Image taken from https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8652897/shallow-regrets

Designer: Judson Cowan
Publisher: Button Shy
Artist: Judson Cowan

You can go check out our review if you’d like, but we enjoyed the original Deep Regrets game, so I was looking forward to playing a shorter, smaller version. Unfortunately, however, Shallow Regrets didn’t really deliver. It does provide some of the same feeling as playing Deep Regrets, and the artwork is fabulous as always, but the game play fell flat.

Each round, players fish in different shoals of cards by drawing two from the top and seeing if they have enough strength to catch one of the fish. If they do, they place the fish in front of them, and if not, they throw it back into the sea. Thankfully, the backs of the cards identify a strength range for the associated creatures making it a little easier to predict success or failure. Once a fish is caught, it can be used for its ability (once per game) before that player goes fishing; each ability is unique and has varying effects on the game.

In the solo game, Frod, your opponent, has a set of six cards that identify his preferences for catching fish by showing a target shoal he would like to collect fish from. Each card also has a special ability that he can perform that negatively impacts the player in some way (usually).

There’s another expansion that adds additional fish cards to increase variety and introduces a new mechanic of lingering effects (called Lingering Remorse) when those fish get caught.

Before I get into some issues with this game, let me identify a few things I do enjoy. As I mentioned, the artwork is awesome and continues the themes and ideas of Deep Regrets; you can tell the two are connected and related (in a good way). The unique abilities on the fish cards are also neat and create some decision making and interaction in the game. I also appreciate that the “The Fisher & The Frod” expansion is available and allows for a solo mode. Frod is very easy to facilitate and keeps the game moving at a good pace.

For me, this game was just okay; kinda boring and not very fun or exciting. It does the push your luck element from Deep Regrets well, but there are very few strategic and/or puzzly elements. The ability usage and timing do require some planning and critical thinking, but everything else is basically guessing and hoping for the best. The eighteen cards don’t provide enough variety, even if you include the additional six from the Lingering Remorse expansion. One of my favorite aspects of Deep Regrets is the exploration, and due to the nature of this game, you’ve seen everything there is to see after the first game. I also found Frod rather obnoxious. Not in terms of actual functionality, but his actions were harsh and didn’t add any elements that made the game more of a puzzle like I would have hoped.

After playing at two players, it’s better, but still not worth keeping. I could see it being great for a family (if it wasn’t quite so “mature” for lack of a better term), but if I’m going to play something in this realm, I’ll just play Deep Regrets.