Deep Sixed : Headed Back To Space! How Long Can We Last Out Here?? Let's See!! (Steam PC Gameplay)
Channel: LIFE RPG
Date: 14/03/2018

This week I have a real treat for you! Deep Sixed was flying under the radar for me, but once it found it's way onto my hard drive it quickly found a spot in my heart. It has been a very long time since I've seen anything as innovative as Deep Sixed. The difficulty only adds to the magic of Deep Sixed. It won't hold your hand.

In a time when most tutorials last through the entire game, Deep Sixed will teach you how to play for one mission. There is a manual to solving every problem that can occur on the ship, and I encountered quite a few in the relatively short length of this Deep Sixed gameplay. The only way to solve them is to apply a ton of logic.

There is just something magical about a game like Deep Sixed. It offers a new perspective on spaceship roguelikes and does so well enough to kick FTL out of the way. Deep Sixed is almost too large to review but I attempt to show off some of the game in this video.
Will you buy parts, or upgrade your ship? Astra credits are hard to come by... Choose wisely.

The humor of Deep Sixed is definitely on point and had me chuckling at multiple points. This is a pretty good idea in a game that won't hesitate to brutalize it's player. Deep Sixed will present myriad problems with AI malfunction, laser recalibration, battery failures, and so much more... You have minutes to figure out how to solve the issue, but all the while your ship might be attacked by whatever resides out there in the void.

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Deep Sixed is a roguelike space sim that will force you to use strategy, ingenuity and duct tape to keep your ship (and your skull) in one piece as you risk exploring a mysterious nebula protected by dangerous alien creatures.

On the surface, Deep Sixed is a bit of a 90s CD-rom throwback, but looks can be decieving. 

In a nutshell, Deep Sixed is a game with interesting pedigree, a mix of point and click adventure (fortunately with a hotkey to light up points of interest), manual-consulting "Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes"-style troubleshooting, FTL-style power management, and (remarkably) an open universe exploring game. Comparisons have been made with VGA-era Sierra games as well as classics such as Psi-5 Trading Company, but I would say that this is just nostalgia reaching, and Deep Sixed is very much its own thing, complete with tongue-in-cheek humor and somewhat modern multimedia presentation.

The basic gameplay is a cycle of survival and expansion. You start at the space station, where you can pick a mission, order parts, and upgrade your ship. Then you deploy in your ship, choosing one of the sectors you scanned in the past, and the game begins in earnest. Your ship is made up of just eight rooms: five of them "viewing" rooms to see out of the sides of your ship, a reactor room, a hyperdrive room, and a scanner room. You move between these rooms at will, poking around point and click adventure style to manipulate the various gadgets on the ship as well as move things between ship storage and your personal inventory.

Your ship is a literal space jalopy, and things will inevitably go wrong. At that point, you need to crack open the PDA and navigate the in-game manual to learn how to fix it. Of course, the PDA doesn't pause the game so, depending on the severity of what's happening, you could be in a race against time to survive. Eventually, you might get skilled enough at this game that there's few things you need to consult the PDA for anymore, but then the game turns into a game of seeing how quickly you can do it. I hope you like routine active maintenence, you'll be doing a lot of it. 

Though Deep Sixed is fairly solidly-built product with high production values for its chosen medium, and is pretty much bug free, I have encountered at least one real bug where the retrieval probe gets stuck. I was able to get around that by just leaving and restarting the game, but it begs a certain question as to how you're supposed to cope with real bugs when the game itself is about debugging? Ironically, I spent quite some time trying to find somewhere in the in-game manual which explains how to get my probe moving again. Hopefully, the developers will show commitment to quashing these bugs, few as they are.

All things considered, what little flaws Deep Sixed has are vindicated by its low price tag. It's a novel experience that itches a number of nice places related to simulation, immersion, and adventure. In a sea of clones, a well-crafted novel experience is invaluable. I hope this is not the last I see of this developer. - Geldon