I’m a few hours into Dredge – the first game from indie studio Black Salt Games, from Christchurch NZ.
The gameplay loop and various tensions (time, materials, fishing/dollars, upgrades, story quests, day vs night) feel very well balanced so far.
I’m now at the second major island group outside the starter area, and the game is now pushing me to explore the night a little. And the Lovecraftian story is slowly expanding.
I do enjoy that the ‘busiwork’ (which I guess is what most management games are, not a bad thing) pushes you towards more varied gameplay mechanics. You can follow a quest, but stumble across some resources and now you need to manage your storage space, but the resources are what you need for your next upgrade so do you head back to dock now or – oh crap the sun is setting!
Like Danny from NoClip said a couple of weeks ago, I can’t stop playing. He also said “I burned through it like a pig through warm strawberries”, so I’ll see you on the other side. 🍓🐖🦑