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Hook, Line & Whisker's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #147 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #161 | 3.062 | 3.062 |
| Graphics | #161 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Gameplay | #194 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
| Innovation | #283 | 2.438 | 2.438 |
| Theme interpretation | #372 | 2.250 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/AshleySetter/Hook-Line-and_Whisker-game-off-2025
Game description
A pixel art style fishing game where increasing large waves of cats come to steal your fish. You can catch and sell fish and use the coins to upgrade your rod with more hooks to catch more fish at once, as well as upgrades to make catching fish easier, you must catch and sell enough each day to pay your increasing bills and evade the cats or catch fish faster than the cats can steal them.
Theme interpretation
Waves of cats steal the player's fish, the waves getting larger each day.
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Comments
This is so cute! The atmosphere is really relaxing and the art is beautiful! Great job!
These cats are stealing all my fish! Luckily I am faster =)
Fun to play and relaxing atmosphere.
Thanks for playing and lovely feedback :)
I love the ambiance of this game! You have excellent sounds and pixel art, this game is cute and super charming.
The one thing I think this game needs right now is a little more clarity. Something to signpost the fish stall and the player house to set them apart from the other houses would be good. I had to redo day one 3 times because when I would get back to the house I'd be presented with the two options of main menu and retry. You have a good tutorial walking up to the fishing spot that does point out the stall to sell the fish, but when I had walked up to it the first time I didn't see a prompt or anything. Once I successfully sold my fish I was able to progress to day 2. The fishing mini game is tough to get down as well. I had a hard time keeping my eye on the fish and the bar to time correctly, but once I stopped trying to look and the fish and just listened for whether or not it was making the sound the game was much easier.
Excellent job, I'd love to see this expanded!
Thanks for the lovely comments and detailed feedback!
Ambtitious adventure game about fishing. Unfortunately the fishing mechanics is not easy to understand. This is a crucial aspect of the game, so you might try to simplify it. Besides the map is large but most of it is empty houses and a forest you can get lost in. The action only takes place in a small part of the map so what is the point of the rest?
Thanks for the feedback! The point of the rest is to be obstacles for leading the cats around so they get slowed down by navigating the obstacles, I was also hoping to add more story throughout the town but time constraints made this infeasible.
Really enjoyed your game! The cats are so cute (and infuriating!) The fishing mini-game reminded me of stardew valley.
Minor feedback if you want to continue development:
Thanks for the detailed feedback, really appretiate the useful comments!
The graphics look promising! However, I got stuck outside the house. Pressing E and R as instructed didn't do anything for me.
Did you follow the path north to the river?
No, the signposting immediately redirected me to the house when I walked away.
Ahh, I see how that was confusing, I wanted to show where the players house is so you know where to go back to at the end of the day but since theres no mini-map I wanted to point it out while you’re still near the house, I probably should have set up a tutorial for nighttime that points you towards the house. Thanks for the tip!
Makes total sense now! Glad the feedback was helpful — good luck with the rest of the jam!
Enjoyed the gameplay. I love fishing mechanics, this reminded me of fishing in zelda and pokemon games. You nailed one mechanic, and even have a leaderboard!
I couldn’t make it too far, 17 fishes or so, cats destroyed me.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback! It definitely gets pretty tricky to avoid the cats as the days go on, I was planning to add consumables you could buy which would distract the cats or slow them down but didn’t get time to implement them.
It’s okay! What you did manage to implement is awesome.
I found it quite hard to understand what needs to be done, the pixel art is very well done but with all the information on the screen bombarded to me at once with so many banners saying what I need to do I was overwhelmed and had to stop playing the game. I put the water down with E and then I kept trying to press R but nothing happened. Can you suggest me what I might be doing wrong?
I might have to work on better tutorials 😅. You have to wait for the fish to stop fighting (indicated by the lack of splashing sound and the fish's shadow being visible under the water and the red pulsing behind the bar at the bottom being gone), then wait for the bar to be in the green and press R, then a bling sound effect will play and the fish will be reeled in closer to the player.
Awesome to see how far this has come. Great work!
Thanks! It's my second game jam and 4th game I've made so far. Definitely my largest scope game to date.