Deep Under The Sky (PC) Review

Just why is the dark side of Venus glowing?  I blame the jellyfish.

 

It turns out that, the dark side of Venus is glowing because there’s a whole world of bioluminescent creatures living there.  Or at least, that is what the developers of ‘Deep Under The Sky’, a game centred around a Venusian jellyfish, would have you believe.

Deep Under The Sky is a game by Rich Edwards (developer of Pineapple Smash Crew) and Colin Northway (creator of Incredipede), and you are a giant jellyfish, and your aim is to launch packets of seed across the landscape to cause pollination and new jellyfish to appear.  Also, dotted around the level, are a couple of stars you can collect if you wish, although there isn’t really a reason to collect them, other than for the sake of completion.

The controls are extremely simplistic, in that you only ever need the Space bar to play.  You will be given a sequence of abilities to use, each requiring you to press Space to activate.  The final action will be to explode and send pollen everywhere, at which point you will be sent back to the start to launch another seed.  And so you continue until you’ve pollinated everything in the level. Some abilities will require you to press the bar, and some to hold it down, but there’s a variety of abilities that are introduced as you make your way through the game, keeping things interesting, and there are bounce pads that launch you in different directions also.

One problem I have with the game is that there is a lot of trial and error to getting the levels cleared.  Some of the levels are large and, while there are arrows indicating where you need to pollinate, you can’t zoom out to see exactly where everything is to help you plan things better.  There are a lot of tight paths in later levels, and the ability to be able to plan in advance would be helpful in order to get through quicker.  There’s no lives limit, though.  What is helpful is that your previous path is mapped out on the screen, complete with indicators of where you hit the Space bar, so you can tighten things up if you have a near miss.

Deep Under The Sky has an interesting, striking look to it.  Kind of like a deep space coral reef.  Little tendrils pop out from the surface of the levels, and there’s a lot of glowing creatures around.  One criticism I have with the look is that, in each world, things don’t really look much different level to level, and there are a large amount of levels in each world.  But it still looks good. The entire game is all set to a calming, ambient soundtrack which really fits in with the relaxed vibe of the game.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Deep Under The Sky is a relaxing, zen like puzzler with extremely pretty visuals and a beautiful, zen-like soundtrack.  There’s plenty of levels for you to go through and, even when you’re done, there’s an incentive to go back and beat your times, as well as collect the stars.  The stars may not actually do anything, and the inability to zoom out make later levels slow going.  But this is an enjoyable, relaxing game and is a great way to kill a few minutes.