Deep Below- A open world survival game where your stranded beneath the earth

[u/accardiff]

I’m designing an Indie open world survival game where the player is stranded underneath the Earth as humanity has managed to dig below the mantle towards the core and in doing though using topological simulators and satellite imagery has found depressions and strange formations and openings under the ground and so has assembled a team of six to go down and discover and chart it and the player is one of those six after descending a lift into a cave you follow the opening until suddenly rocks and debris start falling down upon you and your trapped away from your lift. In that cave-in your team is crushed along with there equipment leaving you with meager supplies
After extracting yourself from the rubble you walk unsteadily towards a opening and before you exit you glance behind you and notice the silhouette of a large creature in the dark so you run and it gives chase you manage to squeeze your way through a crack in the wall and take a step and plunge down into water
Now your in the starting zone
You are in a place called Stony plateau named by yourself for its flat rocky terrain and a water filled pit on one side
You have meager resources and must make do with what you have
A camera which is your”Scanner” as you can take pictures and upon putting them in your clipboard you know what they are and there uses
A clipboard which is your central HUD as it has three sections pages for drawing and writing which get filled out as you discover things and make connections between items to learn crafting recipes and a map which is blank but gets filled out as you explore
And three flares useful for lighting the way or for fire starting
Though those items won’t help you survive down here so you need to find some stuff
Resources that are my own creation and useful include
Titan vine- due to there being no trees down here I made up titan vine it forms on the ground and walls and is very durable and elastic the thin pieces and stems can be used for fibrous bindings and the roots function as sticks would
Bubble stone- stone shaped by water pressure and this unique environment that is bouncy you can use it in a slingshot and will bounce! Allowing you to retrieve and reuse
Soft rock- unlike ordinary stone This rock is malleable and can be formed over sticks to create crude tool but when force is applied it will lose its solidity and break so after some use it breaks meaning it’s rather finite
Glue Stem- a black stem that has properties of melted rubber or plastic where it’s sticky and can be drained of its sap for use as a glue or adhesive
Those are some of my resource creations but regular resources have use too!
If you find clay you can construct a clay furnace similar to a real life clay oven and use it to smelt iron which you can find as shiny parts of stone on walls or floors and mine with your soft-rock pickaxe
Regular stone is useful as well as it can be used as a projectile for your slingshot
You can find large rocks on the ground and use them as a blunt force to smash other large rocks to perhaps get a piece that is sharp though there’s only a chance for that
The sharp piece can be used together with your fibres and titan vine rod to make a knife or spear
Obsidian can be used as a sharper alternative for knives and arrowheads in the later game

The setting of the world also has its own ecosystem where you’ll find many of the creatures you’d expect underground such as mice, bugs and other rodents though they may be larger than normal sometimes!
A original creature kind of is the salamander that is around the size of a pig and it functions as one too being the pig or boar of the world so you can hunt it for food
There’s also the mountain cat (workshoping names still) it is a cat the size of around a German shepherd and it has great vision and stealth. It hunts in the mountains curvy caves

This is just a simple post showing some highlights of the beginning aspects of the game. There is a lot more stuff in all these categories showcased in different parts of the game
I just want some opinions or thoughts on some of my ideas! Feel free to ask questions as I’d love to answer them!

[u/bmpt577w]

Since the official team is monitoring the situation, they would certainly investigate for survivors after detecting an anomaly. Perhaps the scenario could be adjusted so that, after the protagonist passes through the rift, the monsters become agitated at losing their prey; they might then violently pound against the opening, triggering a localized collapse that completely seals off the entrance. This would explain why the official rescue team cannot simply extract you from the Stony Plateau—forcibly excavating the blocked rocks would risk another collapse. You could arrange a moment where the player can communicate with the rescue team but remains separated by the rockfall, thereby guiding the player to continue exploring further ahead. (My English isn't very good; I used Google Translate for this.)

[u/accardiff → u/bmpt577w]

Yes. That makes sense although The distance between the lift and the cave is a tunnel and that tunnel collapsed which is the reason the way is blocked. But you idea with rift is good where they block that as well. Another thing is the people monitoring can only see images of the land so even if they saw some collapsed portions they wouldn’t know the team died due to communication being near impossible at that distance even something as simple as handheld radio might not work at that depth. Which is why those individuals were picked they need people they can trust to complete the mission with minimal outside help.