- Sub-Verge in Steam's Ocean Fest! - 18 May 2026
Sub-Verge is taking part in Steam's Ocean Fest, which just went live today. To celebrate, we've boshed 50% off the game - it's deepest discount to date - welcoming new players to the dark waters in search of connection and truth. See you in the depths...
- KUU nominated for IndieCade 2025 in Visual Design - 19 December 2025
Some excellent news today! KUU has been chosen as an IndieCade 2025 selection and nominated for their Visual Design Award. There are some great looking games in this year’s line up, and it’s an honor to be included. Thank you IndieCade!
- New free game: BACKPACKWARD - 16 September 2025
We have a new sad story for you. You’ve lost your stupid job at the Jack of All Fruits smoothie bar. Your friends and family have had it with your anger management issues. Your only hope is that your backpack appears to be a portal to medieval times. Play BACKPACKWARD for free as part of the 31st Annual IFComp. There's lots of great interactive fiction this year, and you can cast your vote if you play at least 5. See if you can make life rule again: https://ifcomp.org/ballot#entry-3192
- Performance update - 29 July 2025
Caps frame rate at 60FPS to prevent CPU overuse
- Sub-Verge is Now Available for Mac! - 4 June 2025
Greetings! It's been a month since the release of Sub-Verge, and today we're back with a one-two combo of cool news for you (quite literally, as it goes). Firstly, the Mac version of Sub-Verge is available now. If you've been holding off and waiting for the game to arrive on your preferred OS, then now's the time to jump in. In other news, Sub-Verge - a game designed and developed by New Zealand's Interactive Tragedy - has been selected for Frosty Games Fest, as part of the wider Summer Games Fest moment. Frosty Games Fest is a "a new digital showcase featuring the coolest upcoming and recently released games made in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand!" How to Watch Frosty Games Fest The first ever Frosty Games Fest will broadcast on June 8 AEST (June 7 for our friends in the US). Check the time zones below to find out when you can tune in worldwide: Australia: 9am AEST | 8:30am ACDT |…
- Transmission #6 | Set Afloat - 5 May 2025
Firstly, before we dive into the next Transmission, a huge THANK YOU to everybody that has picked up Sub-Verge so far and supported us with the launch. Sub-Verge is a small game, but the world and lore surrounding it is rich and deep - the game very intentionally leaves space for you to interpret and inject your own ideas and explanations into the gaps in the story. It's been hugely rewarding to see all your responses and reactions to the game so far, and we're looking forward to shining a light on other areas of this world - and the characters within it - as our Transmission series continues. Speaking of which! Be careful what you cling to. We’re now married to the sea. Or buried in the sea. It depends on your point of view. Don’t misunderstand. We love the sea. It’s how we ended up here–we refused to be denied it. But it was never meant to be the only thing we had. There is no leaving…
- Sub-Verge is OUT NOW! - 1 May 2025
Hark! It's the big day! Today, the debut game from both Interactive Tragedy and Pantaloon lands on Steam, launching straight into day one of everybody's favourite narrative games festival: LudoNarraCon. We hope you enjoy the game. It's a labour of love from a team that love stories, and the way only games can deliver certain type of narrative experience. Sub-Verge is a small game, but does big things in the way it combines its story and characters with its puzzle logic. Let us know what you think! The game's story is ripe for discussion and further conversation, so join us in the Steam discussions or over on Discord to delve deeper. Some other exciting bits and pieces relating to the release... Launch Broadcasts! We're really excited to be hosting Raygan and Laura from the Short Game Podcast, for a special LudoNarraCon stream of the game. You can find this on the game's Store page now,…
- Transmission #5 | A New Cast - 30 April 2025
Name: Drint Age: 29 The sea has always been a part of me, from my years as a sub-liner captain to the depths we now call home. When the Surfacers betrayed our trust, it solidified my resolve. The Mind had a vision, a sanctuary beneath the waves, and I, alongside my brother, helped him orchestrate his escape. Our expertise ensured our community could safely settle on the seafloor, but it came at a cost – the loss of my brother. That memory is a wound that never heals. The Mind helped me put that all behind me. That’s why I became a Diver for him. He was the thing that brought life back into me. He said my duty was to carry on where my brother left off, to honor his memory and mission. I thought of him constantly. That made me realize my love for the sea. The Mind had the big ideas, I helped him action them. I will never leave our home now. I am only interested in securing it. His behavio…
- Sub-Verge Now Optimised for Steam Deck! - 25 April 2025
A brief but important note ahead of the release of Sub-Verge in SIX DAYS time (!)... While we've yet to attain the all-important 'verified on Deck' badge (Steam still needs to collect data from players and learn about the game), we've taken great efforts to ensure that Sub-Verge is fully playable with controller, and thus, on Steam Deck, too. The game suits the handheld format well, and plays nice and smoothly on Deck. If this is your preferred way of playing the game come May 1st, then go for it. See you next week for launch - if you haven't already, please wishlist the game, which helps us hugely as we go into launch. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3487020/SubVerge/
- Transmission #4 | Announcing Subtle Mind - 16 April 2025
There’s a backstory. There’s always a backstory. Alongside the news that Sub-Verge has been selected as an official title for LudoNarraCon 2025, we announced that Sub-Verge will be releasing alongside it's own prequel novella; Subtle Mind. If you've not already, you can get an exclusive excerpt from the novella from our newsletter. Today though, we descend further into that backstory, and give you a glimpse at the beginnings of The Mind... "Suddenly, the silent surface of the pool was broken. A green, gelatinous bubble surfaced, glowing from the inside. It slid towards the edge and emerged onto eight spiked crab legs, clicking on the cavern floor. They transported the green bubble they were attached to, like a jellycake, wriggling along on scissor-legs. It was a krake. One or two had ended up in my fishing nets in the past, but always dead, with the jellysac like a tiny limp parachute.…
- Sub-Verge Officially Selected for Ludonarracon 2025! - 15 April 2025
Sometimes, you get picked for the team you really wanted to be on. That wasn’t most of my childhood. I wasn’t one for sports—especially not team sports. Things that transported me to different worlds were always more alluring: like reading and video games. When I was a kid, game guides and issues of Nintendo Power were the few places those things overlapped. But when I finally returned to video games in adulthood, on the lookout for something more literary, I quickly stumbled across LudoNarraCon—a wonderful festival of narrative games and experiments. After following the fest closely for so many years, it’s surreal and thrilling to have Sub-Verge chosen as an official selection. The full line-up is amazing: ludonarracon.com. I almost can’t believe we made the cut. What’s everyone doing after the game? I brought Capri Suns. Actually, what I’m bringing is something a bit different. The st…
- Transmission #3 | Depth of Character - 10 April 2025
"We aren’t rebels, that’s something they don’t understand. We didn’t start the fight. We’re just ourselves. Sea people, fishermen and fisherwomen, humans drawn to the coast, as we’ve always been. To separate us from the waters, the primordial source of all life, is unnatural, wrong, an abomination. The sea isn’t some political cause. It is something we are bonded to, deep in our souls. The sea is where we live now. We can’t tell you exactly where; we can’t tell you exactly how. We have to guard our secrets carefully. The worry that they will come for us never lessens. That they will find us, and try to destroy us. Like they hunted our leader, The Mind. If he hadn’t been clever enough, none of us would have escaped. And now escape is our business. It’s almost routine. Someone comes to the coastal caves. We shelter them, care for them, and prepare them to enter the depths, to adapt to the…
- Transmission #2 | Below the surface - 19 March 2025
"People never belonged by the sea. It has always been our enemy. A harsh, unforgiving, alien world. Deprived of the very things that sustain us: air and light above, solid ground beneath our feet. People drown, people die, they become lost at sea. The sea never loved us. But, until the Krake came, it had never hunted us either. To isolate our city, to create the Surface, was a massive undertaking. It required all our ingenuity, our grit, and the sacrifice of countless lives across decades. Some in the city forget these sacrifices now. But we do not. It is our duty to honor what was built by maintaining the dry floodplain that surrounds and protects us, and keeping the sea far from our walls. When the eternal cloud came, and the first drops of the waterfall-without-end fell, we knew we had been anointed by the sky. Every choice we had made was the right one, and fresh water, unsullied by…
- Welcome to the House of Misfits - 6 March 2025
Hark! It is time we made some noise. The house of misfits is open. Pantaloon is broadening its mission of platforming bold and bizarre games by moving into the world of original publishing, as we seek to become a home for misfits with our new game label. First order of business? We’re bringing three (!) games to market this year, and are now actively looking to sign more weird and wayward games to bring to our label of misfits. Before looking at our first titles, some context: I will submit that the world does not need another indie publisher, but the Pantaloon Label is driven by a different vision, with a combination of philosophies, terms and technologies (no, not that one) that will make it stand out. We’re currently hard at work on a platform that will underpin our new label, and will be unveiling this later in the year. Our newsletter - now approaching 30k subscribers - will remain…
- Let's interact, tragically, and in a limited way - 6 March 2025
Ice-breakers are awkward. Hi. We’re Interactive Tragedy, Limited. We’re a computer game company, but honestly, we’d really just like to talk about our feelings. And we’ve got a lot of them today, since we’re announcing... ourselves. We come from all over the world, but most of us are in Wellington, New Zealand now. We have special connections to Finland. We’ve worked on books and comics and tv shows together. And now, we’re making games... >Sub-Verge is the first! It’s an underwater puzzle you’ve got to talk your way out of—the story is the game, so you’ve got to really understand the characters and pit them against each other to achieve your ends. Which should be: escaping your claustrophobic submersible. There’s an underwater creature with a secret in its jelly-sac. It’s just bizarre enough that Pantaloon, an excellent newsletter-turned-publisher, in the UK has agreed to release it in…
- Let's interact, tragically, and in a limited way - 6 March 2025
Ice-breakers are awkward. Hi. We’re Interactive Tragedy, Limited. We’re a computer game company, but honestly, we’d really just like to talk about our feelings. And we’ve got a lot of them today, since we’re announcing... ourselves. We come from all over the world, but most of us are in Wellington, New Zealand now. We have special connections to Finland. We’ve worked on books and comics and tv shows together. And now, we’re making games... >Sub-Verge is the first! It’s an underwater puzzle you’ve got to talk your way out of—the story is the game, so you’ve got to really understand the characters and pit them against each other to achieve your ends. Which should be: escaping your claustrophobic submersible. There’s an underwater creature with a secret in its jelly-sac. It’s just bizarre enough that Pantaloon, an excellent newsletter-turned-publisher, in the UK has agreed to release it in…
- Transmission #1 | Introductions - 6 March 2025
Ice-breakers are awkward. Hi. We’re Interactive Tragedy, Limited. We’re a computer game company, but honestly, we’d really just like to talk about our feelings. And we’ve got a lot of them today, since we’re announcing... ourselves. We come from all over the world, but most of us are in Wellington, New Zealand now. We have special connections to Finland. We’ve worked on books and comics and tv shows together. And now, we’re making games... Sub-Verge is the first! It’s an underwater puzzle you’ve got to talk your way out of—the story is the game, so you’ve got to really understand the characters and pit them against each other to achieve your ends. Which should be: escaping your claustrophobic submersible. There’s an underwater creature with a secret in its jelly-sac. It’s just bizarre enough that Pantaloon, an excellent newsletter-turned-publisher, in the UK has agreed to release it int…
