Bottom Dollar

Bottom Dollar is a treasure diving roguelike. You have a boat payment, a metal detector and about forty seconds of air worth spending. The harbor wants a number every few days, and the number goes up. That is the whole problem.

You drop off the back of the boat and follow the beeps. Digging costs air, depth eats your clock, sharks take your bag and swim off, and a trawler drags a net through the whole water column without knowing you exist. Hit the target and you cash out on deck, coin by coin, then the harbor hands you a bigger target. Miss and the run is done. Either way you are leaving stuff down there. That is kind of the point.

Between dives you go shopping, and the shop is where runs are won. Everything good takes something from you somewhere else. Twin tanks or a rebreather, pick one. A scooter that makes you fast and also heavy. A jeweler's loupe that makes finds worth more and your detector worse. You end up building a diver, not buying upgrades.

What you get

• 5 locations, 4 dives each, then endless mode

• Every fourth dive is a challenge dive, with 12 different modifiers

• 55 trinkets in four rarities, 5 slots to hold them

• 30 pieces of gear, 6 slots, plenty of things that do not get along

• 6 charter boats that each change how a run starts

• 7 kinds of dive site, including marinas where you scrub hulls when the digging is bad

• Real caves. Bring the line reel.

• A tutorial that actually teaches the game

"He still owes me for the charter." - the skipper