There are as many things that reward you as there are things that will burden your experience with Stranded Deep. It has the potential to be a really enjoyable game, but poor mechanics shoot itself in the foot. If you are a fan of this genre then this is another game for you. On the other hand, if you have interest in getting into survival games then do not start with this. I had a good time with Stranded Deep. I spent a good amount of time with it. Thinking about all the pros and cons together, my opinion on this game is mixed.
Not only the title of the game but Stranded Deep is the feeling I get while playing. A different take on the survival genre hits on creativity while it misses on polish. There were ideas I enjoyed that the game introduced that I really wished worked way better. Survival games are supposed to be hard and challenging, but this game does not help you at all and it can feel like you aren’t progressing at all. There are arguments for both sides of the coin for why Stranded Deep is good or subpar, so let’s get into them.
The premise of Stranded Deep is fairly simple. Your no name protagonist is on a small plane that goes down, for some reason that is not explained. Once the plane hits the water, you must swim out and climb into a life raft. After you get into the life raft, you may grab a paddle and make your way to the island in front of you. In my opinion, I think this is a very cool way to start a survival game. It makes sense in video game terms. After you row to your island, you disembark and start your survival.
A tutorial begins and guides you to learn the bare minimum of how to craft a few things. You get to collect rocks and sticks to make a tool. After a tool, it shifts towards a campfire and a little tent. Once you have finished those items. You are free. There are no more guides to help at all. Which was pretty disappointing as there are a ton of things to create in this game. It left you with no guide as where to begin next. It’s as if you have dropped onto an island yourself.
Probably the most frustrating part of the game was the lack of resources for crafting. Specifically, the yucca plant was very rare. There’s only a few around on an island, it doesn’t yield that much material for you to take away and to add insult to injury, its refresh rate was a joke. Let me explain a little more. Yucca yields fibrous leaves. Four fibrous leaves together made one lashing. When it comes down to it, one lashing is used for basically anything of use. If you wanted to make something to progress in the game, you were almost always out of material for it.
Of course, you had to eat and drink to survive. You could kill different fauna around and then cook the meat on the fire. You could not drink the saltwater around so the alternative is to drink coconut water or craft a water still that will produce drinkable water. I liked this feature. It made the idea a little more interesting than just going into the water and pressing a button to drink, pretty much like in every other survival game. Cooking meat does take a bit long. The amount of time it takes is like right on the border of absurd. Another status feature there is sun levels. If you spend too much time in direct sunlight you get a beep on your watch, which I will delve into more later. The way you can fight this is if you spend some time in the water or stay under the shade of the trees. Pretty cool and unique idea!
Often while playing, I jumped back into the life raft and paddled my way to another island. There are multiple islands around, and some are closer than others. You can travel to others and see what’s around and then head back to your island or claim a new home. Your character has the weirdest paddling form ever. The way they paddle is identical to Charles Barkley’s golf swing. If you don’t know what I am referring to check it out here. I would say it’s really not worth it to travel outside of the island till later. It can be a waste of time since you could be doing something more useful on your island.
The mechanic of the game that I admire is the watch. The watch is your guide to see your skill level and you can also see your statuses too. You can check your hunger levels and how much sun you have gotten to. I think this is a nice feature. It’s an easy way to explain a part of the game and it actually makes sense. Basically your character has an Apple Watch.
