Friday Update: What is UNDR[H2O]

Good afternoon Internet Lurkers!

Another Friday is upon us, and thus, another update from your friendly, neighborhood, UNDR[H2O] Devs. We’ve been working on and off on UNDR[H2O] for over four years now (a long time, we know) and through the years, the game has seen quite a few overhauls, gameplay changes, and story beat updates. We’ve been attempting to formulate this grand image in our head of how incredibly awesome we think this game and world can be. Each iteration feels closer and closer to what we’ve wanted to make, and now, with our latest reimagining, we think we’ve struck a chord.

Since July, we’ve been rebuilding the game from the ground up based around this new vision. A vision that changes the shape of the games path, but at the same time, still feels familiar to those who have played our demos over the years. Which brings us to the title of today’s update. What even is UNDR[H2O].

I’ll start by trying to explain it in three GIFs:

Have a better idea now? No? I’ll try putting it differently…

The Story

UNDR[H2O] is an Action-Adventure, Room Defense game, built from the ground up for Virtual Reality. The game takes place in the City of Cloudy Day, where a plumbing disaster which killed thousands of citizens led to the rise of the Plumber Heroes: Five extraordinary superhero plumbers who saved the city and continue to protect it to this day. They do so with the help of Plumber Co. a corporation they founded to help with the difficult task. Our story takes place 13 years after the disaster, where you step into the shoes of Marco, an aspiring teenager whose dream is to become the greatest Plumber Hero the city has seen! There’s just one problem…his late Father was the mastermind behind the great disaster, the most infamous Supervillain the Plumber Heroes ever faced!

Who are the Plumber Heroes? What happen to Marco’s Father? Will Marco be able to overcome his supervillain lineage to become a Plumber Hero?

You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!

The Gameplay

As previously mentioned, UNDR[H2O] is both an Action-Adventure and a Room Defense game. With the help of your AI companions, your own brain and some tools, your job will be to navigate the City of Cloudy Day and start your journey to becoming a Plumber Hero. Our goal is to create as many 1:1 real-world to virtual world mechanics as possible, using the power and new perspectives virtual reality can give, in order to immerse you in this plumbing-centric world. What makes our game different? Instead of your character having the health bar, the room itself is the health bar, and only you can stop it from going down!

UNDR[H2O] will be split into two core paths: Story and Endless.

In Story mode you will follow Marco’s story of wanting to become a Plumber Hero. Traverse the world of Cloudy Day, meet interesting characters, get caught up in a city wide conspiracy and more! You will be traversing from location to location as you learn the basics of becoming a plumber and discover the legacy your Father left behind. Along the way, you’ll have to use your ingenuity and plumbing equipment to keep your head above water and continue forward through the game. You’ll also face off in intense Boss Battles, where not only must you defend the room, but also ward off and dodge incoming attacks.

In Endless mode, you will be able to replay those same levels you encountered along your story journey, but instead of reaching an end, your goal will be to survive as long as possible! Climb the leaderboard, unlock new skins and truly become the greatest plumber to ever play UNDR[H2O].

We’re not quite ready to show off our new rebuild just yet, but I promise you it’s bigger, better, and prettier than anything you’ve seen from us before. So in the meantime, here’s some of the gameplay from our last version of UNDR[H2O] to get a better understanding of how the game works.

Now that you have a better sense of UNDR[H2O], we can start getting into the juicier side of the stories, such as your first AI companion…

Actually, it might be better to not overwhelm you all at once.

Check back next Friday to get a status update on UNDR[H2O] as we work towards our first external demo.

Until next time,

GuessworkVR