was always excited to explore a new underwater biome only to immediately leave the new area almost every time after encountering new monstrous forms of sea creatures that seemed to be ripped right out of everyone's underwater nightmares.
The Risks of Perilous Dives
In terms of gameplay, DIVE or DIE can be split between managing the island and diving into the Abyssal Pool, with the latter of which being the most fun on the surface, but both gameplay aspects featuring their own form of stressful scenarios.
At first, DIVE or DIE only features one survivor, Joe Saltman, and players will need to explore the Abyssal Pool to gather resources in order to build up the island and recruit more survivors. However, time is always of the essence, as DIVE or DIE features a base 40-in-game day time limit before another flood is bound to envelope the entire world once and for all, with each dive into the Abyssal Pool taking place during an entire day.
DIVE or DIE features a perfect blend of wonder and horror.
This means players will quickly master time management, and it may take multiple runs through DIVE or DIE to master that ability, as each structure on the island requires specific resources to be upgraded and grant players access to better equipment and actions to improve the island and gain access to more areas of the Abyssal Pool.
For example, after players have progressed through the game a bit, people will need to collect several blessed items, such as blessed iron ore and blessed aluminum to upgrade tools and structures necessary to progress through the game, but players can only access these items if they dive during a Gazing Moon, causing deadly moonbeams to tear through the pool, killing most enemies or blessing floating items if they're in the moonbeams' path, or if they sacrifice some survivors in biomes that will cause most items in the vicinity to become blessed.
It's these kinds of scenarios that make DIVE or DIE particularly tense, as players will have to choose to either risk sacrificing a skilled survivor to permanently bless an area or simply have faith in RNG that Gazing Moons will appear soon in the following days to get those precious resources.
After each day passes, survivors will gain experience based on whether they participated in a dive, manned a structure, or took part in an expedition to collect supplementary resources, with each survivor having their own randomized name, base stats, and abilities that can be improved upon at each level up.
One survivor may have a passion for fishing, for instance, and be better suited to manning the Fishing Hut instead of going on dives or manning the workshop. Meanwhile, another survivor may be specifically trained to go on dives, with points going towards improving their health, oxygen, and carrying capacity stats, while traits and skills are selected to improve their swim speed or damage output instead of improving their management skills at Town Hall.
However, players shouldn't put all their faith in one survivor, as they can easily drown or get killed by a monstrous sea creature if players swim too deep or explore a new biome ill-prepared. This happened to me on my first playthrough with a survivor called Quentin Drift, who managed to survive dives for 29 days before I mistakenly had him explore a new biome only for him to quickly get swallowed whole by a Lovecraftian leviathan.
Despite these characters not having any speaking lines or audio, you can quickly get attached to them as I genuinely felt frustrated and sad over Drift's death, causing me to scramble and train another survivor to replace him and attempt to recover his lost resources.
Nature of the Abyssal Pool
While DIVE or DIE may not feature voiced lines aside from Old Jack's cryptic guides and narration, it features a subtle but highly immersive soundtrack and audio design that elevates the terror of diving the Abyssal Pool.
Some biomes near the surface are relatively quiet, but as you dive deeper and find more out of the world areas, new spine-tingling sounds will appear, whether they be low-thump-like background sounds or the screeches of creatures who haven't appeared on-screen yet but already have you in their sights.
This can be especially heard in dangerous areas like the Western Stalker Well and the Eastern Farmlands, with the latter being home to one of the scariest, invincible creatures in the game: the spider-like It That Crawls, whose shrieks will certainly be heard in players' nightmares.
Speaking of these areas, DIVE or DIE is as visually intriguing as its world is haunting despite being a 2D game, with each biome featuring distinct caverns and ruins that showcase not only how the world has changed to become gross homes of monstrous Lovecraftian sea creatures and illustrating how the world fell apart with the corpses of people still floating in sunken ruins and public places now being underwater haunted mansions.
DIVE or DIE is as visually intriguing as its world is haunting.
My only fault with the game is that it doesn't have much replay value aside from trying to get every ending and playing through each difficulty setting, as not much changes between playthroughs aside from which survivor means each building and which survivor completes most dives. I could see this game becoming very popular among speedrunners though, as, once you complete DIVE or DIE, it can be fairly easy to quickly complete the game knowing where every collectible and critical resource item is.
Closing Comments
DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain may not have an overly complex story or complicated gameplay routine, but it doesn't need those features as it more than makes up for it with its enthralling, haunting, underwater atmosphere and gameplay loop that will constantly have players diving again and again as they attempt to find every biome and collectible. It's a great 2D survival horror game to play, especially during a thunderstorm like I did, and for Drop Rate Studio's second game developed, it's a very impressive feat despite its few shortcomings.
