Themed as a deep-sea exploration game, at its heart Fathom is a tile laying game in which players lay patterns of different sea creatures in order to score points. Similar to games like Cascadia, the creatures score differently to one another- which will lead players to make decisions and sacrifices based on the different tiles that they pull out of the bag each turn. In addition, there are four ‘campaign’ style modules within the base game which add in new sea creatures and vary the rule systems accordingly.
Played largely as a two-player, my wife and I enjoyed this game as an easy going puzzler, with some nice art as well. However, there were some elements which, by the end of the 4 campaign modules had started to annoy and frustrate us- not necessarily because they did anything wrong, but because of what at times felt like wasted potential and strange design choices.
To Campaign or not to Campaign- that is the question
As previously mentioned, Fathom comes with 4 ‘Campaign’ style modules, which add new creatures, new pieces and new rules when you choose to play with them. I’d like to say that I won’t go into details on because I don’t want to spoil them for you, but if I’m honest, (assuming that you buy the game new, not second hand) the game spoils them for you straight from the opening. To elaborate- when you open the box, you have to do the obligatory punching out of cardboard pieces- and then you assemble the module boxes and place the rule cards, tokens etc. within the labelled module box. I know it seems like a small thing- but why bother? The module box alludes to some sort of ‘secret’ extra element- almost like a legacy game- but the game forcing you to assemble all of these before hand removes any sort of surprise. It would have been great if the manufacturers had premade the boxes and packed the components in, so that straight out of the box you had an element of intrigue and ‘unknown’. But sadly, it just acts as a slightly unnecessary storage solution.
Components for Components sake?
One significant aspect of the game in terms of components and box space is each players ‘console’- a piece of cardboard placed alongside each players gameboard, designed to look like the control console of a submersible (all with slightly different styles- a nice touch). Think ‘Heat: Pedal to the Metal’ player boards. When you first lay it out, it feels so cool- you add in your various tokens into the punched out notches. But soon, that excitement slightly ebbs away as you realize this is basically just an action tracker for you to move your token along each time you take each obligatory action. By the end of the second or third turn, it just became a bit of an inconvenience- we knew what we had to do, and it wasn’t too complicated to keep track of it. To be honest, the only thing we would ever fail to keep track of, was the tracker itself- which is a shame as it felt like there could have been extra purpose to it, for example, logging upgrades to your ship or submersible.
Similarly, there was also a cardboard round tracker, which you moved a token along to signify completion of each round and when you moved onto the next module. However, when you consider that the round ended at the same time as you ran out of creature tokens in your bags, and that each module is numbered 1-4 for your to progress through- what’s the point? Its just unnecessary and overcomplicated.
At a time when society is talking about wastage and value for money, it’s a shame that the cost of these unnecessary components and their design couldn’t be reinvested in other areas of the game- such as wooden tokens- just to give a little more of a luxurious feel. Or pass the saving onto the customer!
Overall
Fathom is fine. It’s a nice little puzzle, and a fine way to kill an afternoon. It’s mechanisms are not perfect by any stretch, but it has some interesting theming and lovely design work through the different sea creatures and the different submersible boards. It just feels like a case of ‘so close, yet so far’- this game could have been great, or even excellent. It feels as though the makers of this game got caught in two minds- should the game be a big box, £50+ game, with legacy/campaign components, with upgradable submarines and really strategic, meaty gameplay. Or should it be a £20-30 small box game, with nice wooden tokens, and a cozy, puzzle for players to solve- similar to Cascadia or Harmonies. Fathom gets stuck in the middle of these two, and feels compromised and limited because of it- with other games (such as those mentioned) doing the same sort of thing as Fathom . But better.
