Open Ocean Board Game Review
Designed and illustrated by Joel Bodkin
Let me take you into the ocean. Beneath the vast briny expanse and through the living stone forests, the bountiful and rich colors brimming with a plethora of animal life and views that can go on for miles. This is the coral reef. An exalted assortment of creatures that survive by coexisting off one another in a fragile ecosystem.
Open Ocean takes you into a world where a massive typhoon has just struck, leaving the ocean floor in tatters. You are a marine biologist trying to rebuild this once beautiful coral reef, striving to bring back the essence and luster from only the small signs of life that remain.
Open Ocean, created by Joel Bodkin and his family company Featherstone Games, is for 1–5 players and ages 6 and up. This is a beautiful and light card drafting and tableau-building game that challenges players to create the highest-scoring combination of colorful creatures.
Set up and Rules
This game review, set up, rules, and overall experiences are based solely on the two-player version of this game. To set up, choose one of six starting corals and determine who the first and second player is. The last person to have seen a fish is the first player.
Shuffle the deck and deal out 7 cards to each player and 8 cards into the ocean, which will surround the draw and refresh pile used in the ocean (see picture below for reference). Cards are broken down into categories: reef cards (sun), small fish (one), medium fish (two), big fish (three), and special cards. The reef cards must always touch one another; whether placed orthogonally or diagonally, they must be neighboring to expand your reef. From there, small fish, medium fish, and large fish cards can score points by being laid out small to large or sun, one, two, three, but must attach on an edge of the previous card and not the corner. You can find the symbol and number in the top left corner of the card that also reminds players in which direction they may build. Just as every critter has a natural predator, each fish attracts a sequentially larger fish from the ocean each time it is played from the hand. So playing a small fish will allow you to pull an existing medium fish from the ocean into your reef as well.
Special cards consist of the dolphin, shark, and turtle cards, but the turtle card is limited to the use of three per player reef. The dolphin card’s special ability is to swap out a card from the other player’s reef and place that card into your reef. The dolphin card then takes the place of the card that was removed, in some cases blocking growth. After your newly acquired card is placed into your reef, you take the appropriate action located on the bottom right of the card.
When no player has the card that you need, look into the ocean. The shark card’s effect is similar to the dolphin’s, but instead of switching the cards of another player, you switch out a card from the ocean. Once the new card is situated in your reef, you take the appropriate action from the card.
A real game-changer for those players that like to plan two-steps ahead is the turtle card. When played, the turtle card allows you to completely refresh the cards in the ocean and take one of the new cards that have been placed. Once settled into your reef, you again take the appropriate action from the new card. Don’t like your options from the first refresh? If another turtle card surfaces in the ocean, a player can play and repeat this until they have three turtles in their reef.
As your reef grows, you’ll need to make sure it can’t be tampered with by others in the ocean. A special coral, the anemone, is used for protection against other players being able to take cards from your reef and deserves mention here as well. Any card that borders the Anemone is immune to being stolen away from the reef, making these cards potentially the most valuable and logical choice to play when the option arises.
A turn consists of choosing a card and placing it upside down, then revealing cards in order of the first player to second. Once revealed, you resolve the appropriate action starting with the first player. Once cards have been played, your remaining hand, as well as your first or second player maker, is passed to the other player. Play continues from here until all seven cards have been played. Game end occurs at the closing of the third round when the last card has been played, and all actions have been resolved. Values on the cards are added, with extra points awarded per fish in each school, and bonuses for the different variant’s goals accomplished in each reef.
First playthrough Experience
After breezing through the rules and setup of this game, initially deciding on cards to play should’ve been the simple as well, right? Well, maybe not since there was a serious lacking of any proper strategy on our first go at it. One attempt to grow the fish population too quickly without expanding the reef, along with a couple of feisty dolphin placements from the opponent, substantially stunted the ability to play any more cards. At this point, the game’s victor was already fated and only barely into the second round of card drafting!
Scrapping the third round and starting anew only seemed fair so that both parties could make better choices in our marine biologist careers. This time reef placements were less frugal, and our aquatic ecosystems exploded into existence! The game had to be put on hold more than a few times as our insufficient table space had our reefs running into one another and becoming a throng of overlapping cards as we fought to enlarge our schools and their myriad of coral homes.
Our dolphin friends turned out to be exceptionally helpful both in acquiring our desired fish and in controlling the opponent’s building path and scored points. Countless schooled fish could be rendered pointless once not conjoined to their reef through the separation of the dolphin. At times anemones were the only thing that could keep the reefs intact, providing shelter for the little fishes, and treated like buried treasure when they surfaced in the ocean.
The game encourages variations and offered a couple of suggestions that were attempted during play: rainbow reef (all 6 different color reefs) and the largest school, but our own variation sprouted from the lack of play area that we had. As our reef grew outward and into our opponent’s play area, the opposing player would have to change their direction of growth. This pairing, along with the dolphin cards, added a smidge more complexity to the playthrough, limiting options of what cards were also playable from our hands and causing us to approach play more aggressively.
The Good
This game is very easy to explain to a wide range of players, whether young or new to the hobby. These simplistic rules make for a quick first game for new players, combined with a beautiful table presence that just becomes more satisfying with the expanse of cards you play into your reef. This is a great introductory, strategy, and family game for small children and does offer goal cards for solo gameplay. You can adapt your game to have a more aggressive strategy based on the cards played.
The Bad
As this is a family game, there isn’t a lot of higher complexity cards, meaning there isn’t that much critical thinking involved. This game is still a game that relies on luck at its core, but with very few variations of cards, it doesn’t take long to attain the cards you’re looking for. Limited table space can become a nuisance in the later rounds and only becoming more difficult with more people.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed playing this game because it offered quick gameplay with beautiful artwork. The feeling of relaxation that comes from being able to build your reef is exemplified by just how satisfying it is to always find one more identical fish to add to a school. Although I believe this game is good, it is not a game that has too much replayability due to the lack of card variations, scenarios, and goals present. This does leave room for improvement in expansions to add more depth to the game. However, card games like this are the exact type of games that can bring new board game players to the hobby, and the exact genre of game that my younger sister adores. If your family and friends enjoy card games and beautiful artwork, this game could be perfect for you and your best chums!
