Ysbryd GamesSometimes, you can tell what a game is all about at a glance. With others, you need to dig deep to get a sense of where the rabbit hole leads. And in one surprising new platformer out today on Nintendo Switch and PC, it took until the end of the game to really understand what I was getting into.With its Game Boy-inspired graphics and the adorable cat you play as, Everdeep Aurora might seem at first like a more straightforward game than it actually is. In broad terms, Everdeep Aurora is a platforming adventure, but it doesn’t feel much like your typical platformer. Instead of performing acrobatic aerial maneuvers, you’ll spend most of your time digging underground, and since the game is completely empty of combat or danger of any kind, most of your progress comes from meticulously exploring its subterranean world and paying close attention to the characters you meet there.Everdeep Aurora opens with your character, Shell, waking up to a note from her mother. Meteors are falling and everyone is heading to underground shelters, but Shell’s mother went on ahead of her for mysterious reasons. You spend the rest of the game digging deep underground to find where she went, unraveling the world’s secrets and helping its inhabitants as you go.Digging isn’t much of a problem, thanks to a drill you’re given at the game’s start. As long as you keep collecting a glowing red ore and finding the scattered machines that turn it into fuel, you’ll be fine. Even if you run out, the helpful frog Ribbert will give you a lift to one of the few camps dotting the underground.Everdeep Aurora’s characters each have their own stories to play out as Shell encounters them on her journey. | Ysbryd GamesNavigation, on the other hand, is a much bigger hurdle. Rather than a map, you’re given a radar that only shows the terrain closest to you, and only once you discover it for yourself. Instead of following a marked path to the next point of interest, you need to put in a lot of legwork to map the world of Everdeep Aurora. Later in the game, your radar gets upgrades to make it more useful, but the onus is always on you to explore if you want to make progress. It’s entirely possible to miss entire characters and huge parts of the world if you’re not looking carefully.Even on the game’s main path, it’s extremely easy to lose your way. There’s no quest log to speak of, so you need to actually hear what the game’s NPCs are telling you and use your head to do what they ask of you. That can be frustrating at times (it’s definitely a good idea to take notes on what you’re up to whenever you put the game down), but it also makes the world feel much more alive, and finding your way to some hidden ruin or figuring out a puzzle with so little guidance is always rewarding.Secrets run deep in Everdeep Aurora, and unearthing them is captivating. | Ysbryd GamesThat sense of discovery follows all the way through the end of the game. You can finish Everdeep Aurora in about four hours, but I suspect you won’t be particularly satisfied by the ending you’d get. Ignoring the clear prompt to end the game or reloading after you accept will put you right back in the game’s final area, and it’s here that I realized just how deep it goes. This last location is packed with hidden doors and alternate routes, some pointing back to mysteries that were left dangling much earlier in the game. As I explored this labyrinth and retreated to higher ground, I found secret after secret that I hadn’t uncovered on the way to the bottom of the world. Even now, there’s plenty of Everdeep Aurora that I haven’t figured out yet.The whole way through, Everdeep Aurora is a joy, full of interesting characters and satisfying, self-directed exploration. But untangling the game’s deepest secrets feels like another whole adventure to undertake. It’s rare that a game has so much buried under the surface, but for the sake of the cute cat at the heart of Everdeep Aurora, I’m eager to keep digging it up.Everdeep Aurora is available now on Nintendo Switch and PC.