| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #111 | 4.048 | 4.048 |
| Overall | #241 | 3.214 | 3.214 |
| Gameboy Soul | #259 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #268 | 2.952 | 2.952 |
| Quirkiness | #275 | 3.143 | 3.143 |
| Gameplay | #289 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
| Secondary Theme Interpretation | #297 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game meet GBJam's theme
The game is about the titular golden lake. There is something slumbering in those calm waters...
Charming fishing game. The art is excellent, and I liked the little strategy around what to sell, keep, or turn into bait.
The button mashing got a little rough, I’d probably like a different reeling mechanic or a bit more feedback there.
Otherwise, really polished. Great Game Boy look, cute characters, and a satisfying gameplay loop.
I really liked being able to play this on hardware. The design of Petra's shop is great!
thanks so much!! it looks so cool on the gameboy advance! i would love to play it on mine at some point, i gotta figure out how to do that :D
i'm actually working on an update for the game right now to add more content. there's gonna be new music, a second rival to choose and all the fish will get illustrations that'll replace the silhouettes. and i wanna make the fishing minigame more fun, that's a big priority!
thanks for playing! :) yea, i would really like to improve my music making skills to set the right mood. i've only ever made music for this game and the one i made before it, outside of that i have absolutely no experience so i have a lot to learn. i definitely want to improve!
the button mashing for the fishing is also the point i think needs the most improvement to be actually fun and as you point out, it's also an accessibility issue. i originally tried to make the animation more responsive, showing animation states based on how far the player got, but that made the animation laggy and i didn't want to obsess over it to make it perfect because otherwise i wouldn't have finished a game in time for the jam.
i'm planning to make a post-jam update to this game. thanks for the thorough feedback!
I didn't win first place, but who needs infinite wealth when you can point and laugh at your annoying neighbour?
My biggest fish was a 9-star sturgeon. Took me by surprise because I've only been getting perch and bass until then.
Had a decent amount of fun but my fingerprint was starting to fall off by the third day. Solid entry!
The dialogue itself was fine! It gives some context and never felt too long.
What slowed things down for me was having to confirm almost every little action: buying bait, choosing a spot, using the bait, selling the fish, taking the blessing, leaving, and so on. After a while it felt like there were a lot of extra steps between me and the actual gameplay.
Then, once I was fishing, the main interaction was basically pressing A repeatedly to catch the fish. Since that's the main active part of the game across all three days, it didn't feel very exciting to me personally.
So I think reducing some of those confirmations and giving the fishing itself a bit more interaction or variety would probably help the pacing a lot. :)
thank you! music is unfortunately what i got to last for the project and i've never made sound effects, but i'm curious to learn and might add some in an update at some point!
Awesome! if you can I recommend using Fx Hammer which is a rom that you can run on any gameboy emulator, the sav file created by the rom can actually be saved on the sound folder in gbstudio and it will play the sounds!
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=17337
So fxhammer zip is inside the the bigger zip
There is a handy video tutorial from a few years ago that actually covers this, I ended up making the sounds on my gbjam game by toying around with it
sounds to me like you got the hardest ending :) there are 3 endings in total. thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it! i'm considering adding more music after the jam voting is over. music just isn't my area so i didn't get to making more than 1 track in time.
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