Deepwake: Lanterns of the Drowned God
“The god is the clock. Each lantern you relight keeps it dreaming.”
You play a lamplighter who merges glowing sea relics and creatures to relight a sunken city, while an ancient god sleeps beneath it.
The name works two ways: the wake a diver leaves in deep water, and the god that must not wake.
Design Pillars
A thousand years ago the coral city of Nareth sank in a single night. It was pulled down to cover Vor'Thallun, the Dreamer Below, an elder god as large as a mountain range, which sleeps coiled around the city's roots.
The people of Nareth kept the god asleep with dreamlanterns. These living lamps are fed by bioluminescent creatures, and their light sings the god a lullaby. As the old keepers died out, the lanterns went dark.
The Dreamer has begun to stir.
Mira Kell is a confident 25-year-old salvage diver. She wears an oversized brass helmet that belonged to her grandmother, the last Lantern Keeper.
She finds Pip, a newborn glowfish hatchling that can merge with other sea creatures.
The god is always bigger than the frame: the art only ever shows part of it. At the bottom of the world its closed eye is the size of a moon.
The twist: the god is a misunderstood dreamer. Its dreams keep the coral glowing. End game: keep it sleeping, or wake it gently.
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1
Glimmer ShallowsBroken spires and kelp forests (tutorial).
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2
Coral BazaarAn overgrown market district, home of the Coral Folk.
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3
The Drowned CathedralThe Choir's stronghold, with giant stained glass.
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4
Trench of WhispersVertical caverns with tentacles in the background.
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5
The CradleThe bottom of the world, where the Dreamer's closed eye is the size of a moon.
Merge on the seabed, collect companions, send them on expeditions, and relight the lanterns that open the way deeper. The Dread meter keeps a gentle clock running in the background.
Merge items stay big and simple so they read at small sizes. Lantern gold is kept for rare items only.
Stylized 2.5D mobile game art in the look of a polished platformer. Mood: cute-creepy cosmic epic, a cozy foreground with an ancient elder-god presence looming in the dark.
- Round and chunky shapes for friends; long and curling for the god and the Choir.
- Creatures have big heads (about 1:2). Mira has stylized heroic proportions: athletic, tasteful, never sexualized.
- Thick dark navy outlines on characters. No outlines on backgrounds.
- Depth: a sharp foreground, a hazy midground and a misty deep background.
- Light comes only from bioluminescence and lanterns. Pink = safe, violet = magic or danger.
- Avoid gore, realistic horror, muddy browns, flat lighting and tiny details.