Lantern Deep
Dive into the dark as a paper-lantern squid: eat what is smaller, slip past what is bigger, through five depths and the endless Abyss.
Lantern Deep is a diving game. You are a paper-lantern squid, and the deeper you swim the darker the water gets. Eat what is smaller than you to grow, slip past what is bigger, and go down through a gap in each floor. The depth you reach is your score.
The goal
Dive as deep as you can. Five depths lie between the surface and 4,000 m: the Sunlit Shallows, Kelp Twilight, Midnight Water, the Lure Fields and the Trench. Below the Trench is the Abyss, a new stretch every 500 m without end, each a little harder than the one above. A dive ends when bites leave you smaller than the depth you are in allows.
How a dive goes
- You eat anything at least 5% smaller than you, and anything at least 5% bigger bites you. In between, you only bump.
- Each meal grows you. Every depth has a size where you stop growing, so something bigger always lives there.
- A hunter chases only what is smaller than it, so one that chased you runs from you once you outgrow it. A chase lasts about 1.9 seconds; then the hunter rests for about 1.9 seconds.
- A bite shrinks you to 85% of your size, and for about 1.2 seconds nothing can bite you again.
- Each floor has a gap in the middle. It opens once you are big enough for the depth below; swim through it to go down.
- In the Sunlit Shallows, hunters leave you alone for the first 25 seconds.
- The deeper you go, the less you see. Your own glow grows with you, and eating a whole glowing school lights the water for 2 seconds.
- Meals close together play a rising song: each one within 1.8 seconds of the last plays the next note, eight notes to a phrase. A pause or a bite starts it again.
The depths
| Depth | From | What lives there |
|---|---|---|
| Sunlit Shallows | 0 m | Krill, sprats, reef fish, barracuda |
| Kelp Twilight | 200 m | Krill, shrimp, crabs, barracuda, eels |
| Midnight Water | 600 m | Lanternfish, shrimp, hatchetfish, jellies, dragonfish |
| Lure Fields | 1,500 m | Lanternfish, hatchetfish, anglerfish, dragonfish, gulper eels |
| The Trench | 3,000 m | Vent shrimp, giant isopods, gulper eels, ghost sharks |
| The Abyss | 4,000 m | As in the Trench, with one more ghost shark every 500 m |
Jellies sting on touch, and an anglerfish waits by its light and snaps at what comes close. Crabs and isopods walk the floor.
Ink
Ink has its own button. It costs 35% of the ink meter, gives a short burst of speed and leaves a cloud, and every hunter chasing you loses you for about 1.5 seconds. The meter refills as you swim and with each meal.
Controls
- Phone or tablet: put a thumb on the stick, bottom left, and push the way to swim. Tap Ink, bottom right, to ink. A touch anywhere else does nothing. On a tablet both stand a third of the way up the screen.
- Mouse: press anywhere and drag the way to swim; the stick appears where you pressed. Click Ink to ink.
- Keyboard: arrow keys or WASD to swim, Space to ink, Esc to pause or resume.
- The pause button is top left, and the dive stops while the tab is hidden.
Between dives
- Each depth has three stars, 18 in all: reach it, meet everything that lives there, and go through its floor. The Abyss's third star is for swimming 1,000 m into it.
- Start a dive in the Sunlit Shallows or in any depth you have reached. Tacs open a deeper start early: Kelp Twilight for 30, Midnight Water 60, the Lure Fields 120, the Trench 200. You start at the size that came through the floor above.
- Only a dive from the Shallows, or from a depth you reached by swimming, earns stars and awards. Reach a bought depth by swimming and it counts from then on.
- Only a dive from the Shallows sets your best and goes on the high scores.
Tacs and lanterns
- Every dive pays a Tac for each 100 m below where it started, and 5 more for a new best from the Shallows.
- The first time you reach each depth pays once: Kelp Twilight 5 Tacs, Midnight Water 10, the Lure Fields 20, the Trench 30, the Abyss 50.
- Lanterns are the squid's paper and change nothing in play. Amber is free, Coral and Jade cost 40 Tacs, Moonlight and Deep blue 60, and Gilt is earned by reaching the Abyss on a dive that earns awards.
Stars, depths reached, Tacs and lanterns are kept on your device.
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