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.

[TeknoTel]

Origineel geplaatst door Arnold Judas Rimmer:

Origineel geplaatst door tzeneth:

The problem with steam's refund policies is that there are games where the first few hours are good (I think this games first few hours are good) but the rest of the game has some issue or it doesn't develop as you would expect (IE: the first couple hours of a mechanic are good but it starts to drag over time).

I don't think the games info misleads players with claims of indepth, ever evolving gameplay.
It's sold as a simple little fishing game with occasional upgrades, & some mystery mixed in to the main story. On top of that, anyone can read the reviews from other players currently, including negative reviews criticising the games length. This is a 10 hour story with another 20-30 hours of fishing, exploring and 100%ing.
There's new DLC releasing next week adding a few hours of extra content too.

Not trying to talk you down, there's just very little reason for anyone to claim they had an issue with the gameplay length, Steam refund policies, and not having access to info that the game is a short indie game. I'd also argue that for the price, you basically get a dollar an hour of entertainment, and that's if it takes you over 36 1/2 Australian hours, (boy what a measurement!)

I do think an added difficulty could be great, add tension and length to the game though. I'd say you could fault this game only a little bit through personal preference, IE: Please add this cos it's cool to me.

Just to finish my personal opinion here, this games length was perfect for me. It wasn't filled with bloat, a little adventure, some upgrades, a small map. I loved playing it through so much that I've just got a Steam copy to do it all again + the DLC.

There is no way this is a 20 - 30 hour game to 100% it unless you decide to play with your feet. More like 8 - 10 hours, or 6 - 8 hours if you rush.

[Arnie Rimsy BSc.SSc.]

Origineel geplaatst door TeknoTel:

There is no way this is a 20 - 30 hour game to 100% it unless you decide to play with your feet. More like 8 - 10 hours, or 6 - 8 hours if you rush.

Plenty of people will play this game ALOT, and replay it too. That's why I included low to high numbers, 20-30 hours. This covers EVERYONE, whether its a short run or a longer run. Even if you got 10-15 hours out of this game, that's still a good comparison to price point and quality.

tl;dr I didn't make a blanket statement, you did.

P.S. My opinion is supported by the games success... your bafflement is not supported by a majority of the games player base. Ultimately, that just puts you back at stage one of having no idea why it was successful.

[TeknoTel]

Origineel geplaatst door Arnold Judas Rimmer:

Origineel geplaatst door TeknoTel:

There is no way this is a 20 - 30 hour game to 100% it unless you decide to play with your feet. More like 8 - 10 hours, or 6 - 8 hours if you rush.

Plenty of people will play this game ALOT, and replay it too. That's why I included low to high numbers, 20-30 hours. This covers EVERYONE, whether its a short run or a longer run. Even if you got 10-15 hours out of this game, that's still a good comparison to price point and quality.

tl;dr I didn't make a blanket statement, you did.

P.S. My opinion is supported by the games success... your bafflement is not supported by a majority of the games player base. Ultimately, that just puts you back at stage one of having no idea why it was successful.

You can make a game last as long as you want, the game itself can be content completed in under 10 hours even with all the extras. If I was to do it again I could probably complete it in 5 hours, I wouldn't though as by the third Island it was obvious the game was not going anywhere further.

It is interesting as all the positive comments dont seem to have anything positive to say other than, 'it's chill' and 'the style is good'.

I get its a nice casual game, I just found the lack of basic development very disappointing and wanted to discuss it.

[HoboRockBox]

I agree with you. I found the game kind of disappointing and boring. The positive reviews made me expect more depth and a better story. Imo, this game isn't bad, but it doesn't deserve such a high rating. In contrast, Sunless Sea is a similar game that is significantly better in almost every aspect, and yet it only has a Very Positive rating smh https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/

[tzeneth]

Origineel geplaatst door HoboRockBox:

I agree with you. I found the game kind of disappointing and boring. The positive reviews made me expect more depth and a better story. Imo, this game isn't bad, but it doesn't deserve such a high rating. In contrast, Sunless Sea is a similar game that is significantly better in almost every aspect, and yet it only has a Very Positive rating smh https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/

I think Sunless Sea's early game is a much worse experience which can affect reviews. The highs are better but the lows are also much lower and it's those lows that can drive someone to be annoyed/angry enough to give a thumbs down versus having an ok/good time and not bothering to give a negative review.

[HoboRockBox]

Origineel geplaatst door tzeneth:

Origineel geplaatst door HoboRockBox:

I agree with you. I found the game kind of disappointing and boring. The positive reviews made me expect more depth and a better story. Imo, this game isn't bad, but it doesn't deserve such a high rating. In contrast, Sunless Sea is a similar game that is significantly better in almost every aspect, and yet it only has a Very Positive rating smh https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/

I think Sunless Sea's early game is a much worse experience which can affect reviews. The highs are better but the lows are also much lower and it's those lows that can drive someone to be annoyed/angry enough to give a thumbs down versus having an ok/good time and not bothering to give a negative review.

It is true that Sunless Sea is difficult and kind of slow early on, but I think it averages out to a much better experience thanks to its fantastic writing, and much more interesting gameplay.

[Skeeter]

There's a lot of other posts with an epics length of text that I could read but I'll instead just reply to the og post with my own sentiments. Just in case anyone reading hasn't finished the game i'm not gonna drop any spoilers either.

I agree with your points that the game isn't very fleshed out with other characters stories, and development isn't necessarily all there. However I don't really think that was the games selling point to begin with? In my experience I thought that sailing around and exploring the main islands as well as the smaller islands around were much more interesting than anything an NPC could have talked to me about. The most development you get is through the main character, which slowly comes through as you do the main story quest, which is really who the story was about anyways so I can't really fault the game for that.

It was exciting to find new fish, especially any aberrations, and seeing the designs for them as well as the encyclopedia entries were interesting enough to justify getting them. I can see your argument for the tedious rinse and repeat quests, and my only real retort to that is, you are a fisherman and your job is to catch fish, i'd be more surprised if a quest didn't have me getting a fish for someone. On that same note though, there aren't any real unique quest only fish, which might be a little disappointing to some, but if you've caught something that someone is asking for before and you know where to get it, then it becomes that much easier to do. It feels rewarding to go "Oh I know what this person wants, and I know where to catch one". The 'mini-game' you do to catch the fish is very simplistic but there is tension to messing it up when its the dead of night and you're out on the open water. Also consider this, there's about 130 different fish you have to go out and collect at least once for the encyclopedia, but mostly to sell fish for money, if the fish catching process was any longer, people would be complaining about its length much more about it than its simplicity.

Also just my opinion but I felt that the pacing for being able to explore and sail out farther to other areas was done exceptionally well, it would be a little chaotic if the game started out and you were able to make it to the more dangerous areas right from the start, the game nudges you in the right direction on where you should look for story quests first, and upgrading the ship with either lights, new engines, and new fishing rods, each felt like solid progression and served its purpose well enough. The Dredge is like a collectathon but with fish, with a heavy emphasis on exploration.

It took me about 18 hours to complete the game 100%, all achievements done in that time. I don't think the game is perfect, but it was well worth the $25 I spent for it. My biggest issue with the game was I wish there was more danger aspects to the nighttime, after a while I realized that nothing during the night could immediately end my game and you get given a get out of jail free card very early on which also helped mitigate any fears I had. I understand that the game isn't for everyone but it looks like you went into the game expecting one thing but got another. Also I could talk more about NPC dialogue or in game events that happened that made the world building great but I wanted to remain entirely spoiler free in the post, but it exists!

Also just a side note but saying that the game was shallow/rushed and that little effort went into the game is a bit uncouth considering the team that made the game is 4 people and it was their first developed game. I think it was clear that a good amount of work went into game.

tl;dr - The development of characters in the Dredge was certainly not the games selling point or main draw. It was more about exploration, and just embracing the world within the Dredge. (which does not need character development/progression for the world to be explored or enjoyed)

[TeknoTel]

@F@

When you say the main development is of the character, if we are being honest there isn't really much there is there, like one thread to your development? Same for the 'world building' you mention, there is literally about a paragraphs worth of world building here if we are being totally honest.

I do agree the exploration is the games main selling point, however I do think it really did need a little more in terms of story, character and world development to make this exploration more worthwhile, this is due to the game mechanics not really being interesting or developed in anyway. For me, by the time you had reached the second or third Island it became obvious nothing new, interesting or exciting was going to happen in Dredge.

When you say exploring the islands was interesting, again, this is where for me Dredge was really obviously lacking as virtually nothing really happened at these locations. An abandoned village? A site with a stranded character? The stones? The pay off on any of these elements was always underwhelming and never really went anywhere. If there were more substantial quest lines, characters or secrets at these locations then fair enough, but there wasn't really.

For me there was just nothing to be immersed in after the couple of islands, it was legitimately a case of just wanting to finish the game to confirm that nothing else was going to happen.

I do think this is a poorly developed game and I have no doubt at all it has been rushed, there is absolutely no reason to not have more character interactions and even quest lines to what is a very small world, but I dont think its a terrible game or anything. I just think its a 5/6 out of 10, the overwhelmingly positive marker is usually what genuine GOTY/9.5/10 games get, I get this is still a cool relaxing game to spend a few hours on. I dont know how it can last over 10 hours, but obviously everyone has their own playstyle.

[BurgerVault]

Dredge feels like a game jam project that they developed to it's absolute bare mininum so it could be called a full game. I wouldn't put it so cynically, but that blackstone keep dlc make me feel cynical about these developers. Seriously, five dollars for two items that do nothing unique? That is outrageous.

[Uyên PT]

i had a good time with borderlands 3 after deciding not to buy this game. hehe

[GrayUrsaMajor]

I enjoyed this game, but yes it could have been better in ways, and worse. It's a bit unusual and that appeals to me. There are so many games available and many of them are truly garbage, but even "great games" will not appeal to everybody. I see valid points in every comment I read here.

For me, the price was in line with the entertainment value. Also, the necessary skills required to play were modest. I'm an old fart ( very close to 70 ) . My slower than ideal reaction-time and Arthritic hands make some games very difficult to play well. I'm not complaining, just a fact. I found this game to be interesting and pleasant enough to pass the time. It was refreshing to find something I could play since my favorite genres of Historical strategy "evolved" into insipidness. Grotesque Historical inaccuracies in allegedly "Historically accurate games" really annoy me, and Combat games have eschewed strategy for fast-reaction manic button pushing.

It's probably time for this old kid to grow up and forget gaming.

[Naumy]

Origineel geplaatst door Uyên PT:

i had a good time with borderlands 3 after deciding not to buy this game. hehe

not every game is for everyone. but the fact you felt the need to come here to post that is kind of cringe.

[undefined]

Origineel geplaatst door TeknoTel:

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

There are things that are "cool" to like, and showing everyone that you are in the cool kids club is the foundation of social media and thus the modern day internet. Contrary (i.e. original and unique) opinions get down-voted, and people usually prefer upvotes to down votes... The entire structure of social media is designed to bury independent thought.

As with every platform, and with every kind of entertainment media, you should regard all overwhelmingly positive game reviews on Steam with a high level of suspicion.

[Carighan]

Origineel geplaatst door HoboRockBox:

I agree with you. I found the game kind of disappointing and boring. The positive reviews made me expect more depth and a better story. Imo, this game isn't bad, but it doesn't deserve such a high rating. In contrast, Sunless Sea is a similar game that is significantly better in almost every aspect, and yet it only has a Very Positive rating smh https://store.steampowered.com/app/304650/SUNLESS_SEA/

I would argue that not only are the games very different, Sunless Sea is also of significantly lower production quality. It's still very good, don't get me wrong, but calling it a "slow burn" would be a massive understatement, nevermind how the devs intentionally dropped major parts while completely overhauling the gameflow speed for the successors, and for good reason.

Also, I'd be a bit worried if someone thinks that because both involve driving a boat over an ocean that Dredge and Sunless Sea are in any way similar games. 😅

[oreoinhell]

I personally love this game just because I don't really have the time to tire myself playing games like Sunless Sea now. I wish for a game around 8 hours or so, and I get it (though I played it for twice or thrice the time I wished for?), end of story. That's the reason I haven't chosen Dave the Diver too as everyone talks about what a fun game it is.