What Waits Beneath is a game about exploring the depths of the ocean, encountering creatures and pulling up the treasures from the ocean and shipwrecks.
You play this game by making a spread of 15 cards face down on the table, rolling 10 dice, and placing the die upon each card. For each dive you flip two cards, one will decide an event that happened during the dive and one the treasure. If the cards match suits, you are able to bring the item to the surface, if not, you write about what happened instead. The dice then determine how well the dive went ranging from pretty bad to mediocre, to great!
The prompts for the game are in a simple table, which allows you to adjust when and where you are doing a dive. The game is slightly fantastical as some of the prompts have you encountering siren’s songs or magic mirrors, but can easily be interpreted as metaphors if you want a game more grounded in reality.
There is no hard stopping point to the game, but the instructions suggest stopping when you run out of dice, or cards, or you just want to finish. It also suggests setting out on a new excursion by making a new spread.
I went out for 15 dives and found a mask, a few coins, a mysterious locked box, an evil button, a small jewelry box, and a musical pearl before my diver decided maybe they wanted to consider a change in careers. You can find my full playthrough here!