Game Reviews

Deep Sea Deli

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| Deep Sea Deli
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Deep Sea Deli
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| Deep Sea Deli

Fun little story: my little sister used to get a loaf of white bread, dip the slices into a glass of water, compact them into a ball, let them dry a little, and then eat them. I've never thought to ask why she did this, but I can only assume that damp bread is delicious.

It must be, because there's so very much of it floating about in Deep Sea Deli, a puzzle game in which you must make sandwiches to order in an undersea snack bar.

It's far from a revolution in game design, and its slow pacing will dissuade hardcore puzzle fans from returning, but otherwise this is a decent little download for your iOS device.

Chumbucket

The game's multiplayer focuses on earning highscores which are then affixed to weekly leaderboards, but - sadly - the Facebook tie-in functionality to let me do this isn't working at the time of writing. A fix is certainly coming, but the game stands up without it.

It's your job in Deep Sea Deli to make sandwich orders that appear at the bottom of the screen. To complete them you'll need to draw a line between adjacent ingredients shown on the board.

Complete an order and another customer arrives, and you repeat the process until all of the ingredients are gone - at which point the board flips, you get more ingredients, and you do it all again.

You're not timed, but if at any point you can't make a sandwich you have to tap the Hungry Hoover in the bottom-right of the screen and he'll start clearing away the remaining items. Once he can't eat any more it's Game Over, and your score is tallied.

The lack of a timer really reduces the speed of the game, which is perfect for a casual audience, but more serious puzzle fans will probably find it all a bit too slow. There's a timer that awards you with a score multiplier if you can complete combos with sufficient swiftness, but it's not enough to pick up the pace.

Wet

When Deep Sea Deli adds more ingredients over the basic three - adding to the stock bacon, lettuce, and cheese with tomato, ham and so on - the game becomes increasingly difficult. Successfully completing orders without leaving unbridgeable gaps of ingredients is tough after you've been playing for ten minutes or so, but this seems a little too long for a session to go on before you're truly challenged.

There are a few strategies you can implement into your game to ensure higher scores, but those looking for an ocean of depth will be left lacking. The Mystery Meat bonus items which crop up from time to time can be used as an additional ingredient in any sandwich for extra point, for example.

There are also special powers on offer to purchase - using Coins - before starting a game, and these allow you to clear entire boards should you get stuck.

It's visually unobtrusive, but the downside to that is that its art is unspectacular. Menus can move a little slowly at times, but control is otherwise fine. It's a soundly made game that doesn't annoy in any way, but doesn't truly impress either.

Ultimately, Deep Sea Deli could have benefited from more modes - and more difficult modes. The main game lacks energy and excitement because you never feel under pressure, which is ironic given that it takes place on the ocean floor.

Deep Sea Deli

A lightweight and perhaps too relaxed puzzler that largely succeeds on the fundamentals, but won't attract the more hardcore puzzle game fans
Score
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.