Endeavor Deep Sea is a game that escaped my notice for too long. It’s published by Burnt Island Games and designers Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray have done a fantastic job: I’m properly addicted. The game also looks great on the table, thanks to the artists (Marusa Gorjup, Fahed Alrajil and Josh Cappel) and the production quality is high.
In this article I don’t try to tell you how to play Endeavor Deep Sea, and certainly can’t presume to tell you how to play it well. I do try to give you a feel for each of the three modes this game can be played in, and why I can’t stop playing it!
Cooperative Mode
My first few plays were with my sister or my daughter. We all enjoy a cooperative game and so this was the mode I kicked off with. The game is not difficult to learn, and the actual mechanics of playing it are almost exactly the same in each mode. As team leader, each player sends members of their crew to complete tasks according to their specialisms and the location of their submarine(s) in the ever-expanding ocean. In the initial rounds, your crew and the number of discs you have available to carry out actions are few. By the last couple of rounds you can take several actions if you’ve played well!
For the cooperative mode you are supposed to decide how many of the seven goals you hope to achieve before you start. If you can manage 4, you have won at beginner level. If you can get 7, you are legendary. I’m not sure why this has to be decided at the start – especially as three of the goals aren’t revealed at the beginning of the game. We were quite happy to try for 4 and hope to get more if possible. I suggest you do the same and prepare to be disillusioned, because winning this game is tough.
So we were not successful in our first few attempts. In fact I don’t think we were close to achieving a single goal on our very first mission! That’s ok. I like co-ops to be challenging, so that you can feel a real sense of satisfaction when you do win. Luckily this is a game that you get to the end of and immediately want to try again, so eventually we did achieve beginner status. Whether we can rise above that remains to be seen.
Solo Mode
In an attempt to work out the best approach I decided to give solo mode a go. This is played exactly the same as the co-op, but you get one more round to reach those goals. Again, it’s really tough. There does seem to be a critical point at which, when you reach the ends of your tracks and start circling round gaining impact, the benefits snowball and a win is more likely. I did eventually manage to win in solo mode (only beginner level again) and I’m now branching out into some of the 9 remaining missions. These other missions really encourage you to try different strategies as they steer you towards prioritising specific actions. I’ve found it hard to stop playing it. At one point I decisively packed it away and put it back in the cupboard in order to ‘spend my time more constructively‘, but got it back out again the very next day. And I have still only tried about three of the ten missions.
Competitive Mode
Many of you will begin at this point. Much as I enjoy a coop, in a competitive game at least you know someone will win! With this in mind, I introduced three friends to Endeavor Deep Sea in competitive mode. And someone did win (not me). They all enjoyed it. What came as a surprise to me is that this game turned out to be one that I actually preferred at a higher player count. You get to explore more of the ocean because more players are carrying out the sonar action. The journaling action often results in a reward for all players. In addition, when you link up conservation actions, you both get rewarded. This means that the down time between your turns is more eventful than it is in many games.
Conclusion
I urge you to give this game a go. I love it in all it’s modes and it has lots of replayability built in. Enjoy!
