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Everdeep Aurora – Review

Retro-inspired indie games aren’t exactly new, but we’ve noticed an increase in games that directly take cues from the Game Boy. There’s Kudzu’s green-tinted aesthetic, for example, and Saga of the Moon Priestess’ legally distinct GBC Zelda-style aesthetic. The subject of today’s review, Everdeep Aurora, has also hopped on that very specific bandwagon when it comes to its visuals, but unlike the aforementioned examples, it tries to do something different and original when it comes to its gameplay. Having spent some time in the titular Everdeep, we’re ready to answer the question of whether Everdeep Aurora should have remained underground or if it is the cat’s meow. Story The overarching story of Everdeep Aurora revolves around Shell, a small kitten who wakes up alone on a rainy night. Her mother is missing and has left only a note saying to meet her at “the usual place.” Above ground, meteors are destroying the surface, forcing everyone to flee underground. Fortunately for Shell, a helpful frog named Ribbert gives the kitten a drill and encourages her to go below ground to search for her mother. This sets off a descent into the Everdeep, a mysterious underground world populated with all sorts of curious inhabitants, each with their own stories. The relatively simple overarching premise of Shell looking for her mother gives Everdeep Aurora ample room for these smaller stories to shine. There are multiple endings here, and which ending you get depends on Shell’s path and interactions with the various NPCs. Even so, the story focuses more on conveying emotions and a sense of melancholy rather than offering lots of exposition and overtly spelling things out. Despite the apocalyptic setting, there’s warmth in the interactions and tone, and you get the feeling that Shell’s choices help influence the world and other characters’ lives. Graphics With a limited color palette and simple but gorgeous pixel art, Everdeep Aurora’s visuals resemble those of a Game Boy Color game. Within the limitations of this chosen aesthetic, Everdeep Aurora is a fantastic-looking little title. The charming character designs stand out. Their sprites may be tiny, but they pack a ton of expressiveness. Shell, in particular, is one of the most endearing and cute characters we’ve ever seen rendered with so few pixels. Everdeep Aurora makes use of text effects to further underline emotions, to good effect. Shell’s surroundings are varied as well, ranging from ruins to speakeasies and even flower gardens, although most of the environmental changes are communicated through palette changes rather than drastically different background details. The game’s UI is clean and minimalistic, matching the GBC-style visuals. In terms of visual performance, Everdeep Aurora generally delivers a polished and smooth experience, although there were occasional minor instances of frame stuttering, particularly during screen scrolling. Sound The minimalistic retro approach seen with Everdeep Aurora’s visuals is also applied to the game’s audio design. As we mentioned earlier, conveying emotions is something that is important in Everdeep Aurora. The game is very effective at this too, despite the absence of voice acting -with the notable exception of Shell’s “meows”. Music is used to reinforce the emotional tone of story beats and the different environments. The soundtrack is varied, offering everything from haunting piano themes to whimsical tunes, but it never fully takes up center stage. Instead, the music is used in a deliberately quiet and understated way, aiming to emphasize emotions rather than overtake them. Sound effects are also used to great effect, both when it comes to environmental ambience, like dripping water and cave echoes, and more active elements, like Shell’s drill. Gameplay Despite its apocalyptic setting, Everdeep Aurora’s blend of platforming, light puzzle-solving, and exploration offers a cozy gameplay experience, wrapped in a melancholic tone. The main goal of Everdeep Aurora is to reunite Shell with her mother, but we’d argue that the true purpose of the game is one of exploration and narrative discovery. Shell starts at the world’s surface with a basic drill and must slowly work her way down through the soil. As she digs, she encounters different obstacles, quirky characters, and new areas. The world is densely packed with secrets, optional stories, and hidden rooms. You must carve your own path in the Everdeep, and pretty much every encounter is optional -and missable- so exploration is key to getting the most out of your adventure. Shell’s drill runs on Duracite energy and needs to be recharged at scattered refueling stations. Should it run out of power mid-exploration, it’ll still work but significantly slower. As you explore the Everdeep, you’ll find upgrades for Shell’s drill as well as new abilities for the kitten herself, like propulsion boosts or wall jumping. These upgrades and abilities open up the Everdeep further, allowing Shell to get to previously unreachable areas. In this way, Everdeep Aurora feels a bit like a Metroidvania. We should point out that there is no combat in the game whatsoever, though. Instead, the focus remains on discovery and interacting with other characters. The core gameplay loop of exploring and drilling is further broken up by a variety of optional mini-games, including fishing, a claw machine, and even a dice game that you play against a deceptive cobra. While we can only laud Everdeep Aurora’s focus on exploration and the freedom that comes with it, there are some areas where the game misses the mark, unfortunately. There is no quest log, for starters, so keeping track of NPC requests and locations is tricky. Likewise, the in-game map is very basic, and locations often look similar to one another, making it difficult to stay oriented. It’s possible to get stuck, although if this happens, you can ask Ribbert to teleport you to a campsite. Campsites are far and few between though, and are the only places you can save your game at. With no fast travel implemented and the aforementioned orientation difficulties, navigating the Everdeep can be a chore, resulting in an unnecessary amount of backtracking. Add to this that Everdeep Aurora doesn’t have a tutorial either, and you’re left with a game that perhaps should’ve sacrificed some of that freedom for more guidance. Everdeep Aurora isn’t a very long game, clocking in at roughly 4-6 hours for a single playthrough, but the different endings make it worth replaying. Subsequent runs are also significantly easier as you’ve familiarized yourself with the world and its inhabitants by then. This is the quintessential example of a game that becomes more enjoyable as you replay it. The replayability doesn’t just mitigate Everdeep Aurora’s short runtime, but it also helps with justifying the €19.99 price tag as a result. Conclusion While Everdeep Aurora could do with some more fine-tuning when it comes to its gameplay, the game more than makes up for this through sheer charm. The world itself is a joy to explore, thanks to its quirky inhabitants. The retro GBC-inspired visuals and understated soundscape make for a game that feels equally nostalgic and emotionally resonant. Getting started with this adventure is rough, as navigating the Everdeep is needlessly convoluted. The lack of a tutorial doesn’t help either. Persist, however, and you’ve got a wonderful little adventure ahead of you, one worth revisiting over and over, if only because of how adorable its kitten protagonist is.