After two long years, Depths of Sanity is out now on Nintendo Switch!
If you missed it, check out the launch trailer here!

If you've been waiting for this release, thank you for keeping track of us over the years, and we hope you have a blast playing through it.

And if it's the first time you’ve heard of us? No problem.

In Depths of Sanity, you play as Abe Douglas, a naval commander tracking down the Baroness, a submarine staffed by his old crew that went dark while investigating a mysterious signal at the bottom of the ocean. You’ll utilize unique tools like sonar, diver suits, and tow lines to explore massive underwater biomes, battle monstrous bosses, and uncover a mystery that not only threatens your crew, but your own sanity.

If that sounds like just the game you’re looking for, take the plunge and grab your copy here at our launch discount!

And if you’ve finished the game and enjoyed it, please leave us a review here or on Switch and tell your friends about it! This has been a labor of love to get this done, and we're incredibly proud of the PC reception of the game, and to finally have it hit consoles.

Thank you for all of your support!
Bomb Shelter Games

It’s been a long, LONG time since we last spoke. Apologies for the radio silence, but our team has been heads down and we didn’t want to reach out until we had big news.

And now we do: Depths of Sanity launches on Nintendo Switch on August 29th!

If you’re someone who has been following us and waiting for that version, check out the launch page and wishlist it here. We’ll be running a launch discount on Switch, so definitely wishlist and grab it the first week it goes on sale.

Thank you for all of your support, and please tell your friends! It means a lot for us to finally have Depths of Sanity hit consoles, and it took WAY longer than we anticipated to make it happen (babies, ya’ll, they ain’t a joke).

We’ll be in touch with a little more info as we approach launch week.

Thank you,
Bomb Shelter Games

Hey Everyone,

We wanted to give ya'll a quick update since it's been a few months since the last notes.

1. The Xbox version nearly complete, and we're hoping to submit for approval soon. Switch version will likely take a month or two longer, we're having to do a lot of work on Biome 3 to make it run well on the machine (surprised us too).
2. Keep sending feedback -- we'll be pushing through another patch after the Xbox version goes out for submission. We've been a little slower on that front because...
3. One of our team members welcomed a new baby in the last few months, bringing the official Depths of Sanity baby count to 4, where it will hopefully remain lol.

Hope to have some larger updates on the ports soon, but to everyone whose been submitting feedback and reviews, thank you. It's been a major help in getting the game discovered and making it the best version it can be.

-BSG

Hey all!

We're hard at working porting this fella to Xbox and Switch, so not a ton of Steam updates, just some bug fixes.

1. Shout out to user Paradox for being too good at the end boss fight to cause a soft lock. Turns out if you killed one of the pieces within three seconds of killing another, the fight would soft lock. So that's fixed!
   
2. And we forgot to include a piece of key art in the bad ending! Our bad (get it?). You may have noticed a flash to white at the end of the bad ending cutscene. That was supposed to be some sweet art piece that our artist whipped up. It is now in! You can view it below. But be warned. It's a huge spoiler.

SUUUUUPER SPOILER WARNING. 100% don't look at the spoiler image below if you have not beaten the game with the bad ending.



Thanks so much for playing and please send along any feedback you have. And if you haven't left a review, I will love you forever if you do.

All the best,

BSG

Hey all!

Back again this week with some bug fixes. This was a nasty one. Shout out to JubeJube1 for finding it. Turns out, if you missed the armor hull in the second world, then got the depth hull (or heat hull) then returned and got the armor hull later, it would override your better hull with the inferior armor hull. That meant you could no longer go to lower depths or withstand high heat at the end game, essentially blocking all progress. Sooooo, that had to get fixed.

Thanks again, and please let us know if anything else pops up. We'll fix 'em as fast as you find 'em.

BSG

Happy holidays!

Quick update this week. We've improved Depths' input detection. Some users were reporting problems with the game detecting their gamepad, this is now addressed. Input should now work for the most commonly used controllers (Xbox, PS4, PS5, etc.). Input will now also work if you have multiple controllers plugged in at the same time. Hell, if you want to have two people fight to steer the ship at the same time, you can do that. If you want one person to operate the guns while the other steers, you can do that too.

If you do still run into any problems, just let us know and and please note what controller you are using and the specific problems you are having. While we work on fixing your specific problem, the keyboard and mouse controls will work perfectly. Many players actually prefer that layout due to the better aiming it allows.

As a reminder, at any time you can hit the F5 key and it will switch the key from autodetecting input, to hardcoding it to keyboard. Hitting it again will hard code it to Controller. A third time will bring it back to auto detect.


Thanks all! See you next year,

BSG

Hi all,

Thanks so much for playing Depths of Sanity and offering your feedback! We read everything you write and are always working hard to improve everything that we can. So that said, our first update is a few bug fixes that the community has found as well as some small balancing tweaks.

Bugs:

• Fixed a typo in one of the crew logs
  
• Fixed an issue in the Barrier Reef where if you opened a puzzle door, then left the room, then reentered, the door's collision would be out of sync with the art.
  
• In the Stem, the player can no longer get stuck behind a fast dash door if they shoot the opening switch before the door closes.
  
• Fixed an issue where some players reported losing the heat hull after defeating leviathan.
  
• Fixed an issue where some players were instantly exploding due to one of their save files being corrupted.
  
• Fixed a bug where if you stunned the final boss while it had retreated into the background, it would cause a soft lock. The stun will no longer effect the boss if it has retreated, so time those shots well!

Balance/Gameplay changes:

• The secret weapon piece in Whale Fall has been relocated to make it easier to discover.
  
• The cuttlefish enemy now stuns less frequently, reducing the chance of getting stun locked.
  
• Menus and HUD have been updated to work with the steam deck. Depths runs great on the deck! We're working on getting that verified badge soon.

Thanks again! And if you have any more bugs/feedback to report, just send them our way. Feel free to comment on this thread or to start a new one. Here is a list of what we are working on next:

Our next priorities:

• Improving the controller detection - We are getting reports that some folk's controllers are not being detected properly. This is our top priority
  
• Screen shake adjustments - The camera currently stops tracking when it shakes. This can get real annoying in the Tectonic Rift.
  
• Playtime tracking inaccuracy - It seems that the playtime tracker works great until you beat the game, then it breaks and may grant the speed running achievement even if you didn't get it. We're on it.
  
• Smart health drops - Got some feedback that it is a bummer that enemies drop torpedos/depth charges when the player has a full inventory. Same with health. We're hoping to add a dynamic system where enemies only drop things that you need.

Happy hunting,

Your friends at Bomb Shelter Games.

After six long years, the day is finally here: Our underwater metroidvania Depths of Sanity is out now on PC! Check out the launch trailer here:


If you’ve been following along waiting for the official release, now is the time to dive-in. And don’t just take our word for it — check out these Early Access reviews from several customers to get an idea of what you’re in for:

“Depths of Sanity is a bewitching Metroidvania that should take you between 10–15 hours to complete if you want to discover everything…all in all, this game is a hearty recommendation from me to any fans of this type of throwback game. Depths is best in class and I’m surprised that it’s not more talked about.” — The Beak

“When I started Chapter 4, I couldn’t put the game down…as my descent continued, I encountered increasingly sprawling environments, fun upgrades (the booster especially) and a few genuinely disturbing moments, one of which made me sit up straight in my chair and stare at the screen.” — Captain Chaos

First time you’ve heard of us? No problem. Depths of Sanity is an underwater metroidvania nightmare. You play as Abe Douglas, a Commander in the G.O.A.A. tracking down the Baroness, a submarine staffed by his old crew that went dark while investigating a mysterious signal at the bottom of the ocean.



The entire game takes place under the sea, flipping a lot of the usual metroidvania mechanics on their head. There are no double jumps to save you here. Instead, you’ll use unique tools like diver suits to squeeze through tight areas, sonar to guide you through pure blackness, and tow lines to yank you through heavy currents, and, if you’re feeling frisky, send yourself flying into your enemies—all while battling monstrous bosses and uncovering a mystery that threatens not only your crew, but your own sanity.



If that sounds like just the game you’re looking for, take the plunge and grab your copy here! After our launch discount of $13.50, the price of the game is going up to $19.99 now that we're out of Early Access, so don't miss your chance to get the full experience at the cheapest price for a while!

And if you’re one of the people who has played with us through Early Access…thank you. Seriously, thank you so much. We literally would not have gotten to this huge milestone without your feedback helping to shape this into the experience it is now.

If you’ve finished the game and enjoyed it, please leave us a review and tell your friends about it! Each review is incredibly helpful and motivating for us.

The rest of the team is going to take a much needed break to sit back and enjoy launch day.

Thank you for playing,

The Bomb Shelter Games Team

Well, to be honest, that’s an incredibly broad question, and the answer can vary heavily depending on the genre you’re working in. However, after completing my first indie game — Depths of Sanity, a 12–15 hour metroidvania nightmare set entirely at the bottom of the ocean that releases this Halloween — I think I have at least a few guidelines that can help all of you starting the journey to get your story into shape.

A bit of background so you know where I’m coming from: I was brought onto the team about two years into the game’s development, after all the basic mechanics were established as well as the general level flow and initial premise. I’d written a lot of other work, but this was my first videogame.

Here was the basic pitch I was given:
You are Commander Abe Douglas of the G.O.A.A. (Global Oceanic and Atmospheric Association). A few weeks ago, every oceanic base picked up a massive vibration at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. A crew was dispatched to investigate the signal, but they went dark a week ago. As the commander who assembled the crew, you take it upon yourself to bring them home and find out what’s going on.

And then…that was it. After the intro, there really wasn’t much story established. My job was to figure out what was actually going to happen over the whole adventure while utilizing the pieces that already existed.

Here are three things that helped me build from that pitch to a full game:



Moreseo than most mediums, how you tell the story in a videogame is just as important as the story itself.

Every game has a different level of fidelity and narrative tools to accomplish this, but generally, when you’re talking about an indie, voice acting is a luxury you will not have. For many of you, that means your story will be entirely conveyed through written text and art.

This begs the question: How much is too much reading to force on a player?

While this depends a bit on the type of game, for me, far too many indie games just shove reams of text down your throat. In 1997, I had no problems with this, but in the year 2022, I can’t stand it. To reign yourself in, I think you need to keep this motto in mind:

You need to EARN THE RIGHT to stop the player in their tracks.
If you use this as your guidepost, you will naturally make story choices that prioritize and respect the player experience, only stopping the player when you TRULY need them to witness something that can’t be shown any other way.

Here’s how that works in practice: Depths of Sanity opens with a short action scene taking place late in the game. When the player finishes the area, we jump back to the beginning of the game and have a 2–3 minute cutscene with a psychiatrist establishing what is going on now that we’ve peaked their interest.



Then we let the player loose, and for the first several hours of the game, all story moments are “player directed” through optional areas the player chooses to explore, notes they choose to read (below, left) , and audio logs they choose to pick up (below, right). Notes would slot into the player's inventory to be read when they saw fit, and audio logs would trigger an immediate cutscene. Either way, the player opted for when they wanted to engage with the story.



Choice was the key. Script-wise, there is actually quite a lot of text in the first third of the game, but because the player decides when to engage with most of it, it doesn’t feel that way. With the exception of end-of-area cutscenes, you’re generally choosing when to engage with the plot, and this makes all the difference in the world. The same amount of story given in a non-optional way would DRAG the pace to a crawl, and I want the player to be intrigued enough on their own to delve deeper.



Of course, that means the first few things a player can choose to pick up better be GOOD (and this is something I agonized over) but that’s at least a more controllable problem for yourself.

Point blank: I would not have been able to write Depths of Sanity without doing this first.

Game development is constantly shifting, and the story is no different. Because of that, writing a video game is like constructing a Jenga tower: some pieces of the story can be moved around as necessary without affecting the overall structure, and some blocks, if shifted, will entirely collapse the story.

That’s why your first job is to figure out just what those immovable blocks are.
Because Depths of Sanity is a metroidvania, the majority of the initial work was around figuring out what story elements would be mainline — i.e., every player will need to see/experience them to get a complete experience — and those that would be optional, and structured for players who explore the game more deeply.

To do this, I took the initial two page treatment I wrote (I wound up writing several at first, each going in broadly different directions, to give the team different ideas of where we could take the story with the elements that already existed), and expanded it to ten pages, telling every facet of the story that I could. I then went through and highlighted what I considered the main plot beats, and built the main story script out of those.

These were the scenes that couldn’t be moved.

Once those were locked, the VAST majority of my writing time went into optional story content that would enrich the main beats. I wound up structuring much of the story around each member of the crew, and because so much of the game would be told through text/audio logs, I purposefully wrote things that could be viewed out-of-order and out-of-context.

This was probably the best decision I made, because I could move these moments around as the game changed without having to worry about losing critical plot information. Below you can get a glimpse of the horror that was the narrative organizer, which kept track of the movement of notes, audio logs, and more.



This is one of the toughest things to do in development — particularly on a small team where you will also likely be helping to test large sections of the game — but I think it’s important that once a major area is done (or even the whole game) that you take the time to play it casually, approaching it like a regular player would, without the stress of deadlines or bug squashing getting to you.

After we finished our Early Access build of Depths of Sanity, I took time to play through the entire 15-hour adventure over the course of 3 weeks, every other day or so, like I would any other game.

Why? Because it’s easier to find holes in the story, or issues you might not have noticed when you just had to slam through it.

For example, say you foreshadow a late-game event very early in the adventure — can you expect the player, who may have seen the set-up two weeks ago, to remember it? Lots of story elements got tweaked or expanded once I played through sections at a slower rate and I realized that players going through the game leisurely might not be able to keep track of details that were important, or might find too little story between certain beats.



Obviously, you won’t be able to do this all the time, but you should make an effort to do this as much as possible. It strengthened the writing from the game overall, and particularly if you’re just dealing with text, editing dialogue and scenes is a much simpler process than if you have the stress of voice acting. Use this limitation to your advantage when it comes time to polish.

I’ll be following this up with a deeper dive (filled with spoilers) in a few months on how to handle your game’s big moments, but I figured this was a good primer for some of you that might need a bit more direction on how to tackle the plotting of your game.

If this was helpful or if you have your own experiences to share on your game’s development, drop them below! And go ahead and check out more of Depths of Sanity here.
-Nick

Bomb Shelter Games Team

Hey Everyone,

Some big updates this week!

First of all, Early Access is coming to a close: Depths of Sanity will officially launch on PC on November 2nd!

We’re incredibly pumped to finally launch the full game. It’s been two years in Early Access at this point, and your feedback has helped us IMMENSELY in shaping the experience for the better.

That said, this will be the last blog highlighting build improvements - as we near the launch, we’ll just be talking about the game in its entirety and aiming to explain it to players who have only just heard of us.

That said, here are a couple of the things you can expect when the game fully launches if you’ve been playing along with us:

Gameplay Enhancements:

• Equipment Scanner: This is a new tool you can find late in the game that shows what hidden unlocks are still located in each level to help out those of you trying to 100% the experience.
  
• Navigation Drone: Some of you may have discovered the combat drone late in the game. We’ve expanded on it and actually made it the third upgrade you get to your scuba gear. Now, instead of bigger oxygen tanks, you can control a drone for the later diver sections and add combat abilities to it for those of you who thoroughly explore.
  
• Puzzle Expansions: Several of the game’s puzzles, particularly in the final area, have been altered to provide a better experience, and several more have been added to optional areas.
  
• Re-arranged Unlocks: We’ve altered the flow of the game so that the most difficult optional sections reward you with greater upgrades (i.e. hull upgrades over depth charges).

Art Overhauls

• Level Assets: We’ve overhauled the game’s art in several respects to bring it all up to the same level and better tie everything together. You’ll notice changes from the tutorial onward, but much of these art updates deal with Biome 2 and 6.
  
• Enhanced Cutscenes: Some of the bigger cutscenes of the game now have more animation than previously to better sell some moments.

Quality of Life Improvements:

• Enhanced Saving: Your savegame will not only track playtime but also the equipment you’ve unlocked, the biomes you’ve seen, and more. Hopefully this will make measuring your progress a bit simpler.
  
• Music/FX Overhaul: Several sound fx and musical tracks have been added/reworked to better fit into the game.

Minigames:

• We’ll keep this vague, but those who finish the game with the good ending will see a new minigame on the main menu for your efforts. Just a little bit of fun from the dev team :)

We hope you enjoy all these changes when the game launches Oct 31st!

And if you’ve played the game in Early Access and haven’t left a review, please do it! It helps us immensely, and as we gear up for full launch, having several great reviews on our page makes it way more likely that people will take a chance on a small game like ours.

When we exit Early Access, the price will rise to $19.99, so if you know anyone who has been on the fence, let them know that these are the last months you can still get the game at $14.99.

Thank you all so much, and we’ll be in touch soon.

-The Bomb Shelter Games Team