Dredge

It’s a fishing sim with an H. P. Lovecraft twist. During the day you take your boat out, catch fish, and sell them for money to upgrade your gear. At night you need to stay near light or various horrific creatures will emerge from the depths and attack you. Your best bet is to dock and rest until morning then wake up and repeat the process. It feels like one of those cozy games that brain-dead zoomers enjoy but with just enough of an edge to it to make it seem more deep than it really is.

The dark lore is not terribly interesting, or at least it’s not presented in a way that captured my fancy. I was surprisingly engaged by the fishing parts of the game. The act of fishing is mostly just simple timing-based mini-games. Any upgrades you buy just give you access to more of the same. The game would have been much better if your skill at beating the mini-games actually determined the quality of your catch. That would have given some real purpose to the upgrades. As it is, capturing your 1000th fish is the same challenge as the very first one you caught.

In the end, this is just relaxing but mindless item collection. I enjoyed it but it could have been so much more.