PEGBRJE: Depth of Extinction and Quiet as a Stone
A love letter to another, and a love letter to nothingness
Depth of Extinction is a tactical turn-based RPG by HOF Studios, an indie based out of Georgia. While I had never heard of them, after playing DoE for merely 10 minutes I found many similarities to a certain series I’ve played quite a bit. You play as a submarine base tasked with locating a pass of some kind (to be honest I’m not actually sure what you are going after) and have to move throughout the now mostly sunken world. By controlling multiple units, you engage in turn based combat against thugs and pirates and loot what you can find to ensure your survival while updating your inventory with the loot you acquire or by purchasing items from merchants. If this sounds familiar, that’s because DoE is a love letter to X-COM with an FTL flair.
The main gameplay of DoE is based around your units, which individually have multiple paths they can take based on which class they pick up at level 1. If your team is lacking frontline, nominate your latest recruit to be a Warden to soak up damage. Need another unit that you’re lacking? Buy a mercenary that fits your needs. All of this culminates in the same style of high-risk percentile based combat, where one shot missing can spell death for that party member. The FTL moments happen after you complete a mission, where you are given a map, a destination, and a counter of your remaining fuel. Each area you enter can prove to be dangerous or trigger events that having specific classes can help mitigate. The submarine also has health, so if it is constantly attacked it may become damaged without repair, and you as humanity’s last hope are sunk.
So what does DoE do to set itself apart from X-COM, apart from its art style and differing setting? The big take away is accessibility, at least from my point of view. DoE does away with X-COM’s more frustrating gameplay elements, such as the morality and mentality system from X-COM 2 which would sometimes leave units injured with the possibility of having panic attacks. While this made sense for the grueling style of gameplay and world built, gameplay-wise it caused more headaches and frustrations than it added fun difficulty. Usually it just lead to units getting killed, or missions being ruined because I let rookies do a professional’s job. It also removes the equipment building and research departments of X-COM 2, however this is more to balance out the procedurally generated areas and give the choice of exploration vs purchasing of equipment.
Depth of Extinction is a lovely blend of strategic turn-based combat and rogue-like dungeon exploration, forcing quick decision making during combat and impactful decision making while searching different zones. It does have a few issues with its ‘Follow’ system, which enables 1 unit to guide the rest automatically but usually ends up with a unit sitting completely outside of cover, getting discovered and losing half their health immediately. I didn’t use the system much in the first place since it defeated the purpose of planning positioning, but introducing a feature that doesn’t work all that great could be a little harrowing.
Fortunately for DoE, there is little else to complain about, as HOF did a great job of solidifying their merge of X-COM strategy with FTL exploration and resource management. If you are a fan of both of these games, DoE is a fantastic addition to your arsenals.
If doing things at a non-existing pace is more up your alley, try Quiet as a Stone.
Quiet as a Stone is a visual experience by Distant Lantern, a studio created by artist Richard Whitelock. Within this masterpiece of atmosphere, you load into a scene and proceed to do… nothing, really. By clicking around on the books you can learn the controls, and then proceed to move objects around and smash stones to acquire gems. Once you’ve had your fill of a certain area, clicking on the map allows travel to other regions with descriptors of the location, before continuing to do the same thing as before.
Quiet as a Stone is exactly what the name implies: a game of being quiet. Listening to the wind and rain, the clacking of the rocks as you smash and collect them, and the movement of the trees as they are forcibly removed from their home and put in a different location. Staring at the backdrop scenery as you rotate the scene in circles to get every angle as the day turns to night and the light catches the rocks. I’m certain that the only reason that the collection of gems is to fulfill the simple desire to collect little rocks after they’ve scattered across the dirt. If there is a practical reasoning for these gems, I couldn’t figure it out — honestly I hope there wasn’t besides the simple desire to collect things.
You aren’t supposed to do anything in Quiet as a Stone except enjoy the environments that are given to you to explore, alter and simply exist within. In a time period where that is extremely difficult for many to do, it is absurdly calming to have a game essentially be an ASMR of going outside. While there are only 5 areas within the game to rotate and observe, they not only showcase the immense talent of the artist but also the cohesion created within each of the different scenes. The wind is stronger at the top of a mountain than at the bottom of a cave, after all.
I cannot classify Quiet as a Stone as a ‘lazy Sunday afternoon’ game as I’ve usually done with this style of game. I’d consider it more of an art gallery to be experienced during the week, or an refuge from the world when the noise of humanity becomes deafening. If you need a place that can fulfill this longing for 30 minutes, I recommend trying out Quiet as a Stone. On the flip side, if you really enjoy the sound design of rocks breaking and listening to them clatter around on different materials (guilty as charged), I recommend Quiet as a Stone for its masterclass work.
Links, as always, are provided below.
