Clank Under the Sea – Clank: Sunken Treasures app expansion review

I keep saying this, but Dire Wolf Digital is putting out some amazing boardgame apps, even though sometimes a new app has a couple of faults that were present (and fixed) in previous apps, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.

They do fix them fairly quickly, though.

The recent Clank app has to be one of my favourite apps.

I typically don’t play apps solo very often. Only enough to maybe review them or learn the game.

My main method of playing is asynchronous online multiplayer.

However, Clank is one of the rare exceptions, as I play solo games against the AI all the time.

So when Dire Wolf Digital announced that the first (of quite a few, I believe) expansion for the boardgame was coming to the app, I was very enthusiastic.

Clank: Sunken Treasures adds a bunch of new cards, two new maps, and a couple different mechanics, none of which add too much complexity but do add a lot of entertainment value to an already great app.

(This review will be for both the app and the expansion itself, so stay with me if you’re only interested in the board game).

As with the base game, players are adventurers delving into the depths of a dragon’s lair, though this time it’s a sea dragon and players are exploring a shipwreck and under a seaside castle.

Journey into the depths, find an artifact, and bring it up to the top!

There is only one new mechanic added to the game and that is the concept of flooded rooms.

Some rooms are partially flooded. You can go into them, but if you stay in them (or move to another flooded room without moving to a non-flood at least once on your turn), you take a point of damage at the end of your turn.

All of those rooms in the picture above on the left side of the board with what looks like water in them are flooded.

You have to dip in and dip out, or just suffer the consequences.

Maybe you have a lot of healing!

Or you can buy some SCUBA gear (that’s Sorcery-Created Underwater Breathing Apparel, of course) that will let you stay in there.

That gear will also allow you to move through some passageways that would otherwise cost two Boots, instead only requiring one.

Some paths will also cause you to make noise, contributing Clank cubes, when you move along them.

Also, some rooms on the board actually will give you gold for going into them, just like other rooms will give you healing.

The new mechanics are pretty interesting, but I really enjoy the new cards.

Sunken Treasures leans fairly heavily into discard effects, with some cards either having you discard a card to gain something (which there were a couple in the original) and other cards will give you an effect when they are actually discarded (including the boomerang that comes back to your hand, which is way cool).

Note that this doesn’t apply when you discard cards at the end of your turn. It has to be an actual discard triggered by another card.

Let’s just say that Climbing Gear and Short Cut will let you move very fast.

In addition to all of that, there is another “always there” monster to fight, though the Goldfish takes three swords.

But it gives you more money! And can only be fought in a flooded room, which is why the Goblin is still there.

The two new maps (double-sided map board in the actual boardgame) are beautiful and beautifully-rendered in the app.

On the seaside castle map, I love the really long drop into the depths which gets you where you’re going very quickly, but gives you three clank as well.

The shipwreck also has its own nice layout.

The new cards (there are 35) all have great effects that take advantage of new format, with cards like the Mermaid giving an effective one-turn SCUBA effect.

Which can come in handy!

The expansion is wonderful, but how is the app part of it?

First, it comes with a new tutorial that actually helps with the new aspects of the game, and is extremely well-done.

Then (and this was actually implemented into the app before Sunken Treasures came out, but I wanted to note it here), asynchronous multiplayer actually has a “Skip Replay” button which really helps in those four-player games, especially at the beginning where you’re basically moving two rooms and buying cards.

Dire Wolf put this in after many people mentioned how tedious the replays in this game can be (and in Dune: Imperium, where they also implemented this).

They do listen!

Asynchronous multiplayer works brilliantly in the app, where you can set up private games (with a password) or just play public games.

I seem to recall that actually inviting Dire Wolf Digital friends to a game wasn’t working for some reason, but that may have been fixed. Or it may have you required you to stay in the room until everybody had joined.

Either way, just set up a game using a password and send it out to everybody.

It’s just as easy.

The AI isn’t bad. I play against the Medium AI and I lose quite a bit.

That could be saying something about me, but I refuse to acknowledge that.

There actually isn’t really a whole lot more to say because, except for a couple of new additions, Sunken Treasures just gives you more of what makes the original great to begin with.

Some other games could learn that lesson!

Gearing some of the new cards in a certain direction (discarding in this case) is pretty great, though since you are adding these cards to the original deck as well, you may not see the combos come out as often as you would like.

Not all of the new cards point toward discarding.

And many are monsters.

But it’s a nice idea and can be a killer combination if you can manage it.

Plus the addition of two new maps, giving four to choose from, will just keep this game in my rotation, both online multiplayer and solo.

This will only increase as the other expansions (and the map packs that don’t add cards but just map boards) get put into the game.

I can see this app staying in my “greatest game apps” list for a long time if that happens.

Whether you get Sunken Treasures as an app expansion or if you’re playing it on the table, I can highly recommend it if you already like the base game.

Just try not to get too wet playing it.

The expansion (and the game itself!) are available on iOS (in-app purchase so this is the main game link), Android (in-app purchase so this is main game link), and Steam.