DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain Review - Lovecraftian Horror That Will Make You Wet

I am one of those plebs who is utterly taken by Lovecraftian imagery but has never actually read a word of Lovecraft.  I think it earns extra points from me simply by virtue of being immunized against a Disney buyout.  But really, it’s one of the few remaining playgrounds that writers can unabashedly play in and fosters the sort of creativity that Star Wars used to, or even Dungeons & Dragons sort of used to.  

DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain, capitalizes its verbs for good reason: death is constantly tugging at your sleeve and the only way to swat it away for one more day is to brave the perilous depths of what-used-to-be human civilization.  If you’re someone who is–

1. Afraid of the open ocean

2. Prone to panic and anxiety

3. Predisposed to feelings of guilt when faced with failure

-then you should play this game; not because it soothes those fears, but because it lets you confront them safely behind your desk.  

As far as the story and general vibe goes, I was immediately bought in.  Dread coats every nook & cranny here, right from the get-go.  On a day like any other, black rain fell from the sky, destroying & corrupting everything it touched.  The apocalypse was swift, brutal, and absolute.  This isn’t a story where humanity courageously stands united, Independence Day or Pacific Rim style, and heroically throws back the forces of evil from whence they came.  

Oh, no.

This game gets dark in a hurry

The Earth is dead.  If you put a bullet in someone’s head, taking it out doesn’t save them.  Civilization is gone and it’s not coming back.  All the survivors can do now is…survive, for as long as the Rainmaker will allow it.

The Rainmaker– the ancient, yet new & horrific god that came around and effectively annihilated every god that was ever worshipped– undoing everything ever created in a great, unrelenting black flood that swallowed the world– leaving only madness and death beneath the waves.

Fun stuff.

And that’s what I like.  These people you manage have largely accepted their fate– to the point of worshipping the Rainmaker in a horrible, abusive, ironic twist of fate.  It makes perfect sense when you think about it: humanity is basically Reek from Game of Thrones.  We’re not cultivating crops– we’re foraging for tin cans of food.  We’re not creating culture– we’re scavenging for the last vestiges of art.  Day in, day out.

You start with a single diver, but will pretty quickly build up your roster.  Each diver possesses different stats spread between health, sanity, air capacity, and how much weight they can carry.  No one is perfect, and you’ll have to choose what kind of diver suits your needs that day.  You can craft upgrades and level-up your people, of course– but then that begs the question, Do you craft this diver into a jack-of-all-trades, or a machine with a ton of oxygen capacity (for longer dives), but is prone to going insane?  People management, see?

As George-Michael would say, You’re Mr. Manager.  Because diving isn’t all you’re doing, not by a long shot.  You’ve got a ramshackle survivor’s camp to call your own, complete with various facilities that require upkeep, someone to man them, and upgrades to make.  Survivors may very well possess traits that make them more suited to, say, manning the Altar or the Workshop rather than going out on dives.  That’s nice for them, right?  They don’t gotta go in the water.  Well, no.  Daily happenings can occur without warning; sometimes you get to decide what happens, sometimes you don’t.

For instance, while you were gone black rain fell again and your Altar keeper got it with it and is now on death’s door.  You could stick them in the Infirmary (if you fixed it), but that would take time and resources.  If that’s not in the cards then…well, you could sacrifice them to the Rainmaker for some real perks.  Maybe it’s worth it?  New potential recruits come by every day, anyway.  That’s the horrible math you have to constantly make: the value of maintaining a life versus the relief that comes from sacrificing them to your new, terrible deity.

Surprisingly deep!

You have 40 days before the Rainmaker finishes the job and brings forth another cataclysmic flood.  Should you choose, you may offer sacrifices of various kinds to delay it.  As I mentioned, you can offer up people; you can also give up food, or even morale.  It’s a tightrope act, and if you’re a hopeful idealist then you better come back from your next dive with a big haul, which is far from guaranteed.

Because the ocean is vast, cavernous, and dangerous.  You need to cover a lot of ground (well, water) to make any trip worthwhile, especially if your settlement is growing.  The thing is, it’s astoundingly easy to get turned around at times.  There were more than a few times when I felt the very real panic of not knowing where I was, running dangerously low on oxygen.  I think it activated my sympathetic nervous system once or twice.  These survivors may just be portraits with stats and names, but you develop real bonds with them.  You nurture them, and they take care of you just as you take care of them.  I made a mistake early on and stupidly lost a diver named Brunhilde Hollowtide, and I was devastated, convinced I would never financially recover from this.  That was a big bummer, and I actually lost a couple of in-game days making up for the loss.  Real consequences, I’m telling ya.  Later on, a diver named Kelda Slatebloom became a real unit and single-handedly helped me advance quicker than I expected.  The drama was real when a dive went south, but she still managed to make it to the surface with 0% oxygen left; literally within nanoseconds from dying.  It’s not the most narrative-heavy game, but you naturally develop your own stories and relationships as you go.

Other bits & bobs I want you to know?  

I touched a bit on random events earlier, but to expand on that: sometimes a random strange fish can wash up on shore, and you can weigh whether to eat it or not; sometimes a stranger may pass by, and you can choose whether to offer them shelter or leave them alone; sometimes people attack each other if they’re feeling crazy; sometimes people just go missing, and suddenly you’re down a survivor you were counting on; that kind of thing.  It behooves you to prepare for the unexpected.  Sure, you may not use Gary McGaryFace as a diver, but it’s still a good idea to invest in his health because you don’t know what could happen while you’re gone.

Also: why would you want to delay the rain, exactly?  Well, it gives you more time to gather resources and discover more of these mysterious idols that are connected to the Rainmaker in some way.  When the countdown hits zero, your run is done.

Standouts?  The voice work that’s there is awesome, the storytelling is fantastic and pulls no punches (there’s some messed up stuff in here), and the art direction is perfectly on-point.

Obviously, I have to touch on the game’s soundtrack, which is perfectly moody.  The sound design in general is flawless.  Most of the time you’re left with the sounds of your rebreather and the muted, water-tempered world around you.  Nothing too crazy.  But I would not recommend second-screening this game just because of that.  Crank those headphones up and immerse yourself in the world.  It makes the screams of the damned all the more frightening.

What lies beneath...

As for rainouts (no pun intended)?  This isn’t really a shortcoming on the game’s part as much as a personal preference.  Forty days sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t.  I would’ve preferred the freedom to explore the ocean at a more deliberate pace, but then again, survivors can’t be choosers, can they?  

The big takeaway? DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain is a great game.  The diving/settlement management loop is engaging, and it’s framed by a setting that belongs in a novel of its own.  I’d read it.  But beyond that, it lets you create your own stories using the relationships you naturally build along the way.  Kelda Slatebloom is my most valuable asset and carried my camp on her back…buuuut maybe the Rainmaker needs a sacrifice, and she would buy just enough time to save everyone from the next flood?  Ruthless, man.  Ruthless.  

DIVE or DIE gets a silver lamp from me.  If you don’t buy it, wishlist it.  If you wishlist it, don’t let it stay there for long.  Because you never know when it might start raining.

GREAT