Endless Blue

About Endless Blue

Endless Blue began in 2021 as a short prototype for Haunted PS1's Summer of Shivers game jam. Its maker, mrdiv, built it in Unreal Engine to recreate not only how the survival horror games of the 1990s played but how they looked, with low-poly characters, moody cinematic camera angles and the cold blue light of an underwater base. In September 2023 a major update, version 2.0, extended it with new areas, enemies, a new weapon, puzzles, cutscenes, voice acting and character portraits; version 2.1 followed in November 2023 with a new options menu and better non-tank controls.

You play Reina, a woman in a dark bodysuit inside a research facility under the sea. The demo takes her through its dark corridors and to the generator room, where the power is not behaving, and then somewhere stranger, an area drawn on pre-rendered backgrounds in the classic manner. Along the way you pick up and examine items, find clues in the rooms, solve puzzles and fight the things that move in the dark with a handgun and the ammunition you find.

The fear is the old survival horror kind: tight corridors lit by a flashlight beam, monsters that come at you from the gloom, and the pressure of a game with checkpoints but no save feature, so leaving the game loses your progress. It is a demo of a game still in development, and the maker has said a full release is not guaranteed and that work is paused while he makes other projects; what is there ends on a to-be-continued.

It suits players who grew up on tank controls and want a short, well-made taste of that style, and anyone who liked Signalis or Crow Country and wants something in the same spirit to play in one sitting.

How to play Endless Blue

1. Download Endless Blue from its itch.io page (name your own price, 0 is accepted) and unzip it on Windows.
2. Choose your controls in the options menu: tank controls by default, or the 'modern' movement option, on keyboard and mouse or an Xbox controller.
3. Explore the facility as Reina, examining items in your inventory and the rooms you pass through.
4. Aim and fire the handgun at the monsters, keeping an eye on your ammunition.
5. Look for the clues in each area to solve its puzzles and move on.
6. Play the demo in one sitting, or choose Load Game from the main menu to start at roughly its halfway point.

Tips

• There is no save feature: progress is lost when you quit, so set aside about 45 minutes.
• If tank controls are not for you, switch to the modern movement option in the menu.
• When a puzzle hint seems incomplete, search the area for a second clue in the surroundings.
• Use the quick turn to get away from an enemy that is too close.

Questions