Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Shallow Regrets: The Fisher & the Frod: Fishing with Frogs
The Fisher & The Frod leverages Frod—a froglike character from the base Deep Regrets game—as an automa player so that you can play Shallow Regrets solo. He doesn’t use any of the fish abilities, instead having his own deck of cards that dictate which fish he catches and what abilities you’ll be subject to.
Each card features a symbol to point at which shoal Frod begins fishing in, and he will continue fishing clockwise until he reaches a shoal with a strength range compatible with his current strength. For example, if he has a strength of three, he will automatically catch a fish in his indicated shoal, even if the specific fish has a difficulty of five. This is because when the card was facedown, it had a range between 3-5, and Frod’s strength is covered in that range.
Frod’s abilities are powerful and devastating, so keeping his caught fish exhausted becomes a key part of the strategy. You may be forced to only be able to catch foul fish, or he might use a stick of dynamite to catch one fish and remove the others from the game. The fewer abilities he uses during the game, the better chance you have at winning.
The nature of the solo mode allows the human player some gamesmanship. By knowing which shoals have already been drawn, you can put fish back into shoals that Frod is more likely to fish from. I found myself placing lower value fish in those instances.
There was one aspect of the short rulebook that initially confused me, where it discussed inclusion with the Lingering Remorse expansion. But now I am informed enough to understand that this solo mode was designed with the expansion in mind. My review was just with the base Shallow Regrets game.
Overall, this solo mode is a fun addition to the base game that still captures the tension that you get when playing with a full table of humans. Frod’s actions are impactful and only reliably predictable on their fifth and sixth turn. With only six additional cards to add to the base game, The Fisher & the Frod doesn’t burden solo players with an expansive footprint, offering a worthwhile challenge with additional ways to tack on difficulty if you desire.
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