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Teach a Man to Fish's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #56 | 4.605 | 4.605 |
| Overall | #214 | 3.944 | 3.944 |
| Audio | #247 | 3.767 | 3.767 |
| Seriousness | #313 | 3.965 | 3.965 |
| Creativity & Theme | #562 | 3.872 | 3.872 |
| Enjoyment | #683 | 3.512 | 3.512 |
Ranked from 86 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Game Engine
Godot
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Comments
I really loved this game, short but an amazing experience. Absolutely incredible and would come back, 10/10
Really fun short game! Definitely coming back to this one at some point. Reminds me a lot of Dave the Diver and other similar games. The pixel art is PHENOMENAL, so funny. Excellent work!
A BITE! GOT IT! I was not expecting to end up in space. It felt so serene and the music was just on point there, and the character art was just delightful. Fun little minigame. I’d have loved to have no timer and just chill fishing in space for a while. Well done!
Omg we wanted this but ran out of tiiime
Wow beautiful artwork and a fun game! Im a big fan of the main menu too lol
This was such an AWESOME EXPERIENCE visually and sound design wise. The fishing mechanic casting feels great and using the reel as the theme mechanic was well implemented. I wished the reeling / pulling in the fish was more effective as you were spinning though since I felt like I was going as fast as I could. I honestly only got about 3-4 fish total through all 3 levels since I kept losing the fish. Regardless, it was fun to experience this really well developed submission all the way through. AMAZING TEAMWORK!
w game loved the art style
VERY serious
fishingBUISINESS with theboysCORPORATE EXECSPRECISELY
Ugh, the art is disgustingly good. Thought the gameplay/fishing mechanics could be a bit more involved, or have some other dynamic going on to spice things up a little.
Also had a fun bug on the space level where a fish got stuck on my hook, and every time I cast I was throwing it out there too! I could still catch other fish but he stayed stuck on my hook the whole round, so he became my friend his name is Burton.
AAHA WE ENCOUNTERED THAT ONE- we have yet to figure out how to fix it- thank you so much for playing!!
I love the little Ace attorney interjections and general whimsy of the whole game. Really nice art style and good sound design. Gameplay is simple and straight to the point, I did find the timers to be a bit punishing though. Either way really cool game!
Simple, direct, to the point. The sound design fits, the over-the-top posing with each catch is just outright funny, and the different characters each having their own vibe in their art is really cool.
Mechanically it's fairly simple and to the point - and I feel like that works here. Some more fine tune control of the rod and how hard you throw'd be nice, but it fits into the "Teach A Man To Fish" angle of learning how the game works, how hard to throw to cast the bait, etc. I almost wish the timer was longer on the later levels given the spike in difficulty with having to factor in zero gravity.
All in all - a really fun little game!
Super charming little game! I also found it a bit difficult to reel in the fish (not helped by my track pad probably lol), but once I started figuring it out it was quite enjoyable, and the art and music are super cute and pleasant!
Persona, Fist of the North Star, Jojo!
Yessss the fish is literally josuke
This game was great! Fishing minigame the full game! The artwork was absolutely stellar too!
My only gripe is that I found it pretty difficult to actually reel in the fish. I was a bit of a challenge spinning that thingy (whatever it's called) smoothly enough to be able to get fish from far away with any consistency
Thabsk for the feedback!! After the jam we'll have to work on the feel and feedback
Beautiful art
Oh man, this is a rough one. The presentation is spot-on from before you even start the game, from the thumbnail to the corporate email
with what we all actually think about those things crossed outin the description to the bulletin-board styling of the main menu and the goofy music - this is a silly game about fishing that presents itself with all the seriousness of an anime showdown, and I am absolutely on board with these vibes.Then I start playing and I send the hook way out, grab the big swordfish that it landed by, watch it barely move as I spin, watch it get loose, and then wonder if I'm doing something wrong when it happens a couple more times. I got the hang of it eventually, but I ran into so many little things like that that just made it... not that fun.
There's no audiovisual cues on whether you're spinning fast enough or not, or how close a fish is to escaping, so when you mess up the lack of feedback makes it feels more confusing than difficult. After you mess up it feels doubly bad since not only did you lose time having to cast again, you also lose progress as the fish swim back to their original spot. Bigger fish are harder to reel in and are more of a challenge, but they're the easiest fish to reach since they're not as deep down so you don't need to wait for the hook to sink (so it's more likely that someone will get them first or because they're in the way). All the waiting you have to do in a game with such a strict time limit. The way the hook sinks in an arc shape makes it hard to figure out where to cast for the deeper fish. The seek radius for the fish is tiny and I'm convinced is larger when the fish are swimming in one direction than in another. The way the space level has so much more "water" so you're spending even more time just waiting to reach a bottom fish.
All of this adds up to a game that just feels unpolished on the gameplay side - fishing is a tried and true gameplay style but this game is missing the mechanical refinement that the overall presentation is asking for. Which is a shame, because it's just so good. The game is beautiful, besides maybe some pixel dithering in the sky textures there is absolutely nothing I would change about the art, with the Juniper-looking suit lady, the little chibi protraits that react to fishing and scoring, and the dreamy cloud-like star background that covers some of the moon in the space level being some of my highlights. The music is great, and while I mentioned a lack of cues before, the sound design is otherwise without issues. A great but flawed game overall - which is the kind of game I said I would have the most to talk about :)
Hey Kieran, thanks for the detailed feedback!
As the dev for the game, I do admit the actual fishing experience has a few rough edges. I think I definitely dropped the ball on making it more obvious when fish are about to escape. Each fish has a hidden timer that gives the player `x` seconds to reel the fish in, and also stronger fish will make the player reel it in slower. I think there could've been several ways we visualize this to the player, either making the fish flop more drastically when they're about to escape or make the player's reeling animation look like they're struggling a bit more with the stronger fish.
The point about the space level having more "water" so reaching the fish closer to the bottom is a very valid one, and honestly not something that occurred to me during testing so thanks heaps for that.
This being my first ever game that I've made, I think there was quite a gap between things I considered as being "obvious" (considering I was the sole dev) vs what the player would consider to be obvious. I feel like making the game feel intuitive enough for anyone to pick up on is something I really need to improve on.
Well in that case congratulations, the only mistakes you made were classic beginner mistakes! Playtesting early and good tutorialization are so important for gamedev. We all have our own biases and blind spots with regards to our own games, we understand our creations from the inside out, but our players don't have that context so we need to give it to them so they can come to appreciate it and enjoy itthe way we do.
The good thing is that your eye for that sort of thing gets better with time. Now that you know about it, it's easy to double check next time you make a game. I made those exact same mistakes for the first games I made, and if it weren't for volunteers in the JuniperDev discord and for my friends, I would've missed some important issues with my own game this jam as well.
The gameplay was alright, but the art was fantastic!
Dude the art when you catch a fish and lowk in general is just absolutely amazing. Fun gameplay too, nice simple relaxing and addicting too lmao.
God this was an amazing entry. #lesbians
Gorgeous visuals and really fun gameplay!
Great work everyone :3
Ahhh tysm ❤️❤️ I'm glad you enjoyed it!!
#lesbians :nodding emoji:
holy crap, the splash art when you catch a fish is so good
I'm a sucker for a good fishing minigame, so I had a blast. I think it nails everything a fishing game should, cause it's easy to understand but it still takes skill to master. Also, I absolutely love the art, and really really wish we could see more of the main characters (yes I'm already imagining a full JRPG with them)
Thank you so much! We actually just fixed bugs and adjusted gameplay and even got our leaderboard WORKING!!! would you like to check it out again?