Everdeep Aurora is a cosy adventure platformer game where you play as a young cat drilling down into the ground to find her lost mother. It’s a brisk and minimalist experience, deliberately evoking games on the original Game Boy. It’s an adorable and engaging adventure while it lasts, however, its open-ended nature and lack of clear guidance may irk some players looking for a more structured experience.

In Everdeep Aurora, you play as Shell, a young cat who has been separated from her mother after an apocalyptic meteor shower has driven the majority of the population underground. Confident that her mother is down below, Shell is granted a rusty old drill and starts digging in her quest to find her mother, and help out other members of the underground community while she’s at it.

The game is bursting with personality; despite its monochrome presentation, every character is overflowing with charming detail, especially Shell. Even actions as mundane as the fast travel system are lent a degree of flair with adorable animation. The game keeps its visuals fresh through different colour palettes for each location, giving new areas a sense of distinction while still managing to accomplish that retro aesthetic.

Everdeep Aurora Review – Dig below the surface

Everdeep Aurora can be best described as a platformer with some adventure game elements. Not unlike Shovel Knight, Shell’s main means of interacting with her environment is by digging through squares of earth with her drill, which must be upgraded to get through tougher rocks. Her repertoire of movement abilities expands with wall jumps and dashes; however, there is no combat in Everdeep Aurora. You’re only ever turning your drill on rocks, not living beings. Shell must maintain her drill and keep it fueled. Despite what the game implies, running out of fuel merely slows down how long it takes to break through rocks; you’ll never find yourself trapped.

It’s a simple setup, with some occasionally tricky jumping challenges thrown in every now and then to make the most of Shell’s moveset. Shell’s main goal is to head further downward, requiring her to go off the beaten track and perform fetch quests for other members of the underground to get what she needs to upgrade her drill.

While the objectives of many of these quests were mostly clear, what the game lacked was any means of actually tracking them in some sort of menu or journal. Everdeep Aurora is a fairly open-ended experience, with a rather minimalist map and radar serving as your only means of tracking your location. The inventory system also manages to be cluttered and challenging to navigate.

“…most of the additional optional objectives to unlock any of the other endings left me scrambling aimlessly…”

While the critical path to get the default ending isn’t too difficult to follow, most of the additional optional objectives to unlock any of the other endings left me scrambling aimlessly, talking to everyone and frequently backtracking to every location without a clue of what to do next.

Characters often don’t repeat their dialogue after giving crucial hints, or when dialogue is repeated, it doesn’t refer to anything important. Whenever I actually found an item that a character was looking for, or found a key NPC for a side quest, it often felt like a stroke of luck rather than something the game was actually directing me towards, which didn’t give the sense of accomplishment that a quest completion ideally should.

Still, while the directionless backtracking drove me to distraction, at least I had an amazing soundtrack to listen to. The game has some wonderful musical themes capturing the adventurous tone and wonder of the underground world of Everdeep Aurora, from cosy tunes for the camp areas to more energetic themes for the abandoned laboratories, caves and mansions that you explore.

6.5

Decent

Positive:

Gorgeous atmospheric pixel art and animation
Charming and engaging soundtrack

Negative:

Often frustrating lack of guidance regarding your next objectives
Map screen is too minimalist and difficult to interpret

I enjoyed my time with Everdeep Aurora, although it could have been better. Nautilus Games very deliberately nails the feel of an old Game Boy game from the mid-1990s, although it may turn off players looking for something more complex or challenging. With its charming art style and gameplay, it’s hard not to have a smile on your face as you drill down into the Everdeep. That said, the lack of clear guidance regarding exactly what the game is asking you to do a lot of the time left me longing for a quest log or objective marker. If you’re looking for a chill platformer with retro stylings and don’t mind a lack of clear direction, Everdeep Aurora is worth checking out.

Everdeep Aurora Review – Dig below the surface

Reviewed July 10, 2025 on PC

6.5

Decent

Positive:

Negative:

Tom Quirk

Fresh off the press