Hello. I'm Ferruccio Cinquemani, game designer on There's Nothing Underground
We have been working on this game for a while so I thought it could be interesting to write a bit how we got to what you see in the trailer
The initial concept came from an amalgamation of many different ideas and many different games, including some that I personally worked on. Most of all, I became very fascinated by the idea of having puzzles without a set solution. Games like The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom managed to create a beautiful balance between clever puzzles and players freedom and I wanted to explore that concept even more. I love the freedom typical of sandbox games but I love it even more when that freedom is mixed with the parts I like the most in linear games - some narrative, clear objectives etc. With time, I even started to think about how the roguelike structure of many games I like currently could be applied to such a concept. But that came a bit later.
The general concept, though, has been there from the very beginning, with a little character navigating 2D levels and using random gadgets to reach some idols to pick up, destroy, or move to another part of the level, in the most dynamic way possible. Even visually, the very first sketch I drew about the main character already shows pretty much the same vibe as the final one
The paper origin...
And the final(?) form:
While working on the prototype, I started to wonder who this character is and what's his objective. Slowly, and quite organically, the general setting emerged. I won't get too much into spoilers, but I was fascinated by the idea of an underground that is down and up at the same time; almost in space but not quite - hence the hovering asteroid. But there will be time to get more into it.
The gameplay took shape quite quickly. Even in this screenshot from the prototype, it's easy to see the general structure of the game as quite similar to what it is today
For comparison, this is the same level as it looks today - all thanks to our wonderful artist Zixuan.
My hope is to write regularly about more infos about the game, so if that sounds interesting please follow, wishlist etc. etc.
Till the next time!