Feed the Deep review

I have some ambivalence around my time with Feed the Deep. On the one hand, it is reminiscent of one of the first mobile games I fell in love with, Puzzle to the Center of the Earth. On the other, it's a roguelike that shows its hand a bit too early and heavily incentivizes being risk-averse. The result is a game that makes a great first impression (and for good reason!), but one that also ends up wearing thin before you've finished the first clear of each of its different stages.

Feed the Deep is a survival roguelike where you control a deep-sea diver who has been given the responsibility to "feed" a otherworldly creature in hopes of placating it and preventing some kind of attack. Each stages dumps you in a randomized sea cave where you explore to find this creature, collect the bait for feeding it, avoid attacks from other creatures, and gather loot to help you make your eventual feeding expedition a success.

Every run starts you out feeling particularly vulnerable. You start with limited air capacity, a weak flashlight, and very few defenses/tools, but can gather two different kinds of currencies to buy additional upgrades and supplies at a store to better equip you for eventually accomplishing your mission.

The opening minutes of a Feed the Deep are arrestingly tense, and can offer some of the best short-burst survival you can find anywhere on mobile. As you familiarize yourself with the cave and procedurally gather currencies to outfit your diver, though, a lot of this tension fades and shifts the game feel more in the direction of an exploration puzzle.

Across the full experience, Feed the Deep has six different expeditions that mix up your situation. Some might have additional objectives, change the way your diving suit works, or add a bit more chaos on top of the more straightforward dives of earlier expeditions. Each of these modes also has achievements associated with them and unique hidden things to discover within them (which I will not spoil).

While I appreciate the way that Feed the Deep's danger can be mitigated, I found myself somewhat disappointed by the end of completing all six stages that there weren't more ways for conservative play or extended runs to introduce some element of surprise or punishment. This, I think, is partially due to the game's somewhat modest collection of variables it mixes and matches and how level designs mostly skew toward rewarding risk-aversion.

This is to say that every level of Feed the Deep can be easily completed if you just return for air early and often, and there's not enough resource scarcity to force you into positions where you consider doing something risky. In a way, this is good, as there wasn't really a point in Feed the Deep where I felt frustrated by the game's random nature preventing me from success. That said, most of the time I felt like I was being ushered to a successful result and I think there's enough room in the game's scope to find some middle ground.

I enjoyed my time with Feed the Deep, but the best moments with it were at the very beginning of stages. Provided I could live long to get a few key upgrades, though, the rest of a stage would feel like the only uncertainty would be how long it would take to complete it. I didn't dislike this procedural aspect of the game, but it felt much less special than what you encounter upfront.