What is a gaming slump? It’s like any other slump really – a period of time where you find it difficult to enjoy a hobby, when you just can’t find the motivation to do something you ordinarily love. The worst thing about a slump is that it can come on suddenly, and there’s no telling what will get you out of it. While I know tactics vary from person to person, my personal preference is to throw myself headfirst into as many games/books/movies as possible until something kick-starts my excitement again. Which is why I find that a quick fix is often best – something brief but high quality, so you get maximum enjoyment in as short a time as possible. Bonus points if it’s a genre you don’t usually dabble in, or one you haven’t heard much about, to add some variety if your slump is caused by genre related fatigue. If you’re in a gaming slump yourself, I’m willing to bet that Dredge will tick all those boxes for you – it’s short, sweet and very out of the ordinary.
Dredge centres around a gameplay loop of catching fish, selling those fish for money, then using that money to upgrade your boat so you can go out and catch more fish – and so on. The ‘catch’ then? Just that some of the fish in the ocean may or may not be Lovecraftian nightmares. Plus there are plenty of secrets for you to ‘dredge’ up, in order to slowly piece together the secret of what has caused the sea to become so infested.
Length of Your Line
Despite the simplistic gameplay loop, Dredge has a fantastic story with plenty of mysteries that I couldn’t wait to unravel. If, like me, you love a good bit of nautical fiction, you will be right at home. On the flip side, it’s also incredibly easy to slip into 30 minutes of uninterrupted fishing. The fishing ‘minigame’ is standard fare, a mechanic which will be familiar from other games – tap a button at the right time to reel in your line. Though far from being a novelty, it is oddly addictive and spending some time on the waves reeling in catch after catch can feel…cosy? Perhaps meditative is a better word, as it’s hard to relax once night begins to close in and the more sinister creatures of Dredge come out to say hello, though the developers did introduce a passive mode that prevents your boat from being attacked, so you can fish without fear if you’re looking for a more relaxed experience.
This means that the pacing of your adventure is very much determined by you. If you want to kill a few hours doing nothing but trawling your net, setting out crab pots and upgrading your rods, you can. Though the game keeps a record of how many days you’ve spent out at sea, there are no time based events to hasten your voyage. Or, if you would rather shoot through the story to the end of the game, you can do that too, by visiting each of the main story areas and completing the relevant quests to progress to the end (and it has a fascinating ending, as game finales go). Though upgrading your vessel is going to make these bits easier, there isn’t a significant disadvantage if you don’t – personally I neglected my lights a bit to focus on speed, and this didn’t make things especially harder (just much more creepy, having to drift around without light!).
It’s a weird comparison, but I think of it a bit like Animal Crossing – you can laser focus on paying off your mortgage, or you can amble about in the house of every cat/bird/squirrel villager you want, while selling a couple peaches every now and then to pay off your debts. Games like this are perfect for a slump, because they stop gaming from feeling like a chore by ‘forcing’ you to play on, and instead let you focus on doing the bits you actually enjoy.
Smooth Sailing and Choppy Waters
Part of what makes Dredge so creepy is the contrast between the different locations your boat sails through and moors at. You can be sitting safe and snug in a harbour, bathed in the glow of a lighthouse one minute, and dodging jagged cliffs in the dead of night another. The ‘vibe’, like the pacing, depends on you and how much you are willing to explore. Whether you choose to only fish by daylight, or whether you are brave enough to work exclusively at night, eagerly seeking out awful monstrosities to sell for excellent coin – that’s on you. You can also be quite methodical with how you choose to fish. It is worth bearing in mind that fishing spots can be overfished, and these areas will become depleted if you delve too greedily, so you might want to cast strategically. Or, you can be like me and fish wantonly, wiping out swathes of fishing areas at a time, which is to no major repercussion (except maybe a hit to your conscience, on behalf of all those digital fish).
No Catfish
What drew me to Dredge initially was the art style, which presents a minimalist interpretation of spooky sea-stories and Lovecraftian horror, without losing any of the grubby, grossness of the aberrations lurking in the depths. It’s in this way that Dredge pulls off an impressive feat, sometimes being achingly pretty with sunsets that fill the sky and strikingly designed gear, while also being down right repulsive each time a slimy sea serpent crawls aboard your vessel. And it’s not just visually compelling – as disgusting as the slimy stowaways are to see, the sound of the poisonous bubbling of cursed creatures sneaking onboard is just as horrifying. Don’t get me started on the experience of boating gently through rocks, only to hear the roar of something much much bigger…
As terrifying as all this sounds, it’s actually quite subtle, relying more on what is unseen to scare you rather than engineering big beasties to tear your ship apart. Which can actually happen, but is quite avoidable once you progress enough to have some of the ‘gifts’ of the depths bestowed on you. Without spoiling too much, these gifts allow you to call upon the supernatural to spirit you away from certain situations with a bit more ease (but at what cost?).
Quite A Catch, Then
So why is Dredge the perfect game to reel you out of your gaming slump? Dredge isn’t just the game you want it to be – it’s the game you need it to be. Slow and mostly pleasant? Or pressing and sinister? Despite the fact that I am usually quite a meticulous gamer (trophy hunting, spreadsheet keeping, walkthrough reading), I chose to be adrift in Dredge, relying on my instincts and going where I wanted to. It provided a nice change for me, away from sprawling side quests and hours of lore to get acquainted with, instead being an impressively unique, self-contained game to spend a few hours with. Just you, your rod, the sea and everything lurking in it for you to scoop up to your heart’s content.
(Just be sure that the fishies don’t scoop you up first).
Have you played Dredge? What game do you recommend to get out of a gaming slump? Let me know in the comments!
