The ocean is one of the most fascinating parts of the Earth, being as beautiful as it is dangerous, with the depths being packed with all manner of unique flora and fauna. Thus, there is a certain romance to exploring the ocean’s deepest depths, something that numerous sci-fi and fantasy authors have leaned into. Vast Depths continues this tradition, turning the idea of exploring the ocean’s mysterious vastness in a submarine into a fantastic solo TTRPG.
Created by Melodi Queen, Vast Depths is a dice-powered solo game. This TTRPG casts you as a brave explorer who has boarded a submarine and embarked on a quest to explore the deepest ocean. Naturally, this won’t be an easy mission, as not only do you have to deal with the ocean’s crushing pressure, but many strange things are lurking in the water, many of which would prefer not to be disturbed.
Living In A TTRPG Submarine
The game has a pretty simple structure. At the start of the game, you roll 10 ten-sided dice to find out your submarine’s current hull health.
Then, at the start of each journaling phase of the TTRPG, you roll to find how deep your submarine is going to dive. At the start of the game, you’ll do this by rolling a single D10 and multiplying the result by ten to find out how many fathoms down you go. However, as you hit certain depth milestones, an extra D10 is added to your pool, allowing you to slowly go deeper and deeper.
But this isn’t the only thing you need to watch for. Each section of the depth chart has a cluster of numbers dubbed encounter triggers. If one of the dice in your pool rolls one of these numbers, you have to roll on that section’s encounter table, with each section including six different encounter options.
Encounters range from charming moments, like discovering a beautiful coral reef, to dangerous situations like hitting the remains of a shipwreck, to darker, more sinister encounters like a gigantic, strange creature you’re unsure how to categorize.
The game ends when either your submarine’s health reaches zero or when you finally hit 5000 fathoms.
A Natural Structure Makes For Nautical Niceties
Vast Depths is a really fun solo TTRPG that perfectly captures the feeling of a deep-sea adventure story. While the rules are simple and easy to pick up and play, they feature some clever flourishes that make the game really pop.
My personal favourite is the dice system. Having the pool slowly grow as the player goes deeper gives the game a nice sense of narrative progression, as not only will your sub start to move through layers quicker the longer the game goes, but the fact you’re rolling more dice means you’re more likely to get encounters, really capturing the idea that you’re slowly leaving the already studied and understood shallow water and into the uncharted depths where danger is around every corner and untold creatures lurk in the shadows, waiting to make their move.
I also have to commend the game’s layout as it really is beautiful. Melodi Queen fit a lot of game onto a single page. And thanks to the layout and colors chosen, the game looks like a poster I would be more than happy to hang on my wall, as it perfectly captures the game’s nautical adventure feel.
However, while the game looks beautiful, this comes at a slight cost. Obviously, this game isn’t really printer-friendly (unless you have access to a lot of colour ink), but the bigger issue is the game’s font, as it is pretty hard to read in places. For me, the biggest issue is the letter spacing. As the letters are close together, 0 and D look very similar and tend to blur into one, frequently causing me to misread the dice required for a roll. So, while it might be tricky (because of the page’s tight design), I would love it if a later version could fix this issue by changing the font or tweaking the letter spacing.
Also (and I know this is a massive nitpick), it would be great if a future version could up the number of encounters per layer from 6 to 10. This would add more variety as specific events come up less frequently. Plus, it would also mean that you only need D10s to play this game, which would complement the game’s simple, rules-lite, and easy-to-play structure and make this game into an excellent gateway game for people who want to dip their toes into the world of solo TTRPGs.
Vast Depths is an excellent solo TTRPG that is perfect for everyone who has dreamed about following in Captain Nemo’s footsteps and exploring the deep ocean in a submarine. The game is a great choice for people who want to dip their toes into the world of solo TTRPGs, as its mechanics are easy and intuitive, meaning that even if you’ve never played a TTRPG before, you’ll be able to grab Vast Depths and have a fantastic time. So, get yourself ship shape and grab a copy of Vast Depths.
