Deep Madness

In a dark and claustrophobic deep-sea mining site, the discovery of a mysterious 'sphere' sends everyone in the vicinity into a never-ending frenzy. The fears buried in everyone's mind are amplified and transformed into horrific monsters from other dimensions, torturing the body and testing the mind. Only those with extraordinary will and conviction can escape its devastating grip. Deep Madness is a fully cooperative board game for 1-6 players with 66 amazingly detailed miniatures, representing a science fiction horror world inspired by the works of Lovecraft and the Alien series. In the game, players take on the role of investigators, venturing into a seemingly empty but perilous deep-sea mine site to uncover the truth behind the lost contact event. Unimaginable horror and madness, born of the dark fear within them, awaits them.

Deep Madness is based on several scenarios of a continuous story. Each scenario has its own board layout, rules, special effects and objectives. From solving fatal crises to fighting overwhelming bosses, investigators will face a variety of quests filled with strategic decisions and fierce combat. With each completed scenario, they get a little closer to the truth, but also sink a little deeper into the world of madness. Each scenario in the game is played in a limited number of rounds, if the investigators fail to complete the objectives by the end of the last round, the game is lost and everyone is consumed. Each game turn consists of 4 phases: the devouring phase, the spawning phase, the activation phase and the refreshment phase.

In the devour phase, the devour marker moves up one step on the devour track, indicating that the world is going mad. As the Devour marker progresses, more and more pieces (map tiles) are flipped to the madness side. These coins will cause monsters to appear and provide various unpleasant effects to hinder investigators or stimulate monsters. During the spawn phase, different types of monsters with unique abilities appear in the flipped rooms. The monsters do not appear in fixed locations, they can appear right next to the investigators if they venture out carelessly. The activation phase is the heart of the game, with investigators and monsters taking turns. The monsters do not wait for all investigators to finish their turn as in other cooperative games, but act among themselves, so that careless planning would put investigators later in the turn order in great danger, facing fatal attacks before they had a chance to act. During the refreshment phase, some maintenance is performed, and some special effects are resolved.

During each investigator's turn, it is crucial that the player chooses 3 actions to take wisely. Each type of action has its own value, and each decision can be a matter of life and death in Deep Madness. Unfortunately, the right decision is rarely obvious. Moving, attacking, searching, swapping items, locking doors and regaining sanity are the basic actions. In addition, each investigator also has their own unique and irreplaceable abilities to activate. Different combinations of investigators offer distinct strategies and gameplay experiences. Monsters act according to their own action pool during their turn. In Deep Madness, monsters are very distinctive, not only in terms of statistics, but also in their abilities and behaviours. Different combinations of monsters offer unique challenges. And due to the interleaved activation mechanism, even different turn orders of the monsters make each game session different. However, no matter how the monsters are configured, Deep Madness will be a very difficult game, even death could be a strategy.

In the game, investigators fight horrific monsters, survive harsh crises and, most importantly, save their own minds from consuming madness. They have many opportunities to consume their own sanity, activate their abilities, use the effects of items, reroll dice, etc. However, they are vulnerable when their sanity is low. However, they are vulnerable when their sanity is low. After an investigator with insanity tokens successfully kills a monster, the monster will corrupt its mind, permanently turning the insanity tokens into dementia tokens. As the insanity tokens accumulate, the horror haunts the investigator by resolving insanity cards, and each has a unique negative effect and terrifying flavor text.

Deep Madness funded on the Kickstarter platform

Deep Madness was funded on the Crowdfunding Kickstarter (See the campaign) platform on the Nov 11, 2016, the campaign lasted 28 days. 9,566 people helped funded the game, whose the amount requested was $100,000.00. Thanks to these 9,566 people the game could be funded up to $1,438,293.00, ~1,438.29%.

Rule, Educational Sheet ... 2 Files Available2 Files Available