How to play Deep Sea Adventure, a pocket-sized push your luck game.
Watch the Video
Read the Rules
The aim of the game
To win, collect the most valuable deep sea loot, making it back to the submarine before the shared oxygen runs out.
To set up
- Layout the submarine board and place the air marker on the 25 space.
- Separate the treasure ships by shape, shuffle them up and lay them face down in a line from underneath the submarine, starting with the low value 3 sided tokens, then 4 and 5 sided tokens and finally the most valuable 6 sided ones.
- Put the blank undersea chips in a pile nearby
- Each player takes a diver and places it in the sub
To play the game
The player who most recently went in the ocean begins
They roll the 2 dice to see how far they dive and move their meeple down the line of chips equal to the number rolled. If you would land on a tile occupied by another player, jump over them without counting it.
If you land on a treasure, you may pick it up, placing it in front of you and replacing it with a blank undersea chip.
After everyone’s had their first turn, there’s more actions to take.
- First, at the start of your turn, reduce the oxygen, moving the marker down by the number of treasure pieces you are carrying.
- Second, before rolling the dice, declare whether you will continue to dive down, or start to surface towards the submarine. You can only change direction once per round. If you forget to declare before rolling, you must dive deeper.
- Then, roll the dice and move in the direction declared, deducting the number of treasure you carry from the value you roll. For example if I roll a 5 but am carrying 2 treasure, I’d only move 3 spaces. It’s possible you might not be able to move.
- Finally, after moving, you may pick a treasure up, if you landed on one, or drop a treasure you carry, if you’re on an empty space.
Take it in turns using oxygen, diving and looting until at the start of a player’s turn the oxygen marker is moved to 0. They finish their go and the round concludes.
Players that made it back to the sub turn over their collected treasure to reveal its value and place it aside for end game scoring. Banked treasure does not affect your dice rolls in the next round.
Players that did not make it back drop their loot to the bottom of the sea.
Starting with the diver closest to the sub, they stack their treasure chips collected in stacks of 3 in any order they wish and place them at the bottom of the line. Once a stack of 3 has been made, start a new one underneath.
On subsequent dives, stacks function as a single treasure, they are picked up together and only reduce dice rolls by 1.
Finally, return the divers to the sub, remove any blank undersea chips, slide the remaining treasure together to close the gaps and set the oxygen back to 25.
The last player who made it back to the sub begins the next round.
Game end and scoring
After 3 dives the game ends. Total the amount of treasure you collected, whoever has the most points wins! If it’s a tie, whoever has the most hexagon chips wins. If it’s still a tie, share the victory.
That’s Deep Sea Adventure; a game of diving deep, but not too far!
Enjoy!
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