Oh boy was I ecstatic to see this pop up. It has been a while, but im glad to come back and experience another one of your games.
I will say, I do like the game, but man does it have problems.
First off, the music and visuals are fantastic and the character design is great.
fishing isnt explained before you catch a fish and trying to read the explanation in the millisecond before you fail is near impossible. i failed like 5 times before somehow catching a fish.
it is a pretty simple and fun activity though, once i understood it. you need to hold down j to reel in the fish, indicated by the bottom bar, whilst not snapping the line, indicated by the top bar.
you cant fish without bait. this makes progress super slow. worm bait costs 5$, a bluegill, the only fish i catch 99% of the time, sells for 10$. effectively you make 5$ per catch. Grub is not profitable. Unless I got really unlucky they were an average -5$ per catch. spinners are also not profitable at an average -10$ per catch. Golden Bait on the other hand is consistently profitable and once you can afford 2 you should buy some and without terrible luck should start profiting well. have you done the math for these? im pretty sure the math doesn’t check out. Each bait should on average increase profits. Here it’s the opposite until golden actually goes into the green.
What do rod and line upgrades do? I cant seem to tell the difference. Also do they have a max level? Im not going further than level 7, as even with abusing the bait bug money is slow to grind.
the diner makes no sense. first of all the pricing is wack. cup of coffee and cod and chips offer 2 stamina per 1$, while a sandwich offers 2,6 stamina per 1$ and burger and fries offer 2,8 stamina per 1$. but all of this doesnt matter, as resting and ending the day is free. why would you spend the pretty limited money on something that you can get for free? it doesnt really make sense to me.
npc hearts are a bit weird. to make them go up you just have to skip a day and then talk to them. you dont do anything. after 5 times of doing that you just go to the lighthouse and the game ends.
The game feels like you are trying to do two things at once, but don’t connect them. Fishing does nothing to progress the story and the story doesn’t influence fishing. I like the story, even though it is short and I love fishing games like these, but it doesn’t feel like one coherent game. You can finish the story without ever fishing, and you can fish without ever interacting with the story. Take a game like dredge. Now I have never played it, but I do know how it plays. There the story is ever present in the world and fishing naturally progresses the story. Both systems are intertwined as fishing will continue the story, which in turn opens up new possibilities for fishing. That is pretty much an ideal merger of story and gameplay. Here you have pretty much a complete opposite. The story and fishing do not cross. They are separate parts of the game that don’t interact with one another and don’t need the other to function. In this you have essentially created two games and packed them into one game.
Bugs:
talking to non-highlighted npcs will open the dialogue of the last highlighted npc?
on 4 and 5 hearts one of mistys lines bugs out, showing you talking, even though its her talking.
tina at 5 hearts tells us " when i sail out, you´ll be" and then the line cuts out. come on, what was she going to say? i need to know.
sarah at 5 hearts should say " i like the idea of it being you who rings it", not rang. Also ringing a bell isn’t part of the ending? So what was that about?
Speaking to an npc after the ending will trigger the upgrade guy to go:” Text AAA Text AAA Text AAA…”
using a higher tier bait will also use a lower tier bait, wasting bait!!!!!!!!
you also dont get to chose which bait gets used. no matter which you click on, one of every bait you have is used.
Not the bait that you use determines the rng, but the bait that you select. Say you have 3 worms and no golden, but select golden when fishing. You will use 3 worms, but will get golden rng on them, i.e you will get stripped bass and chain pickerel. this is absolutely op as you will average 125$ per catch from the start of the game. its better than using golden bait lol. Im now not actually sure if you can catch anything other than bluegills with worms, as I think I accidentally used this glitch when I caught different fish from worms. Does this mean bait determines the type of fish you can catch and other fish are impossible? If so, I don’t like it. most games just increase the chances, so its always possible to get lucky and make a huge profit.
the rod upgrade shop is bugged visually. Upgrading the line will not increase the level visually in the shop menu. In the game menu it shows the correct level. Upgrading the rod however will increase the shown level for both the line and rod. So with a level 6 rod and level 1 line the shop will show both at level 6.
slight gripe, but having the water color in the town match one to one with the itch pages color makes it impossible to tell where it starts or ends, if not using fullscreen. doesnt really affect gameplay, its just something i found slightly irritating.
What does this game need?
Id say first off the story and fishing need to merge. Hearts shouldn’t get added for every passing day, but instead should be earned. Have the npcs give you quests to gain their trust, like fishing up a special item or giving them some fish. That alone would fix a massive issue of the game.
Then fishing needs a rework. The game needs a few more fish to make gains more gradual, but also more consistent. That allows for a lot more balance, variety and steady progression. Also fish rng needs to be addressed. the only fish I catch with worm bait can not be the bluegill. Im not even exaggerating by stating that 99% of my catches were bluegills. Im not expecting a stripped bass every catch, but I am expecting something better than a bluegill every few casts.
What I also expect is the lowest tier bait to be a barely noticeable expense and higher tier baits to be a bigger, but safe investment. Half my profits can not go back into buying bait. With it also being necessary to use bait to catch a fish this is even worse of an issue. A mandatory 50% tax early game is something you see in challenge runs of games, not in a basegame. Also grub and spinner can not be increasingly more unprofitable. That makes zero sense.
Bugfixes. there are no huge bugs, but they are everywhere.
All in all I had a fun time and I do enjoy the game, it just has a mountain of issues. The game would need some reworking to make it more polished and some bug fixes, but the core idea of the game is good and not in need of changing. The note of the game being unpolished and in development, along with the fact that my feedback doesn’t come 4 years after the release this time does give me hope that you could still fix this game into a more polished experience.
Also unfortunate that I cant rate the game for the jam, as despite my mountain of problems with it, I still like the game.