Aquatica

• Designer: Ivan Tuzovsky
• Publisher: Cosmodrone Games / Arcane Wonders
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 60 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4ffquID
• Played with review copy provided by Arcane Wonders

Aquatica is a deep, but easy to learn family engine builder about underwater kingdoms.

In the game you will become one of the mighty ocean kings, struggling to bring glory to his realm. To win the game, you need to capture and buy locations, recruit new characters, and complete goals; each of these actions gives you victory points at the end of the game. To do so, you need to play cards from your hand (each with a unique set of actions) and combine them. Don’t think it’s simple! With a good strategy during your turn, you can take up to ten actions in a row.

You will encounter plenty of mysterious ocean creatures and take them to your hand. With their help you will explore the unknown locations and raise found resources from the ocean depths to your kingdom. Mechanically this is represented with the help of three-layered player board and the unique mechanism of card-rising.

To set the game up, place the main board on the table and fill the bottom row with 6 random Ocean Character cards.  Deal six location cards to the row in the middle, and then above that, choose the 4 goals you will play in this game (with the most basic ones being pre-printed on the board itself).   Each player takes a player board, and takes the deck of starting Character Cards and Manta figures with their symbol on it. Each person is also dealt (or drafts) a King card.  There are five slots for location cards at the bottom of the board. On the different game components (cards, mantas, etc) you will see symbols for the two types of resources in the game (coins and power).  

Players take turns in order until one of the three end-game criteria is met: the Location deck is exhausted, the Ocean Character deck is exhausted, or someone has completed all 4 Goals for the game.   During a turn, the active player must take a main action – which is essentially playing a Character card from their hand and then resolving the effects shown on that played card.  

In addition to the main action, the player can take as many additional actions as they want:

Flipping Mantas – an Active Manta shows you their effect on their surface; you can use that effect by flipping the Manta over (so you can no longer see the effect icon)

Exploit a Location – each Location has a number of depths, seen on the left side of the card.   You can only use the highest visible depth on a card.  During your main action, you can gain resources if seen there.  Other depth actions can be used at any time. More on this in a bit.  When you use a depth, slide the card up so that the next icon is now the highest visible.  If a card ever is fully raised (you only see the bottom line), you immediately get the Manta which is seen on the bottom of the card, and you can use it immediately.

Possible effects include:

• Recruit – take an Ocean Character from the board and pay the cost listed beneath the card
• Buy Location – take a Location card from the board, paying the cost in coins on the top of the card.   Place it into an empty slot on your board, placing it so the highest Depth is the highest visible.
• Conquer Location – take a Location card from the board, paying the cost in Power on the top of the card.  Place it into an empty slot on your board, placing it so the highest Depth is the highest visible.
• Raise Location – move a Location card up a specified number of spaces; you do not get any benefit from Depth spaces that you bypass in this way.  Note that if you use a card effect to Raise, you cannot raise the card on which the effect came from.  
• Score – Transfer a fully risen card from your board to your scoring pile; taking the VPs shown on the card.  The card is not worth any points until it is transferred to your scoring pile.
• Scout – recycle the cards in the Location row by first discarding anything in the top row, then moving the cards from the bottom row up to the top row (where they are discounted).  Then, refill the bottom row with 6 new cards.

As you take your turn, always monitor the four goals which were set out at the start of the game.  If you ever meet the criteria for one of them, place one of your player color Mantas in the highest available scoring space.  If you do not wish to claim a goal, you do not have to – you will keep your player color Manta if so, but you will also not score any points for the goal until you put the Manta permanently on the board in the goal scoring space. There are four base goals which are pre-printed on the board, but you also have 5 double sided tokens to use if you want to change them around.  As you would expect, the earlier you complete a goal, the more points you will score.

Again, the game ends when one of the three end-game criteria is met: the Location deck is exhausted, the Ocean Character deck is exhausted, or someone has completed all 4 Goals for the game. At this time, players calculate their score:

• 1 point for each Character card in your hand (not in your discard pile)
• Points for completed goals (as shown on the board)
• Points for Location cards in your Scoring pile

The player with the most points wins.  Ties broken in favor of the player with the most Mantas at game end.

My thoughts on the game

This is one of those games that got lost in the sands of time as well as the isolation of the pandemic.  I remember first learning about this at Spiel 2019, and I had made an appointment to talk to the folks at Cosmodrome about it – but it wasn’t until near the end of the show.  By the time I got to the meeting, the game had been so successful that they had sold out!  Definitely no copies for reviewers, and honestly, who can begrudge anyone for selling everything out!

I put it on my list of games to look up later, and I was encouraged from my meeting at hearing news that plenty of people had talked to them about getting a US distribution license.  Welp, then the pandemic hit, and for a little bit, I wasn’t going to conventions, and I wasn’t learning as much about new games.   As it turns out, a new expansion looks to be in the works, and it proved to be a great opportunity to finally get a chance to play this game that I was once really interested in …

Aquatica is a really clever game – I really like the way that you get the different Location cards and then have to manage them to get the benefits you want out of them at the times you need those benefits.   There are times when you choose a card for its first depth reward – because you need something quickly.  Othertimes, the whole card (or maybe its VP value) is what drives you to take it.   As with many games, players who are able to get synergistic cards or nice chains of actions will do better – and it’s fun and challenging to try to get these things set up on your board.  There is also a deckbuilding aspect to the game as you add different characters to your deck – and the actions that come on these cards will certainly affect your overall strategy. 

The common goals give everyone some direction in initial strategy, and those bonuses are not to be ignored.  Of course, the bonuses also come with a cost that must be weighed – as you must give up one of your starting Mantas (and therefore lose its special ability) when you claim your bonus.  This can be a surprisingly hard decision to make, and there are times where players will forego claiming the bonus for a few turns as they need their Manta for a later plan.

The rules are a bit intimidating at first, as the rulebook seems a bit thick, coming in at 32 pages, but after a quick and easy readthrough, it turns out that the pages are small (the rulebook is much smaller than the box footprint), and the text is printed in a really pleasing large font, and it is filled with plenty of illustrations and examples to help you understand the rules.  I like the way where the different components and game ideas are first introduced, and then the actual instructions on how to play follow.  Sometimes I find this format confusing, but in this case, it is well organized/written and I felt it was really easy to learn how to play the game from just the read-through of the rules.

The components are really well done, especially the player boards.  As you slide the Location cards up (going through the depths of the card) – everything just looks so nice in your area. The cards themselves have great art, and the icons are easy to parse.  My only complaint might be that I find it hard to read the printing on the manta tokens – especially the light purple common Mantas – but my aging eyesight issues are a common problem around here, so of course YMMV.  

In short, I’m sad that I missed this game on its initial release, but super happy to have had a chance to play it now, and I’m excited to see what the expansion will bring to the game table.  The Coral Reefs expansion is due out later this year:

“Immerse yourself in the magical world of Aquatica and embark on a journey through the Coral Reefs!  New puzzles and captivating adventures lurk around every bend. Here you’ll meet new underwater creatures, the Southern Tribes, and immerse yourself in their rich culture. New goals will provide even more strategies. And an encounter with the Manta Rays could even turn the rules of this game upside down!

I’ll definitely report back with my thoughts on the Coral Reefs expansion once I get a chance to play it!

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor