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[moi]

Yeah, that'd be neat.  Most people walk right and stay on land.  So just make the rest of the iceberg accessible via an ocean dive on the left side of the map.  Most players will just walk through the surface on the right and finish the game.  They'll never realize the depth they missed.  :D

This is awesome.  People assume water = instant death in platformers.  At some point half way through the game they'll fail a jump, fall in the water, and realise there's a whole extra world down there they've been missing, and have to go back through everything.  Great way to hint that there might be even more they're missing.

there were a few sequences like that in that old wonderboy game where you transform.

[Melly]

A compo wouldn't be that good. The best part about an icebergvania is finding out it even is one by accident.

[Hempuli‽]

this is true. Though it'd be cool to have a compo theme that pointed a bit towards iceberglike constructions!

Compo theme:
iceberg that is a metaphor

[Melly]

The iceberg creeps on you from the shadows.

It's pretty big and you can see a good bit of it outside the water, but ships still manage to crash on them.

That's some stealth mastery right there.

[Epitaph64]

I would even consider games like super mario world to be somewhat iceberg-ish. Since there was special world, plus the countless ways you can destroy the baddies (and all the glitches there were to exploit )

[Nektonico]

How about a game that is updated regularly (aka episodically) by the creators, with new content and secrets constantly added to the game.

Im thinking maybe something browser based. The catch is that some content isnt added in a plainly noticable manner, and instead under the form of secrets and easter eggs. Toss in a little procedural generation to mix things up, and you could have extreme replayability.

One could also add an online "scoreboard" to turn it into a competitive endeavour. That might provide motivation for finding said secret content, in addition to deterring people from wanting to divulge the location of the goodies (you know, they would get a higher score by being the only ones in the know). 
 

[SirNiko]

Isn't this category pretty much dominated by roguelikes? To me, that's the attraction: each time you play, something new might happen. It might be randomly selected, it might be the confluence of other factors, or it's just some trick you always could do and didn't realize it. And each time it happens, you wonder what else might happen next run.

No castlevania game ever reached this depth for me, so it seems backwards to call them "iceburgvanias". The inverted castle was pretty obvious, unless you're the type to shut to game off the moment you get any ending. Later games even included lists that spelled out the completion rate as a percentage, so you always knew how close you were.

I tend to like games that parade hidden content before you, letting you know there's still one more secret. If you make a game with a locked door in plain view, you better believe I won't quit until I find a way to unlock that door just to see what's on the other side.

-SirNiko

[Paint by Numbers]

Isn't this category pretty much dominated by roguelikes? To me, that's the attraction: each time you play, something new might happen. It might be randomly selected, it might be the confluence of other factors, or it's just some trick you always could do and didn't realize it. And each time it happens, you wonder what else might happen next run.

No castlevania game ever reached this depth for me, so it seems backwards to call them "iceburgvanias". The inverted castle was pretty obvious, unless you're the type to shut to game off the moment you get any ending. Later games even included lists that spelled out the completion rate as a percentage, so you always knew how close you were.

I tend to like games that parade hidden content before you, letting you know there's still one more secret. If you make a game with a locked door in plain view, you better believe I won't quit until I find a way to unlock that door just to see what's on the other side.

-SirNiko

Well, I wouldn't consider procedural generation to contribute to icebergvania-ism. My definition of the term pretty much includes only premade content. Although roguelikes have infinite combinations of their objects and an infinite amount of situations, an ideal icebergvania has constantly introduced, completely new content that gives the same impression, but is actually completely finite. The feeling that there's an infinite amount of stuff to discover, combined with the subconscious knowledge that if you try hard enough - for whatever reason - you will be able to find it all, is one of the reasons icebergvanias are so cool, if I do say so myself.

Also, my definition of icebergvania is actually such that the Castlevania games aren't even close to it, for the reasons you described there. Icebergvania is really more of a subsection of the metroidvania banner.

[SirNiko]

I'm not talking in terms of the game having infinite replayability. I'm talking easter eggs like scratching an obscure word on the floor and summoning a wildebeest. Stuff that you'd never figure out if it wasn't for ten thousand players playing through ten-thousand times and one, by chance, stumbles upon the secret.

My personal assumption is that the content is deviously hidden. If the game keeps winking and hinting there is more, is it an iceburgvania? Most modern console games do not do this, because that's content they want the player to know about because it makes the game more attractive.

Melly also makes a good point: unless the content is incredibly small so as to hide it in the code, players will eventually find it through a deconstruction of the rom. Did you know there are enemies in Super Mario Bros 3 that were not included in any of the levels in the "official" game, but if you hack the rom there are unused levels that contain new foes, like a variation on the flying beetles?

The idea of a game that looks small and simple but keeps unfolding into deeper, more complex layers would be awesome. Like, a single screen platformer that has a second secret screen for an alternate ending... which has another secret area that's larger and scrolls for another ending, and then another that nets you some powerups and a network of rooms... until players are scouring every inch for the passage to the next chamber, never knowing how deep the hole goes.

-SirNiko

[Paint by Numbers]

The idea of a game that looks small and simple but keeps unfolding into deeper, more complex layers would be awesome. Like, a single screen platformer that has a second secret screen for an alternate ending... which has another secret area that's larger and scrolls for another ending, and then another that nets you some powerups and a network of rooms... until players are scouring every inch for the passage to the next chamber, never knowing how deep the hole goes.

I had this idea, but I was never able to realize it. I sort of like the idea of a game that can be finished in a few seconds but actually isn't finished at all.

[Newbrof]

The idea of a game that looks small and simple but keeps unfolding into deeper, more complex layers would be awesome

I did this with Avoid Hitting Piano (iphone). On the surface it looks like the most simple jumping-game. But I have included secret messages and hints for the player, so that after a while you will find a secret, second game included (a spy story). But I think nobody noticed due to it's secret nature.

The danger with this approach is that nobody is noticing what you've done, and that first impressions don't "get it"...

so, but I know there is someonoe out there who will appreciate it

[Nektonico]

Maybe "You Have to Burn the Rope" was an icebergvania and no one noticed. 
The joke is on us.

[Hempuli‽]

Maybe "You Have to Burn the Rope" was an icebergvania and no one noticed. 
The joke is on us.

That would've been so rad.

The idea of a game that looks small and simple but keeps unfolding into deeper, more complex layers would be awesome. Like, a single screen platformer that has a second secret screen for an alternate ending... which has another secret area that's larger and scrolls for another ending, and then another that nets you some powerups and a network of rooms... until players are scouring every inch for the passage to the next chamber, never knowing how deep the hole goes.

-SirNiko

I got this idea some years ago. It would indeed be amazing, though you'd have to make the game so that the player really thinks for a while that there's nothing more... until...

[SirNiko]

On a related, but tangential note, I think the biggest reason why these kinds of games are attractive is because they make the game seem bigger.

I felt this way playing the new Final Fantasy 4 game on Wiiware. The last dungeon is just a vertical cavern that keeps going deeper and deeper, with new monsters and decorations every few levels. Every floor I descended my excitement grew, because I wondered how much deeper it could possibly go, and what would await me on the next floor.

Subsequent play-throughs have lost this sense of wonder.

-SirNiko

[Ben_Hurr]

...

But anyway, there's something special about games that have lots of obscurely hidden stuff. It adds a certain "mystique", which I think is the main reason why La Mulana is so popular. ...

La Mulana is probably one of the bad examples of that, since you have to find most of those secrets to finish the game.

But I like the idea of a game that seems to unfold infinitely.  Because you'll stumble upon that good stuff one day and be all "oh my goodness, I never saw that before...! "

[brog]

I'm not talking in terms of the game having infinite replayability. I'm talking easter eggs like scratching an obscure word on the floor and summoning a wildebeest. Stuff that you'd never figure out if it wasn't for ten thousand players playing through ten-thousand times and one, by chance, stumbles upon the secret.

This is a great point; "content" doesn't necessarily mean "levels".  Procedural generation can give us infinitely many levels, but these levels aren't 'real' content, what keeps people playing is the handmade part, which in roguelikes is the items and monsters.  I think most games have roughly the same amount of content (within an order of magnitude or so), it just takes different forms.

So it does make sense to call Nethack an "icebergvania" in this sense.  It has obscure depths of deviously hidden handmade content, some of which you could reasonably expect to figure out by trying stuff, and some of which you would never get without spoilers.

[Mogget]

The idea of a game that looks small and simple but keeps unfolding into deeper, more complex layers would be awesome. Like, a single screen platformer that has a second secret screen for an alternate ending... which has another secret area that's larger and scrolls for another ending, and then another that nets you some powerups and a network of rooms... until players are scouring every inch for the passage to the next chamber, never knowing how deep the hole goes.

I would hate this so much, as my obsessive-compulsive side would never be satisfied without finding everything. Every time a game throws something like a four-road split at me, I'm like "not again" and get exploring.

...then after scouring the first path for a half hour, I discover it leads to the exit, and can't simply finish the level there without seeing everything there is to see.

[Parthon]

Just musing on this idea at the moment. (at work )

Is there a market/demand for sprawling games with lots of secrets. With all the talk of linear/secretless games around, it seems that the OCD and completionist players are left in the cold.

A game that would take a few hours to finish, but several dozen to full complete would be popular for going against the trend, perhaps?

[melos]

i like the term icebergvania . reviving

[The Translocator]

Now that it's 2014 I can think of exactly ONE successful icebergvania since 2009: FEZ.