Surviving The Great Blue In ‘Under The Ocean’ With Paul Greasley

Attending to survival gameplay in a very unique way, Under The Garden became a notorious freeware gem when it was released back in 2010. Chopping down trees, shooting bears and making shelter kept this player occupied in a delightfully delivered effort from Paul Greasley. If you never got around to playing Under The Garden, then make sure you do – you can download Under The Garden for free from this link.

There were plenty of bugs to flatten out and a few other slights that Paul had to sort out upon the release of Under The Garden and so he learned many things during the process. He’s now in development of the sequel to Under The Garden which takes on a completely new location which comes with new challenges. Under The Ocean also marks a shift into 3D for Paul, no doubt bringing a whole load of other issues as well as making the game look very crisp.

We spoke with Paul about Under The Ocean now that it is available to pre-order to find out why you should be interested in this brilliant looking title.

IGM: What are the lessons you learned from developing Under The Garden which you will be taking over to Under The Ocean?

PG: Honestly I try to think more in terms of where the game feels like it needs to go as a whole, rather than trying to dissect what worked and what didn’t. I want to capture the feeling of survival from the first, on a much more detailed level, to explore what it feels like to be stranded all alone on a island with no escape, and do it better than any game has before. Everything else flows from there, warts and all.

IGM: You’re working with Mike Reitzenstein this time around, what does he bring to the game?

PG: He’s the code pimp of the team, basically ‘all that’ with programming, and all round awesome guy. Mike and I worked on games such as Black Market and Super Goblin War Machine together in the past and we just work well together, and most of the time have the same vision for a project.

IGM Why the switch to 3D? What kinds of challenges is that bringing?

PG: This is mostly a technical choice to have a much more detailed item system, otherwise the second outing would still be 2D. The challenges for me as the artist is keeping some of that 2D charm still the game even with the 3D graphics, the other thing is learning new tools and brushing up on my 3D modeling again.

IGM: Most significant is the change in location in Under The Ocean, what major changes does this bring in terms of gameplay and aesthetics?

PG: Moving away from the frozen woodland this time will make it a much more forgiving game as the player wont be constantly pushing through snow and losing stamina, and generally freezing out in the cold, it will have its own series of unique problems. We are going to focus much more this time on the item system, a lot of the challenges will be things like building rafts to visit other islands, constructing tools from an array of different objects. In general it’s a much more focused outing in every aspect, with the item system being the star of the show this time. That being said we aren’t straying too far, this game will have all the things that made the first fun, just in a different mold.

IGM: You have said you are focusing more on survival this time around, why is that and how are you going about it?

PG: I never thought you would ask! This is where the game is really going to shine, I think we can push it a step further than most games similar in the indie space. As I mentioned earlier items are our major focus, and everything is broken down to the smallest levels, lets do some examples, I love examples.

So in the original to lumber a tree and light a fire, you would simply select your preset axe box, and attack a tree, collect the wood, and then dump it on a preset fire location. Pretty standard deal really, you have seen this sort of system in most games with a crafting system.

Now in Under the Ocean, you must construct a axe from some low hanging branches and some scavenged sharp rock, combine them together in our item editor, then you need to find some flint or use wood to create a spark for the fire. So now it’s wood collecting time, we go over to a palm tree and cut its ass down, then we are going to be pulling off its leaves and drying them in the sun to use as kindling, as wet branches wont ignite, as using logs with your spark wont create a fire. So we use our spark on the dried out leaves to get a small fire going, then slowly drop the lumbered wood on the fire to increase it to full size. Now if the player is smart they would have done this somewhere protected from weather, because the elements will be doing there best to put your fire out. And its this sort of focus on detail that will make this a refreshing and detailed experience for the player, all the items throughout the game share this sort of level of detail.

IGM: Is Under The Ocean going to have any semblances of a story, or will the only guidance be a tutorial?

PG: The game will start as the player is washed to shore on one of the islands in the game, I think its more important that the player fills in what and why it happened for themself.

IGM: Any chance of multiplayer?

PG: Not on this budget! Maybe sometime in future when and if we have more funds.

IGM: Do you have any confirmed release information as of yet? Platforms, date, price?

PG: Release date will be in around 3 months for PC and Mac, we will be constantly updating this one for some time though, we actually are doing pre-orders right now at 50 percent off the full game. Anyone that helps us out now gets their name in the credits and a handwritten letter from me thanking you for your support to make this game a reality. Oh, and access to early builds of the game! The details are on www.underthegarden.com.

If you guys have any further questions or are just interested in whats happening next hit me up at a href=”mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] or @Farmergnome on Twitter, I post most of my links and such at farmergnome.blogspot.com, say hello sometime! You can follow Mike on Twitter as @reitzen.

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So there we have it! You can find out more information on Under The Ocean over on the official website. That is also where you can pre-order the game as well, like Paul said. Currently there are two payment options:

The Pretty Cool Silver Bear Edition gives you access to the alpha and beta builds for half price ($5).

While The Super Golden Bear Edition bags you the above as well as a thank you in the credits of the game, and a personal email from the developers thanking you ever so much for your $25 support!

All of the money will go towards the development of the game, so if you care about or simply like to look of Under The Ocean make sure to put your money where your mouth is!