Deep Regrets is a beautifully themed, darkly funny fishing game where madness lurks beneath the waves. Its eerie artwork and rich storytelling shine, but heavy reliance on luck can make the gameplay frustrating, especially with more players
Young Robert sailed, a fisherman bold, till creepy fish, a tale untold,
With eyes askew and sickly hue, pulled madness from the ocean blue.
His mind astray, his reason frayed, by whispers from the deep betrayed.
Heave ho, heave ho, the madness claims its fee.
Beware the things that swim the sea!
Nothing like starting a review with a little sea shanty to get you into the mood, folks! Deep Regrets is a game that puts you in the role of an angler heading out to sea to haul in the best catches, before selling them back at port. Along the way, you acquire better equipment to help you net bigger fish or even delve deeper into the inky depths. The problem is, something isn’t quite right with the waves around the island of Rocabarraigh. Fish have too many eyes, whispers work their way into your sleep, and slowly you feel your grip on reality slipping through your fingers – just like the increasingly hideous fish on the end of your line. With each new monstrous creature that comes to the surface, so too do the regrets you’ve tried to keep buried.
Hopefully from that brief intro you’ve got a sense that the theming behind Deep Regrets is superb. It’s honestly been a while since I played a game in which the theme is woven in so richly throughout. From opening the box to see some gorgeous artwork under the lid, to the little background notes in the rulebook and the wonderfully tactile components, designer Judson Cowan has poured his heart and soul into making something that has a magnificent table presence, quite unlike anything else.
The stars of the show though are the ‘fish’ – a term used very loosely. The game starts with you dealing out three rows of 13 fish cards, which are placed face down at three different depths. Typically the bigger – and more valuable – fish tend to lurk at the lowest depths… but that’s also where you’ll find some of the weirder, more dangerous creatures. On your turn, you have the choice of heading out to sea to start fishing or heading back to port to spend your hard-earned cash – more on that in a moment.
Fishing is fairly straightforward. Each round you begin by rolling your player dice – which are numbered one to three. The higher you roll, the more likely you are to net the big one! Next you choose which shoal you want to fish in, which basically translates to flipping over a card to see what lurks underneath. A nice touch is that you can predict from the shadow on the rear of the card whether it’s a small, middling or large fish. Once flipped over, you’ll see how much you need to ‘spend’ on your dice in order to catch the fish. If you’ve got enough dice, you net the fish and play passes to the next person. If you haven’t got the dice score required – or choose not to catch a fish – you must discard a dice of your choice, then pick up a Dink card. These tend to be useful items, like additional bait, that you can discard to make it easier to catch fish on a future turn.
However, there’s always a risk to fishing and sometimes the fish will immediately trigger special effects, such as a shark that eats your smallest fish, or something gruesome that forces you to pick up a Regret card. The artwork on these cards is wonderfully ghoulish. Fish are split into two categories – Fair and Foul. The former are fish you would actually discover on a real fishing trip, e.g. marlin or a giant octopus. The Foul fish though are straight from the pages of Lovecraft and have a definite Cthulhu-esque vibe to them. As a result, there’s a real tension and excitement in those initial games when you flip over the card to see whether you hooked a normal fish or accidentally uncovered a monstrosity that pushes you to the end of sanity.
Madness is a key concept in Deep Regrets because the more time you spend out at sea, the more likely you are to lose your grip on reality. Sometimes when you reveal or catch a Foul fish, you must draw one or more Regret cards and the more Regret cards you have, the more insane you become. Now, that might sound like a bad thing but losing your mind comes with some benefits. Firstly, you get to roll more dice and secondly, you’ll earn more money from selling the Foul fish you haul in – although that comes at the expense of decreasing the value of Fair fish. For the majority of the game then, pushing yourself into the realms of madness is mostly beneficial, but you’ve got to be careful to reclaim your sanity before the final scoring because, otherwise, you will be forced to discard your most valuable catch. There are various means to reclaim your senses though, like eating Fair fish or using Supplies from the Port, so the risk of going off the deep end actually never feels like that much of a true threat.
Ah yes, the Port! If you choose not to head out to sea, you can spend a Round mooching around the Port, selling your fish and spending your cash. It’s an interesting decision to decide whether to head back to Port or stay out at sea to bolster your potential earnings. That’s because in Port you can buy numerous Reels, Rods and Supplies or additional dice that make it much easier to hook the bigger fish as the game progresses. Sadly this is also where Deep Regrets starts to come apart.
You see, everything you buy is subject to an element of randomness. For example, if you want to buy a Rod you can pay $1 to draw the top card of the deck or spend $3 to draw three cards and keep one, while the rest are shuffled back into the deck. The thing is, some Rods are so much better than others and getting one at random feels completely unfair. This can be compounded by another player choosing to just spend $1 and pulling a superior Rod. Even worse, the random selection is used for Reels, Rods and additional dice too. The dice, in particular, feel unfair because they’re all stored in a (admittedly very lovely) bag and drawn at random, but some are way more consistent in rolling higher numbers. Frustratingly in the solo mode, you get to choose the equipment you want and, as you might expect, the better equipment is more expensive. This is a far more elegant solution to the random nature of the Port in multiplayer.
In fact, randomness is a problem that’s present throughout Deep Regrets. The fish are chosen randomly, they might have a random effect and then whether or not you can catch those fish is down to the dice you’ve (randomly) rolled. Dinks, which could help catch a fish later down the line, are drawn at random. If you’re forced to choose a Regret card it’s randomly numbered from one to three, which could have a massive effect in the end scoring. Plus, when you make it back to Port, your choice of equipment is random and you could find all the best stuff has been snapped up.
In other games, I’m not overly fussed by the random nature because the gameplay is super snappy – see my recent comments on Love Letter or my enjoyment for Flip 7. However, with Deep Regrets, a full round can last as long as an entire game of Love Letter (particularly in the later stages because players have more dice to spend in order to catch more fish), so to have your strategic decisions snatched away by the gods of fate seems cruel. This is highlighted prominently at higher player counts. Anything over three players and Deep Regrets drags like a fishing net stuck on the ocean floor. Two players, on the other hand, and the gameplay remains pleasantly rapid and more enjoyable.
Written by Rob Burman
Designer: Judson Cowan
Publisher: Tettix Games
Time: 30-180 minutes
Players: 1-5
Ages: 16+
Price: £100
Sometimes we may include links to online retailers, from which we might receive a commission if you make a purchase. Affiliate links do not influence editorial coverage and will only be used when covering relevant products
