Update, October 23: Deep End is now live on Google Play, with twelve decks.
Conversation cards that go a little deeper with every card. It’s in testing on Google Play right now, and out in a few weeks.
Most conversation card games have the same problem. The good questions are shuffled in with the small talk, so either the evening never gets anywhere, or someone gets a very personal question way too early and the mood is gone. Deep End fixes that by going down in order.
One card at a time, one depth at a time
Every deck starts at depth 1 and walks down to depth 10. The first cards are easy, the kind you can ask someone you met an hour ago. Every card after that goes a little deeper, and you can see it happen: the water behind the cards turns a darker blue, the sunlight fades out and the bubbles thin out the further down you get.
It starts easy, then you decide, then you come back up.
After depth 10 the app stops and asks: Go to the Deep End? Past that point the questions stop being safe, and some of them will feel uncomfortable. That’s kind of the point, but only with people you trust, so it’s always a choice you make together. And if it gets to be too much, there’s a Get me to the surface! button. When you come back up you see how long you were diving and how long you spent in the Deep End.
Watch the whole descent in 38 seconds (YouTube)
11 decks, around 5,500 questions
Each deck is for a different table, and each one has around 500 questions sorted by depth:
- First Round for people who just met
- Old Friends for friends with history
- Two of Us for the two of you
- Family Table for the whole family
- Growing Up where you come from
- Work Crew for colleagues, after hours
- Road Trip for the road
- Big Questions meaning, luck, belief
- What’s Next plans and what comes next
- Late Night honest, no theme, late
- After Dark desire, openly
Deep End is written for adults (After Dark especially), so it’s 18+.
What it costs
First Round is free, all ten depths of it. Every other deck is a one-time purchase of 1.99 €, and All decks is 7.99 €, which also includes every deck I add later. Buying anything also opens the Deep End of First Round. No subscription, and nothing that renews.
What it doesn’t do
No ads. No tracking. No account. Everything stays on your phone, and it works offline, so a cabin with no signal or a long drive is fine.
It’s in English, Finnish, German and French.
When
- September 30: closed testing starts. Testers are using Deep End on Google Play right now.
- Around October 14: 14 days of testing done. The fixes from testing go in, and Deep End goes to Google for the production review.
- Around October 16: Deep End on Google Play, for everyone, on Android.
- After that: iPhone.
If you have a question you think belongs in the Deep End, I’d genuinely like to hear it: contact@appbear.io