The Great Barrier Reef is teeming with sea life just waiting for you to explore! Bad Comet Games provides players with a beautiful, strategic experience creating their own ocean areas when they dive into Shallow Sea.
If you enjoy games with tile drafting and placement, tying in with strategic planning and goal implementation, and with depth but not too complex or bulky in its rule set, this is your game! As a bonus, the game includes variations in ways to play and if desired, you can log your achievements through experiences with solo mode or up to 4 players and with different provided scenarios.
Players start with Ocean Boards that have 22 six-sided spaces to place either coral tiles or sealife tiles and “bubble areas” around them for fish. During a turn, players choose either one coral tile or one sealife tile and a fish token to place on their board from a display on the table. Each tile has a completed and uncompleted side and starts out on player boards as uncompleted. Coral tiles and fish tokens can be one of four colors (yellow, green, red, or purple). Coral tiles also have a point value and from one to four colored areas along their edges and at least one of them matches the color of the coral tile itself. Players put these tiles on their boards as “uncompleted” corals with the goal of completing them by placing matching fish next to the colored edges. When complete, players can flip the corals to their completed side and choose one of the fish to place on top as a “completed” fish. The sealife tiles contain goals, such as having three of the same color corals arranged in a line next to the sealife tile, to earn a specific number of points. As these goal tiles are completed, they are flipped to their completed sides. In addition, there are two Ecosystem goal cards on display each game that provide points for completion by the end of the game.
Players continue replenishing tiles and fish displays until their boards are filled with tiles. The game ends and is scored for completed sealife goal tiles and ecosystem goals, and players also earn 2 points for each different sealife goal completed and how many adjacent completed coral tiles are next to each uncompleted fish. The player with the most points wins the game!
After several plays with this game, I am excited to try the solo mode and achievement mode. Another thing I really enjoy and appreciate is the well-written manual and the Shallow Sea Encyclopedia included in it. Each of the fish, coral, and sealife tiles have a brief description with facts about the species represented. The 22 different sealife tiles enhance replay as each one provides a unique goal! For 1-4 players with a 30–45-minute game time. ~ Marsha
| Product Format: | Other |
|---|---|
| Grades: | 5-AD |
| Brand: | Bad Comet Games |
| EAN/UPC: | 8809597071552 |
| Length in Inches: | 10.25 |
| Width in Inches: | 10.25 |
| Height in Inches: | 2.875 |
| Weight in Pounds: | 3.9 |
