DREDGE

You spend your days fishing in various spots, then rush back to port before nightfall to sell your catch and upgrade your boat. As night falls, your sanity meter drops, causing disturbing hallucinations and making navigation more dangerous. The tension between gathering resources and surviving the dark is the heart of the experience.

Yes, you can upgrade your boat with better engines, stronger hulls, and new equipment like trawl nets. For example, unlocking the trawl net lets you passively collect fish while moving, which completely changes how you plan your routes and manage inventory. These upgrades make you feel more powerful but the world remains threatening.

Some players have reported hard crashes when rapidly opening and closing the map while moving. As a workaround, try stopping your boat before accessing the map, and avoid toggling it too quickly in succession. The developers have acknowledged this issue in updates, so keeping the game updated should help.

The touch controls can be finicky when you need to quickly select a fishing spot or equipment slot, especially during low sanity effects. To improve accuracy, try using the zoom feature to get a closer view, and practice tapping in the center of icons. Some players find using a controller via Bluetooth greatly reduces mis-taps.

Unlike simulation-focused games like Fishing: North Atlantic, DREDGE is a horror-tinged adventure where fishing is a means to survive a Lovecraftian nightmare. The focus is on atmosphere, exploration, and managing your sanity rather than realistic fish behavior or economics. If you want a relaxing fishing sim, look elsewhere; if you want dread on the high seas, DREDGE delivers.