Shallow Sea

Shallow Sea is a one-to-four-player spatial puzzle inspired by the Great Barrier Reef. Each player builds a personal ocean on a gridded board, but the pieces do more than simply fill spaces. On a turn, you draft a fish-and-coral combination or a sea-life tile from the shared display and place it in an empty space. Coral asks for particular fish colours around it. When that condition is satisfied, the coral flips to its completed side, one contributing fish moves onto the coral as a resident, and the surrounding pattern changes again. A single placement can therefore finish one habitat, relocate a fish, and trigger the next completion in a satisfying chain. Sea-life tiles introduce a second layer of objectives, asking for specific arrangements of fish and completed coral. Seashells provide tactical freedom by refreshing the market, attracting a different fish, or repositioning one already in your reef. Ecosystem cards then reward broader end-game patterns, so a locally useful placement must also support the identity of the whole ocean. All players work on their boards between turns, keeping the pace brisk across the full player range. The result is a colourful, approachable drafting game with a surprisingly dynamic puzzle: every completed coral changes the board you are still trying to solve.