Video Game / SubTerra

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The game's main objective is to get gems and then reach the exit, while any number of lethal obstacles get in your way, such as falling rocks, dragons, explosions, fire and water, and floating skulls. The obstacles include the gems themselves, as a gem falling on your head will kill you. Depending on the level, you need to use careful planning, quick reflexes, or both. The game incorporates many elements from Boulder Dash, Chip's Challenge, Sokoban, and Laser Light.

There is also a second difficulty level, which requires you to get more gems in a level, reach a special and usually harder-to-reach exit, and imposes a time limit. In a nice twist, all tutorial levels have a secret room with a pretty difficult puzzle, which is required to solve the tutorial on hard mode. The original game contains 108 levels in the Prime level set; a level editor and yearly level design contest ensure that there are many more out there.

Sub Terra Draconis is the sequel.

This game provides examples of:

• Block Puzzle: Some levels borrow from Sokoban, and various obstacles can be defeated through pushing in the right block. Ice melts fire, cushions float on water, and so forth.
• Collision Damage: Touching an enemy kills you. Being adjacent to an enemy will kill you, unless you have the shield powerup.
• Control Room Puzzle: Several switches affect distant parts of the level; in some of them you are locked in a control room and have to solve the puzzle indirectly.
• Cool Gate: Teleporters come in pairs (or larger groups) and gate you (or any other object) to the next teleporter on the level.
• Everything Trying to Kill You; well, there's falling rocks, explosions, a multitude of enemies, fire fields, time limits, and a couple other things. Very few levels are safe.
• Excuse Plot: The "plot" intentionally has absolutely nothing to do with the game.
• Expansion Pack: Once a year, featuring levels from the level design contests.
• Extreme Omnivore: The dragons, who will cheerfully eat rocks to get them out of your way. Of course, they will also eat you, given the chance.
• Fake Difficulty: In the fourth secret level, yes, the random shifting walls look really awesome and it's a clever gimmick... but due to the random nature of said level, there's no reliable way to beat it on hard mode before the time runs out. Really just a Luck-Based Mission, but the odds of the time running out before you finish the level are heavily against you.
• Frictionless Ice: any object entering ice will keep sliding until it gets off or hits a wall; that includes you, but a powerup will countract it.
• Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: One of the objects will keep bouncing back and forth against walls, and will destroy enemies, eggs, and you.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: As common for the genre, the game has four colors of key, and four colors of door, and all keys of the same color are interchangeable and will disappear when opening a door.
• Level Editor is included in the game, and a yearly contest exists for people to make their own levels.
• Light and Mirrors Puzzle: An explosion that catches a certain gem (the ruby) can create a laser which turns left when it hits a diamond, and right when it hits an emerald.
• Lock and Key Puzzle: As mentioned above, the game has four colors of key and door. If you already have a key, you will push the others of the same kind, which provides an additional puzzle element. The level Keys To The Kingdom provides an early example of both.
• Meaningful Name: Many level names, such as "You Only Live Twice" (where you have to kill the same enemy three times in a row) and Rooms Of Confusion (which is a very confusing and hard level).
• Mook Maker: The cloners in the first game can create mooks whenever triggered, the wizard in the second will create mooks every couple seconds automatically. Both can also be configured to make other things than mooks.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: From the PRIME set, "Euler" if you're playing on hard. The solution it requires is actually very simple and it's logical... but it's not natural for the game and there are NO hints for it - you have to figure out the "trick" yourself. Thankfully, it at least makes sense afterward, avoiding Guide Dang It!.
  • To some extent, the secret rooms in the tutorial levels. They are not explained and not shown until you figure out how to get there.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Several of the later levels have a lot of different objects around, most notably Rooms Of Confusion and Razzle Dazzle; it isn't clear which object is meant for which purpose, or what section of wall to blow up with your sole bomb, or whether to pick up a gem or have it redirect a laser beam.
  • On some levels, the low time limit makes them extra hard, if you're playing on hard mode.
• No Fair Cheating - Various cheat codes exist, but completing a level with them simply doesn't count. The exception is the level warp cheat.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: your character will die instantly when touching an enemy, or when any object (other than a key) falls on him, or when caught in an explosion. A powerup will keep you safe from enemies, but not the other things. There is no way to get more than one hit point.
• Pressure Plate: The blue and pink door switches can be triggered by walking over them, but also respond to rocks, enemies, and so forth; so they're effectively plates in the floor. This also applies to the blue mover switches.
• Rube Goldberg Device: Many levels involve this, such as Tribute To M.C. Escher. Some are deceptively simple.
• Secret Level: The PRIME set has six secret levels, one for each row on the map. The first one is First Mystery.
• Selective Gravity: Rocks and gems fall, most other things don't. This is common to the Digging Game genre.
• Shout-Out: Many level names. For instance, What Would Brian Boitano Do is a reference to South Park.
• Spiritual Successor: To Supaplex; it even got the greenlight from the authors of Supaplex, and includes several of the levels from that game.
• Sprint Shoes are one of the powerups, that predictably make you move faster. This is useful because enemies and falling objects are as fast as your regular speed.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Oh so very much. Enemies will blow up when something falls on them, as will bombs; slime will blow up when adjacent to an enemy; dynamite will blow up when the trigger is pressed.
• Super Drowning Skills: You will die in water unless you have the flippers powerup, which allow you to cross safely.
• The Maze: Only a few levels are really about pathfinding. One of the first mazes is the level Keys to the Kingdom.
• Timed Mission - Every single level if you play on hard. If you play on easy, the time limit is just for bonus points.