Deep Sea Adventure

Deep Sea Adventure is a clever game that comes in a tiny box. Made in Japan, it is an elegant game that combines independent pursuits – each player is a diver after the most under-sea treasure – with a collective element: everyone shares the same air, and the more treasure everyone carries, the more air they use up!

The ‘board’ is simply a submarine showing the air supply, and a track of tiles showing the treasure, which gets more valuable the further away you get from the submarine. Players start with their ‘divers’ at the submarine – on your turn you’ll roll the dice (there are two, numerically valued from 1 to 3) and move along the track, between 2 and 6 spaces. All the spaces represent treasure (though some can be value 0) and if you choose to pick up two things happen on subsequent turns: first, the air supply dwindles by one for every treasure tile you’ve collected. Secondly every treasure tile you collect is also minus one to your movement roll, so encumbering yourself with three or four treasure tiles can mean you move very little, if at all.

Additionally, everyone needs to try and get back to the sub before the air runs out! And as players collect more treasure that can happen very quickly indeed!

At the end of each round players who didn’t make it back to the sub in time – which could easily be everyone! – discard all their treasure. Anyone who made it back keeps theirs. All the spaces where treasure was collected that round (marked with X markers) are removed and as a result the treasure track condenses. Collected treasure accrues on the markers furthest from the sub (now a little nearer, remember) and these piles of treasure only cost you the same as one treasure marker in terms of how much air they use up – that is, if you manage to get to them and pick them up, they only cost you one air per pile.

It’s a game that plays very fast and blends luck and tactics with a high-pressure story.