Waves of Fortune is an exploration game that uses randomized tiles that when flipped, correspond to different decks of cards and events. The board is made up of 100 small tiles, with 36 making up an inner ring with easier events, and 64 that are riskier but have higher rewards. Players start in the middle, and may choose to explore within the shallows, or venture out into the depths. The board starts with treasure in the corners of the map, giving the players a starting goal, but as they explore more tiles they can uncover either islands or ocean.

​The island cards have events such as animal attacks, mermaids, and treasure maps while the ocean cards have events such as pirates, sunken treasure,and gaining crewmates. The shallows and the depths have separate island and ocean cards, so there are a total of 4 decks, with the depths cards having more cards that cause players to lose crew or food. Some of the tiles have events such as reefs and whirlpools, and players are able to bump other players into those spots to try to sink them. The game is a competition to get the most victory points through getting the most treasure, or defeating the kraken or pirates.

​Players must be careful throughout the game, because they have a limited number of food and crewmates that must be restored by returning to their home base, and if either run out, their ship sinks with the treasure collected, and other players may go collect it. The game continues until a player has defeated the Pirate King, which is a random tile in the depths.

This game was made by Julia Del Matto, Spencer Pilarski, and Noah Perloff.