Submachine series

Submachine series
Type	Flash game series
Genre	Point and click, room escape

The Submachine series (aka "Submerged Machine") is a series of point-and-click room-escape/adventure games built in Adobe Flash, first began by Mateusz Skutnik in September 2005. There are ten installations in the main series as well as five side games, with two more side games planned in the future. The series has been generally well reviewed.

Main series

Submachine 1: The Basement	Submachine 2: The Lighthouse	Submachine 3: The Loop	Submachine 4: The Lab
Submachine 5: The Root	Submachine 6: The Edge	Submachine 7: The Core	Submachine 8: The Plan
	Submachine 9: The Temple	Submachine 10: The Exit

Side games

Submachine: Ancient Adventure	Submachine: Future Loop Foundation	Submachine: FLF	Submachine: 32 Chambers
Submachine Universe	Submachine: The Engine (unreleased)	Submachine: The Explorers (unreleased)	Untitled game based on Submachine Universe (unreleased)

Other games

Submachine: Legacy Steam Remake

ISubmachine Submachine for iPhone

Sketch of Submachine 2

Submachine: Card Game (unreleased)

Synopsis

In all the games you play as an unidentified protagonist who awakes, seemingly after having some sort of amnesia, in various unknown locations and have to solve different puzzles and examine the environment in order to escape. The sci-fi environment features diverse settings of multiple types of architecture that have often been twisted and broken as if time and space themselves have been warped or torn apart.

In the main series the player can pick up notes detailing the happenings of a scientist named Murtaugh and his communications with a woman named Elizabeth as they explored the world around them and performed experiments with exploration teams on concepts such as teleportation, future technology, and multiple realities.

The side games feature separate missions by possible other protagonists that do not directly affect the main storyline to the best of anyone's knowledge.

Development history

The first game in the series was officially released under the name "Submachine" in September 2005. At the time, Skutnik had no immediate plans to make the game a series. However, after the first installment's initial success, he decided to make an extended series of games and renamed the first installment to "Submachine 1: The Basement".

The process of extending the series started with a release of a sketch of Submachine 2, before the game's official release under the title Submachine 2: The Lighthouse in 2006.

A mobile version of Submachine 1 called "iSubmachine" was briefly developed for iOS in 2008, but it quickly became defunct. It is no longer available on the app store.

The basic structure of the main game series was speculated on as early as 2009, when in an interview with Igor Hardy, Mateusz Skutnik stated that "This series should go at least until Submachine 10. After that, I don't know." This was maintained in the final secret in the super secret bonus section of Submachine 7: The Core, and the PastelStories FAQ-page in Facebook. In December of 2015, the final installment in the main series Submachine 10: The Exit was published.

During the course of the main series' development, the side games Submachine: Ancient Adventure and Submachine: 32 Chambers were published as submissions in contests for the website JayisGames. Submachine: Future Loop Foundation was also made to promote the band Future Loop Foundation by incorporating album imagery and music from the band. A newer version of the game - Submachine: FLF - later removed the band references and replaced it with more in-universe material. Submachine Universe was long advertised as "not a game" with no real ending since its conception in 2009 - and over the course of its development - until 2017, when the final build of the game in Flash was released and the game had a proper ending developed.

Over the years, Skutnik has been generally open to fans pointing out bugs and errors in his games, and has tried to update his games to retain a uniform artstyle and presentation as his personal artstyle developed between releases. As a result some of the games have been rereleased with graphics and gameplay updates. The most notable of these include:

• A "revisited" (revamped) version of Submachine 2, published in 2013
• Downloadable "HD" versions of all the games
• Technical updates to Submachines 2, 6, 8, 10, and Submachine: 32 Chambers between November 2017 and February 2018 to fix bugs found by speedrunners in the series' fanbase.

In 2019, "Submachine: Card Game" was announced; it will be a physical card game based on unknown aspects of the Submachine Universe. It will be the second non-computer-based game in the series after iSubmachine, and the first completely physical game in the series.

Future

"Submachine: Card Game" has no official release date, but the game itself is finished. Its release is currently being negotiated with publishers. A Kickstarter for the card game has been confirmed to begin after the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic decreases.

A side game "Submachine: The Engine" is also planned to be made in GMS2 and released on Steam after "Legacy". A second new side game that will borrow heavily from Submachine Universe's environments and puzzles that is void of all non-canon content the game possesses will also be made in GMS2. A previous concept "Submachine: The Explorers" is currently considered cancelled and will be revisited in 2025 at the earliest.

Trivia

• The number of screens in each Submachine game goes as follows (here ordered from biggest to smallest):
  • Submachine Universe (838)
  • Submachine 10: The Exit (474)
  • Submachine 9: The Temple (155)
  • Submachine 6: The Edge (143)
  • Submachine 7: The Core (125)
  • Submachine 5: The Root (122)
  • Submachine 3: The Loop HD (122)
  • Submachine 3: The Loop (116)
  • Submachine 2: The Lighthouse (107)
  • Submachine 4: The Lab (94)
  • Submachine 4: The Lab HD (91)
  • Submachine 8: The Plan (71)
  • Submachine: FLF HD (58)
  • Submachine: Future Loop Foundation (47)
  • Submachine: 32 Chambers (33)
  • iSubmachine (27)
  • Submachine 1: The Basement Extended (23)
  • Submachine: Ancient Adventure HD (19)
  • Submachine: Ancient Adventure (18)
  • Sketch of Submachine 2 (18)
  • Submachine 1: The Basement Original (11)
• At one point in 2012, people speculated that Mat had plans to extend the main series beyond ten installments due to imagery on the Submachine official website suggesting that fourteen main games would be made.

See also

• Mateusz Skutnik

External links

• Wikipedia page (in Spanish)
• Wikipedia page (in English)
• Wikipedia page (in Dutch)
• Wikipedia page (in Česky)
• Wikipedia page (in 日本語)