Every now and then I get tired of playing games with a controller. I'm not really sure why this happens because unless it is a Real Time Strategy game, I normally prefer to play with a controller and will even do so whenever I am playing on a PC.
Dredge game up in a list of "sleeper games" that surprised everyone with their innovation so I figured I would give it a look. It is a very strange idea for a game in that it is a "survival horror fishing game" and when you read that description if you are thinking "how is that even possible" then you are thinking a lot like I did when I first read about it.
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You start the game out with a very short video intro - which made me happy because I cannot stand long and drawn out video intros to a game especially when the graphics presented therein don't actually look anything like the actual gameplay.
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After that you are introduced to gameplay and basically, you are in a small fishing boat that has been given to you by the mayor of this small town that you find yourself washed up in. The idea here being that just like any other game, you start out with very limited equipment and have to work your way up as far as upgrades are concerned. Getting new engines, lights, and fishing equipment is your priority in most of the game and a bit later on you will need to dredge for supplies off of other shipwrecks in order to build things.
You find out really quickly that a large portion of the game's difficulty comes from time management and the necessity to not stray too far away from a dock unless you have loads of time left in the day. Time passes at various speeds depending on what activity you are doing. You might feel compelled, as I did, to just sit at one place pulling in more and more fish only to finish off that spot and realize the sun has set and you are ages from the city.
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This is when the evil eyes start popping up in the distance and large creatures from the depths of the sea being to attack your boat. They do take it easy on you early on and the damage that is done to your boat is quite minor but you do have to pay to get it repaired. You make money by simply doing more fishing so this isn't that big a deal. I don't know if your boat can be fully sunk or not or what happens at that point because it has never happened to me. I hope it isn't a full on "game over" situation because I can't imagine very many people starting the entire game over if this were to happen.
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As your equipment improves you are able to head further and further away from the first city that you start in and this is when things become more interesting and dark. I can kind of see where the story is going and I have intentionally not looked online to find out what that is because what I keep hearing is that this seemingly simple story of you needing to make money to upgrade your boat turns into something significantly more dark and twisted than that.
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Time management is of extreme importance in this title because at night things become quite deadly out there past sundown and some of the creatures that come at you from below are pretty terrifying.
Dredge can be as casual as you want it to be and I am currently taking my time and on some in-game days I simply head out to pick up my crab traps or go fishing and don't even bother with the main story and honestly, after about 5 hours of gameplay I can't really even say what the main story even is.
I think that most people will enjoy this game and at around $20 on multiple consoles as well as PC, I think that this one is worth looking into and perhaps buying. I never thought I would enjoy a "survival horror fishing game" but this is definitely one of those strange concepts that somehow just simply works.
The hardware requirements must be very low on this because it functions wonderfully on my 7 year-old laptop.