As the head of a marine research initiative, you’re preparing to set sail once more. This mission promises to be difficult, but could yield some critical scientific breakthroughs. As you make the last minute preparations to cast off, you think about how you’re going to manage being a Team Leader and face all the challenges your complicated mission will present. Years of studying the seas and sailing upon them has made you a versatile expert. However, if you’re going to complete the tasks before you, you’re going to need to recruit a whole team of Specialists.
In Endeavor: Deep Sea you explore the oceans and work to complete different goals over the course of six rounds. Rounds begin with players adding a new Specialist to their team. Each Specialist is an expert in their field, and your ability to recruit them depends on your Reputation level. Your low Reputation at first limits you to tier-1 Specialists, but over the course of the game you’ll raise the esteem of your institute and the work you’re doing. The better your Reputation, the more skilled Specialists you’ll recruit.
When a Specialist joins your team, they often provide you with an immediate boost to one or more of your Attributes, or advance you on the Impact board. For example the Sonar Operator gives you an immediate boost to your Coordination track, the Pilot allows you to add a marker to the Impact board, and the Reef Diver will immediately move you up on the Reputation track.
Most Specialists provide an action when they are activated. Some, like the Marine Biologist, provide a choice of actions you may take. Others, like the Deep-Sea Diver, permit multiple actions in a single turn. Choosing the right one to activate will be critical to the success of your mission. To activate a Specialist, place a disc on it and perform its associated action(s). That disc stays in place until the Motivate phase in the following round; you’ll be able to reclaim discs off of your Specialists depending on how far you have advanced on your Coordination track. Freeing up Specialists so that they can be activated again is critical to accomplishing your goals..
When you add a new team member, they are considered a Junior Specialist, but each one has the potential of being promoted. Various actions like writing journals or retrieving Dive tokens might provide you with a promotion opportunity. A banner on the bottom of each Junior Specialist shows the actions and attribute boosts you’ll gain by promoting them. When promoting, flip the Junior to its Senior side, and immediately receive any attribute boosts provided by the improved status. If you promote a Specialist that has a disc on it already, return the disc to your general supply—freeing up the newly-Senior Specialist to be activated again.
Tier-5 Specialists provide actions and attribute boosts that are incredibly powerful. Characters like the Mentor, Fleet Coordinator, and Adventurer would be welcome additions to any crew. Every one of the many tier-5 Specialists is unique, but they are available for recruitment from three stacks; each stack is randomly dealt out with different Specialists in every one. Only the top Specialist in each stack is available until that one is recruited and a new one is revealed.
No one can save the oceans on their own, and the team you assemble plays a huge role in accomplishing everything you want to do. A game of Endeavor: Deep Sea starts with everyone having the same abilities, but very quickly as Specialists are gained and promoted, your paths diverge. Have you put together the right crew, or will some other initiative make the most positive impact?
Endeavor: Deep Sea is launching on Gamefound on April 25.
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Read the Overview article here.
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