⛵ Curiosity Killed the Sailor - How Dredge Explores Humanity's Need for Companionship

This was actually the first essay I uploaded to my previous Loran Lounge blog. I had played Dredge over the Christmas holidays and really had some nights alone to sync into it. I found it evoked similar feelings in me that I had when first playing games like Death Stranding, and I just felt the need to write about it and discern what exactly this affectual experience of play was. Some time has passed since then, but I still think very fondly of Dredge, and will definitely return to it someday and lose myself in its small, yet captivating world.

Curiosity Killed the Sailor - How Dredge Explores Humanity's Need for Companionship

When you're a kid, particularly if you didn't live near the ocean, (insert bit about Laois being a landlocked county here) then your perception of it hinges entirely on its portrayal in media, most oftentimes associated with positive affirmations. The sun, surfing, ice cream. You are indoctrinated into the collective belief that the sea, beach and all things ocean is that of wonder. You would be right to a degree, but beyond that wonder lies unfamiliarity. Unfamiliarity that becomes scarily real the further you embrace it.

I've plenty of memories associated with the beach and while most of them are either cherished or long faded into obscurity, there's one that has always stuck with me. Let’s set the scene. I'm out swimming in the sea, having a relatively good time, splashing about in the sea salt and basking in that sweet Irish sun that realistically was probably sporting a meagre 8 degrees (and we’d call it a heatwave) and after getting a reasonable distance from shore, I’m struck with the sudden urge to look down. And what I saw is an image that genuinely still sparks a bit of paranoia in me when recalling it. Black void. Nothing. And that terrified me. There was no risk of me sinking, I mean, I could swim fine, and it's Ireland so you know there's not going to be anything lethal in that water. Something about it just struck the fear of God into me.

Now, I hate to break the suspense of disbelief but it was actually just a cluster of dark seaweed that made it look like the abyss from Dark Souls was beneath me but that’s besides the point. That fear of the void, of the unknown, stuck with me. And it's this same feeling of dread-sparked curiosity that Dredge, a game that only recently came under my radar, evokes.

I was definitely slacking in terms of keeping up with the newest games of interest this year. There were some notable stand outs, like the expansive and unreal anomaly that was Baldur's Gate 3, the intensely epic and cruelly punishing Armored Core VI, and the absolute lavish Bloodborne-Sekiro hybrid, Lies of P, but aside from that, I missed a lot of fantastic games from this past year. This was particularly brought to my attention at this years game awards, which was phenomenal by the way, (thank you Geoff Keighley, you absolutely smashed it). Thus, I made it my mission to fix this issue, encouraged and assisted by the 100 Euro steam voucher I received for Christmas.

Dredge was nominated for best independent game and best debut indie and while it didn't win either of these awards, it did catch my eye with its apparent sombre atmosphere and clean UI. In tandem with the deep rooted male urge to abandon all prior life callings to become a boat-man, I divulged into the fathoms of this game on Christmas Eve and let it take me away.

First impressions set the scene, the game is homely and cosy. You've just arrived at a town as the new fisherman, and after some brief dialogue with the mayor you’re allocated the freedom to gently cruise along the sea, popping into other islands and docks, meeting locals, and getting your first few catches. It's a welcoming experience, the game looks, plays and sounds lovely, and the mechanics are simple enough to pick up and rewarding enough to encourage you to catch and sell more. This is great, right? The mayor and townspeople seem happy to have a new fishermen and you quickly discover the reliance that this world has on fishermen. Then you wonder, why am I the new fishermen? What happened to the old one? Why aren't all these people out boating in a world that is like 90 percent ocean.

You're out on the water when you see it's getting late, and it's getting late fast. The sea darkens and the fog rolls in and you quickly are reminded of the warnings not to lose sight of the lighthouse…

Everything seems fine, you shouldn't be worried.

But you are.

You sell your fish, sleep through the night and despite the previous days spooky encounter you push on, feeling an inherent responsibility to provide for the town. Now in theory, you could fish in the few nearby spots, always making it back before dark, always earning a living, always turning a profit. But you're not going to do that. you're curious.

One day you're out and you find a abandoned note in the ocean, a letter which talks of a married couple at sea. The letter mentions a renaming ceremony for a boat in which a superstitious fisherman throws out all indicators of the previous name as its seemingly a bad omen. The notes author mentions how despite this, she holds onto an ornament of the old ship. You pause for a second and consider this, reading the now abandoned note. And suddenly you begin to wonder about the warnings and superstitions you've received so far, wondering that, just maybe, there’s some substance to it.

Not before long, you're introduced to a core mechanic of the game, the panic meter which builds as you enter the dark of night and stray from the guiding light of the lighthouse. Your curiosity grows, yet you receive no answers. The lighthouse is meant to be your savior but the lighthouse keeper tells you to give it all up, that it's not worth it. Then, you go to catch a fish and you are greeted with a jarring noise you're not used to. A different coloured font tells you, you've caught an aberration fish, something grotesque you've never seen before. You bring it to town and the fishmonger seems familiar with these things.

This is the uncertain offbeat tempo that Dredge hits you with off the bat, and it's amazing. You're simultaneously lulled into a false sense of humble security while also stirred with suggestions that something bad, that you can't even imagine, is out there. And you still haven't even gotten to the point of the game yet.

The game truly expands upon itself with the introduction of the Collector, a mysterious individual who spies you out after you've been in town for a few days. His face is obscured, his presence is ominous and he tells you to meet him on an adjacent island away from your usual spots. So far, everything you’ve done (assuming you haven’t ventured off to the far corners of the map like you’re trying to find the world border in a Minecraft world) has contributed to the town and has been a reasonable decision, yet this one seems to lead off the beaten path. But again, you’re curious, everything so far is alluding to a darker secret going on and you want to find out more.

You get to the collectors island, the music is mysterious and he is even more, staying at the door of his house and remaining an enigmatic figure who despite living so close to the hub, seems so distant and uninvolved. Then, for the first time since playing, you see the name of the game mentioned, as he provides you with the dredging mechanic and sends you off to collect mysterious artifacts hidden away in shipwrecks, in obscure parts of the world. This is the moment I knew Dredge was going to be more than just a fishing game, this is a journey that teases your curiosity, warning you with premonition after premonition yet lures you all the same, like a fish to a hook, like a sailor to a cold, empty fate.

The mechanic that drives this gameplay loop, that intertwines the narratives themes of curiosity with the gameplay, is dredging itself. The Collector sends you out, at your own peril, to collect mysterious artifacts via dredging shipwrecks and you are rewarded with strange powers, which help you accomplish this goal faster but with active consequence at your use. This implementation of curiosity and its sharp edges into the gameplay is present across many facets of the game, from the basic decisions of - “Oh, it’d be quicker for me to slink through these rocks here, but oops I could hit off them and damage my hull” - To - “I can use this Haste power to speed boost but oops, it could explode my engine” - To - “I could make it to this set of islands to dredge some artifacts but oops now its past midnight, and the fogs rolling in and oh god is that a ship no it's some weird Lovecraftian abomination and-”

-Can I just say, all sorts of media have tried to enforce the importance of lighthouses to fisherman but god, this game makes you realize how goddamn important those beacons of light are, because when you are stranded in the middle of that foggy abyss with no way to see a meter in front of you, and your lights cut out and suddenly you see some biblically accurate angel swimming towards you - that lighthouse beam, is like the holy ghost himself, coming to absolve you of your sins.

The gameplay loop you will find yourself going through in Dredge is a constant back and forth between sea exploration, and stopping at towns or docks. This loop itself constantly reinforces the element of curiosity that surrounds all the other practical gameplay mechanics. The main threat of this game, is time, and time only moves when you move at sea or when you fish. When your docked, it doesn't matter, you can leave the game running, go make a coffee, take a hike, play a game of League (though I don’t know why you would ever do that ever) and it’ll still be a brisk 2 pm upon your return, if that's the time you left it at. Despite this, when docked, your only actions are stagnant, either talking to people or interacting with shops, both of which only ever give you more upgrades and incentives to go back out to sea. When you do go out to sea, you are liberated with complete freedom to what you do, when you do it, and how long you do it for, yet this liberation is at odds with that ever ticking clock which again, only moves at the whims of your own exploration. It's a brilliant cycle and one that entirely reinforces the narratives themes, and the core mechanics of the game.

This notion felt all too similar to me, and I found myself drawing comparisons to one of my personal favorite games of all time, Death Stranding. Like Dredge, Death Stranding balances intermitted states of play - one where you have complete liberty to explore, traverse and develop at your own means - and one where you can rest, contemplate, and receive incentives to return to that liberating state - oftentimes empowered with either new mechanics, or newfound motivations to push beyond your previous liberating experiences.

Also like Death Stranding, Dredge’s gameplay and narrative work entirely in tandem to deliver the core themes of the game. In Death Stranding, the core theme is making connections despite boundaries in a world that is as isolating as it is liberating - and the game reinforces this by assigning you missions to connect people, being one of the few people able to do it within the setting, and then providing you mechanics to go about this task, which in their own allow you to make connections with other players through the shared implications of Death Strandings ‘strand system’, in that your messages, structures and pretty much every action you take is echoed across the worlds and playthroughs of other players.

Dredge does something similar, but within the boundaries of its own narrative. As the fisherman, you constantly are helping the characters within Dredge’s world overcome their problems, whether that's delivering materials to help them move house, rekindling broken relationships by finding once tossed away keepsakes from the sea, to allowing a grieving father to move on by retrieving him his sons belt buckle from a wreck. Regardless of the issue, the solution is found out at sea. And as I pointed out earlier, we are one of the few people who venture out into that sea, despite knowing the risks, we embrace curiosity, for better or for worse, to bear arms against a sea of troubles and provide resolution to those unable. The sea in this sense, is life itself.

As previously defined, the land in this game is safe yet stagnant, it is the core of society yet it is the home of all its troubles. The solutions, are at sea, where we know the danger lies. In this way, the gameplay loop previously described, mirrors the act of facing life's problems, searching for solutions in uncertain waters. And while these uncertain waters, and the waves of change that come with them are a terrifying notion to battle alone, Dredge demonstrates that resolution can only triumph through weathering said storm, and moreover, this is done through companionship. All our mechanics, be it cursed or core, are provided to us by others, the very others who refuse to stray into the ocean itself. Our boat repairs, our accursed powers, Hell even our boat was given to us by the mayor. Down to the penny, we owe everything to these people, and ultimately when we help them face their own personal struggles, we pay our debts. Like Death Stranding, our personal pursuits that we tackle seemingly completely on our own, hold active consequence to others and in this way, demonstrate how agency can pierce isolation, and how curiosity can sometimes be a good thing.

Since initially preparing this essay, I have completed my first playthrough of Dredge. Needless to say, I loved every second of it. I would highly recommend anyone check it out if you resonate with what I talked about here, it really is one of those games where you can sit down and remind yourself, it's okay to be troubled, it's what makes us human. Troubled waters are meant to be sailed, and sometimes selfless acts can be the most self-serving of them all. I’m personally stoked to see what else Black Salt Games has cooking, and will be keeping an eye out on them and their future projects.

I’m incredibly passionate about the gaming medium, and have a lot more to say about a lot more games. If you’ve made it this far, firstly thank you and secondly I hope you’ve taken away some insights from this or resonated with some of the feelings I believe this game evoked. I’ll be writing more essays like this going forward, about games old and new, good and bad, and ones I hold deep love and passion for. So if you're interested and feel like subscribing to the blog and seeing what I put out, then welcome aboard sailor, I hope you have a damn good one.

Goodnight and good luck.