DREDGE

Days are too short which makes gameplay feel tedious and repetitive. Overall, you'll have some fun moments but fairly simple and shallow. Definitely overrated/overhyped though.

Nice fishing simulator with an intriguing horror story. You'll find yourself playing it non-stop until you master all the game mechanics and/or until you reach the end of the story. It has some flaws if you ask me: 1) No expenses: character doesn't need money to eat, pay rent, pay docking services, no taxes, the ship doesn't need money for fuel or routine repairs. 2) Money becomes useless in the middle/end game. 3) Ship's storage space always feels too small no matter what cargo upgrades you buy. 4) The trawling nets are a joke, I thought they were used to catch an entire school of fish BUT NOPE !, only to catch a few anchovies and prawns per hour of the game (super slow and non profitable). 5) Research parts are too scarce, I used Cheat Engine to increase their spawn probability to 100%. 6) Ship fishing gear occupies cargo space, LAME !!!. New tech comes at the price of reduce cargo space. 7) The night is TOO DAMN DARK, no illumination upgrade seems to tackle this issue. 8) The "special powers" you acquire by finding relics have very long reloading times. The banished ability is super useful but it takes a lifetime to recharge. The haste ability burns your engine too fast. The teleport spell is awesome, but rises your paranoia for no reason. Again, I used Cheat Engine to "tweak" those parameters. 9) Your fish catch goes "bad" if they are stored for more than 6 hours. Again, nice realistic mechanics, but the developers should have included upgrades to make the ship capable of conserving fish for longer times, like ice chambers or something like the real ships. (Cheat Engine fixes this !). 10) After the ending, you can't keep playing the simulation game. All your time invested in the game PUFF ! GONE ! No sense of continuation.

Dredge is a interesting little adventure game with some great Lovecraft-esque influences. You play as a fisherman newly arrived or washed up on the small island of Marrow. From there you'll be given a boat and the opportunity to start catching some fish and attempt to make sense of the strange place you now find yourself in. There's the usual fare to expect from any kind of game like this, NPCs to interact with, small quests to do, several different regions to explore, upgrades for the boat and so on and while none of the game's systems are very deep they are, for the most part, well implemented with the highlight being the stark changes between the sea/ocean during the day vs what you'll see and hear at night! My only gripe would be the game's length and lack of replay value. It could definitely have expanded on some things to add more hours to the game and unfortunately you'd be hard pressed to find a reason to play it a second time around once completed so I would recommend getting it on sale.

I've played Dredge on my Nintendo Switch but will definitely pick it up on GOG as well when it's on sale. This game is awesome but I didn't pay much attention to it until I saw Yahtzee Crowshaws positive review and realised that it probably was a game for me. I love the cozy/eerie atmosphere in the game and the puzzle challenge of filling up your cargo with whatever you manage to pull up from the water. The gameplay is simple yet so satisfying and, truth be told, pretty darn addictive. I can't remember last time I played a game that got me intrigued that fast and the initial 45-ish minutes I had set aside for gaming turned into 6 hour stretch where I cruised the waves, eager to sell my catches so I could afford the next neat upgrade for my trusted tub. Sure, after a while the monsters that harasses you kinda feels more like a nuisanse than a threat but I still found the game to be super enjoyable and I look forward to giving the DLC a go!

I really like the setting anf overall feel of this game - the audiovisual design works really well, and the worldbuilding does a great job of balancing simplicity with a sparse narrative that leaves plenty for the imagination without becoming impenetrable or boring. The gameplay can get a bit grindy at times, but prioritize exploration and you'll have a good time (though you might die a bit or run into fish you can't get). Overall recommended if this sounds like your thing, but I can definitely see how it might not be for everyone.