Is it me or is this game.... not very good?

[TeknoTel]

This game is rated overwhelmingly positive. After completing it I genuinely have no idea how this is the case.

It starts off very promising absolutely, however after you have done anything in Dredge you have done everything. There is no real variation at all. Just go from one point to the next.

The fishing mini games are very simplistic, its fine, if it was one of several other game mechanics, which it isn't.

I think this style of game, travelling from point a to point b and back to point a would be fine if the game world, characters or story were engaging or immersive in any way. This is actually where the game is at is absolute worst in my opinion.

Nothing is developed. You meet characters and are like, oh, I wonder what is going to happen here, nothing happens with any of them. You will have one or two maximum interactions and the story will never develop any further with them. I found this to be the most surprising aspect of the game as I expected this would be where the games focus would be seeing how simplistic virtually everything else is.

I completed it very quickly and after doing so I had two open quests, very tedious rinse and repeat quests so I had seen the overwhelming majority of the game as well.

The game looks set up to be very good after the first 30-60 minutes of play and I think this explains a lot of the overwhelmingly positive reviews, however when you eventually realise that very little actually develops in Dredge you see how quickly this game has been put together and how little there is to it. Honestly after completing this I thought this was one of the most shallow/rushed games I have ever played and the price of £20 is obscene for how little has gone into this game.

[Siamese55]

Personally, I liked it without being particularly infatuated, but I doubt many would disagree with the first bit (or first locations) being the strongest showing or various other criticisms.

The Marrows and Gale Cliffs have the most characters and thusly the most interactions and side narrative. The other areas just do not have the same level of character interaction or dock events, whether or not you believe it makes sense with the growing dangers of the areas.

I would not go as far as to call Dredge shallow (especially narratively, because I do believe vagueness and mystique are decent story tools), but the traveling merchant did feel a bit cheap to me. I did like how her dialogue transitioned as she got familiar with you, but unique fishmongers for each area would have been an obvious enough plus.

I would definitely disagree to saying that there is no character dynamism or growth. Very obvious things happen (or can with your participation) to several characters: the brothers bury the hatchet at Gale Cliffs; the dockworker workers' ambitions took their toll; the researcher gets a roommate; and most importantly our protagonist chooses whether or not to grow as a person with his ending and personal struggles.

What I find most appealing about Dredge, besides the fishing thematic and gameplay loop (because I do just generally like fishing games), is how pick up and put down the story is. I can be a good guy, a bad guy, or even just ignore everyone like a workaholic. All those examples above are basically at my own discretion and I can do them in whatever order I want. I can run straight from the Marrows to Devil's Spine and get started even without being able to catch a thing there.

Dredge did not have to be a tense nail biter or a novel of drama for me to enjoy it; especially not with a gameplay loop and collectible aspect I enjoy for its own sake. I don't know who would argue that it could not have been more (especially with a narrative DLC set to come out later this year), but that could be said for anything. I would have liked to have been infatuated with Dredge as well, but I was able to get enough from it to look upon it fondly and that is clearly a where the positive reviews are coming from.

[Dr. Awesome]

It's you. This game is a great mix of simple game play, fun graphics and soundtrack. I think some people are over analyzing this game and trying to make it something that it is not (deep and complex.) This is a fun casual game that doesn't take a lot of thought but lets you escape a little bit.

[LOCK AND LOAD]

I say the only bad things about this game is lack of content when the price kinda high for indie game but I love everything in this game you go exploring , try to get every type of fish in the sea , environment is beautiful (I love Stella Basin the most) , escape from scary danger and the photo mode really make it fun to collect cool pic of monsters and the game didn't sell you like "THIS IS EPIC ADVENTURE EVER!" every trailer is just chilling in mystery sea and it didn't disappoint me (beside too short of course)

Ps. If you call this game "shallow/rushed games I have ever played" I guess you only played ten games in your life because there's million of shallow/rushed games in this world that you should try and see what the real shallow/rushed games looks like

[Strawmancrow]

"How did this become overwhelmingly positive, it's an alright game but it's not overwhelmingly positive"
Overwhelmingly Positive just means almost everyone liked the game. It's not a review score buddy. Overwhelmingly Positive isn't everyone rating it a 10/10 game, it just means damn near everyone said "yeah I like it"

That's it.

[editbayrat]

Originally posted by maru:

Originally posted by Lod101:

...
you are surprised that a game mainly focused on driving a boat and fishing has mostly fetch quests?
...

+1 to this. Honestly, if you come into a fishing game with expectations other than to mostly be doing fetch quests in a scenic environment, then the issue is more to do with yourself than the game..

+2 Yeah, this. It is what it is. Why would you waste a microbit of energy wishing it was something it's never going to be?

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by maru:

Originally posted by Lod101:

...
you are surprised that a game mainly focused on driving a boat and fishing has mostly fetch quests?
...

+1 to this. Honestly, if you come into a fishing game with expectations other than to mostly be doing fetch quests in a scenic environment, then the issue is more to do with yourself than the game..

I mean this is just silly lol, the fishing itself its extremely shallow, virtually nothing to it.

Fish at the SAME random locations, there's nothing complex about it, no patterns, no gameplay.

Special fish caught at complete random, nothing to it at all.

The whole criticism I am making is this is a very shallow simple game, there are fishing games with different bait, rods, locations, weather patterns, far more complex fishing mechanics etc. Dredge literally has nothing to it at all click a button and RNG on virtually everything.

I think you are missing the point here, you can like the game, its your opinion, I just found it way to simplistic and shallow to be a 'overwhelmingly positive' game, honestly this game could be a mobile portand made in 2-3 weeks, it is that simple.

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by Dr. Awesome:

It's you. This game is a great mix of simple game play, fun graphics and soundtrack. I think some people are over analyzing this game and trying to make it something that it is not (deep and complex.) This is a fun casual game that doesn't take a lot of thought but lets you escape a little bit.

I just dont see a game with this little effort put into it can be 'great'.

It doesn't really have any gameplay and could probably be finished in a few hours if you set your mind to it. I would say the graphics and setting are its only real decent points, everything else is just rushed/bare bones.

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by LOCK AND LOAD:

I say the only bad things about this game is lack of content when the price kinda high for indie game but I love everything in this game you go exploring , try to get every type of fish in the sea , environment is beautiful (I love Stella Basin the most) , escape from scary danger and the photo mode really make it fun to collect cool pic of monsters and the game didn't sell you like "THIS IS EPIC ADVENTURE EVER!" every trailer is just chilling in mystery sea and it didn't disappoint me (beside too short of course)

Ps. If you call this game "shallow/rushed games I have ever played" I guess you only played ten games in your life because there's million of shallow/rushed games in this world that you should try and see what the real shallow/rushed games looks like

This game could genuinely have been made in one month. I agree there are games that are even more shallow and rushed, but this one is rated overwhelmingly positive so I was trying to understand why.

So far all I can really take from the responses is that some people like these sort of games where there is nothing really to it and also enjoy the aesthetic and setting, which I do as well, I just think there needs to be a bit more of a game there to gain the accolades that this one is.

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by Strawmancrow:

"How did this become overwhelmingly positive, it's an alright game but it's not overwhelmingly positive"
Overwhelmingly Positive just means almost everyone liked the game. It's not a review score buddy. Overwhelmingly Positive isn't everyone rating it a 10/10 game, it just means damn near everyone said "yeah I like it"

That's it.

I mean, look at other 'overwhelmingly positive' games and you might understand the discussion being raised.

[Shmooe]

YOU! 54 hrs and still love it! can't wait for the DLC!!!!

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by Shmooe:

:dredge_susfishious: YOU! 54 hrs and still love it! can't wait for the DLC!!!! :rk_foot:

Lol what can you do in this game for 54 hours? Legitimately you could 100% it in 10 hours....

[hagfish]

'Overwhelmingly positive' doesn't mean 'overwhelmingly amazing'. it means two things: the vast majority of people who left a review gave it a thumbs-up. Relatively few hated it so much that they left a thumbs-down. That's it. is it as good as Stardew? Or Sunless Sea? The 'thumbs' metric is insufficient information. Dredge is good enough that most people like it, and avoids the usual review-bomb-fodder of 'uplay' or 'inclusivity' or whatever. Will I spend 3K hours in it? No. Will I give it a thumbs-up? Sure, why not?

[MatthewHager312]

I mean...you're just a Fisherman, right? Why would your character need to know about what's going on with the people? Just catch fish. Sell fish. Profit.
You're not the center of the story. You're just a fish yourself. The best lovecraftian stories are the ones where you're just a small bug in the vastness of the world. The world and its horrors don't care about you. You're just a fisherman.

[Garamoth]

I agree the game could use some more content, fishing could be more involved and some more character development would be nice. I thought there would be more to the mayor, in particular. He's such an earnest little dude, suspicious, no?

That being said, the game probably deserves being horror game of 2023 just for its masterful mix of melancholy and horror, combined into a fishing game, of all things. They nailed the mood juuuust right. Listen up nerds, here's the secret to a great horror game: you need to appeal to more emotions than just fear.

Then again, nailing the Lovecraftian horror mood requires some gameplay compromise. Leaning in too heavily on the business aspect kills the sense of the unknown, the same with going too far into the magic mumbo-jumbo. Seriously, the thematic balancing act is really quite a feat.

In that sense, pontoon girl is almost too convenient. She offers all services in one spot very far away from "home", is cheerful and has zero horror undertone. In Sunless Sea, the trip back home was scary in its own right; you were never safe anywhere but back in London.

[TeknoTel]

Originally posted by hagfish:

'Overwhelmingly positive' doesn't mean 'overwhelmingly amazing'. it means two things: the vast majority of people who left a review gave it a thumbs-up. Relatively few hated it so much that they left a thumbs-down. That's it. is it as good as Stardew? Or Sunless Sea? The 'thumbs' metric is insufficient information. Dredge is good enough that most people like it, and avoids the usual review-bomb-fodder of 'uplay' or 'inclusivity' or whatever. Will I spend 3K hours in it? No. Will I give it a thumbs-up? Sure, why not?

Bit of a simplistic take and not really accurate. It implies this game has few criticisms and other games of the same category are games of the decade for the most part.

This game has so much to criticise after you realise it never really progressed or goes any deeper then the initial premise. Its a very rushed game with lots of mechanics and ideas that have not been thought through or fleshed even slightly. Once you have done one thing in Dredge, you have done it all pretty much, you just get a slightly faster boat to do it every now and then.