Taking the Deep Dive
World War I-era gas mask. Heavy breathing. Total darkness. One terrifyingly intense game.
Robin Arnott is not afraid of sea monsters. Nor is he particularly afraid of drowning or of any of the real-life terrors of the deep. The designer of Deep Sea—an experimental audio-only game that deprives players of their other senses—was simply interested in making the most intense game experience he could.
“It was made to explore an idea, and that idea was ‘What can we do to produce as immersive an experience as possible, short of tapping straight into the spinal cord?’” he says, then adds with a laugh: “ … Which we don’t have the technology to do!”
