Deep Blue Review

I pre-ordered Deep Blue without knowing very much about it. I was lured in by beautiful box art like a siren singing to a sailor off a foggy coastline.

The fact it was published by Days of Wonder was also a massive contributing factor. Their list of games includes Ticket to Ride and Small World, firm family favourites in my house.

I am aware many heavyweight gamers have been a little unkind about Days of Wonder productions recently. However, I am a light to medium weight board gamer, as are those I play games with. Therefore I take these comments with a pinch of salt.

Deep Blue is designed by Daniel Skjold Pedersen and Asger Harding Granerud. Between them they have created Copenhagen, Flamme Rouge and Panic Mansion. The game took them around six years to get just right and is a game which they describe as a ‘passion project’.

Having purchased the game, I can now give you lots more information that wasn’t available to me when I dipped my virtual hand into my virtual wallet and spent real money on Deep Blue. So without further ado – let’s dive into the review!

Gameplay

Deep Blue is a deck-building race around a board trying to get as many victory points (VP) as you can. On your turn you have four available actions to choose from, you can hire staff, move, go on a dive or rest.

The staff cards of the game will give you additional movement, additional money, dive bonuses, or combinations thereof. They might also increase the crystal count inside the dive bag. You get a few basic ship cards at the start of the game to get you going. When you use a card, it gets turned face down on the player board. Resting is the only way of replenishing your cards but this only restores 3 cards at a time.

When you navigate to a dive site you can lead a dive on your next turn. You gain VP and bonuses for doing so. However, any other ship on an adjacent space can also join the dive, benefitting from the spoils and their own bonuses too.

Dives consist of delving into a bag and drawing a gem blind. Most will gain you VP, a few will require specialist staff to benefit fully. Blue and black gems represent hazards: blue being low oxygen and blacks being some sort of harmful water creature. These hazards have to be defended or they will force you to resurface losing the benefits of the gems you have collected. However, VP are still gained from card bonuses that are played throughout the dive.

The game ends when four particular dive sites have been explored, regardless of whether all the other sites have been scavenged or not. When diving these four sites special rules come into play too.