🎣⚓ ALL FISHERMEN ABOARD!!! ⚓🎣

Another week, another voyage into the ever-deepening waters of game development! With the horizon of completion slowly coming into view, the crew has been working tirelessly to tighten every rope, patch every leak, and start on giving our fishing vessel that final layer of polish it deserves.

This week, our focus was all about turning the good into great. The waters may have been calm, but that only meant we could get to work without bracing for stormy surprises (for once!). From updating and refining several key assets to dressing up the scene with extra environmental details, our world now feels richer, more lived-in, and a whole lot more hook-worthy. Lighting and composition have also gotten their moment in the sun — making our game look less like a work-in-progress and more like a postcard you'd send home from a fishy getaway.

Of course, what’s a fishing trip without the sounds of the sea? We’ve also thrown in new audio elements to reel players deeper into the experience.  Meanwhile, the bug nets were out in full force this week, and we’ve been busy squashing every last critter that dared crawl onto our ship... again!

All in all, we’re proud to say that our little boat is looking more seaworthy than ever. The pieces are coming together, the waters are looking clearer, and with every passing day we get closer to sailing into the sunset of a finished game.

Now then, gather round the deck — it’s time to peek into this week’s treasure chest and see what we’ve hauled aboard! 🐟✨

Art

Polish! Polish! And more polish!

This week we focused on giving our level a face lift in the form of extra assets for set dressing, once again as per last week, in an attempt to bring everything together. This time, however, we also made sure to pay attention to guiding the player as well as breaking up the whole environment. Our scene now feels more balanced and interesting to look at, as well as making it clear which the areas of interest are for the players. 

We did a lot of tweaking and general level design polishing, and on top of this, some big changes to the map have been made including two waterfalls that add a lot to the background non-player areas. Lighting also got an upgrade!

Face lift sliders to the max!

With a focus on upgrading what is already in the level and adding those extra touches some of the new things that can be seen in the scene are the trees and branches on the side, so extra foliage.

As well as the winning player now sporting a golden crown, earned by doing the best in the game. A small but powerful indicator of who is about to snatch the victory or perhaps who to watch out for (or gang up on, your choice really, dear fishermen).

There is also the player select menu that has gotten an upgrade in colors and button indicators, making it clearer what players are supposed to do in order to be able to join and begin the fishing battle royale.

Fresh extra assets! New extra assets for everyone!

Even more fish four our fishing game! Who would have thought! This week, we spent some time on making our little fishing doc feel like a real fishing dock. Which translates to fish a plenty in the forms of containers, traps and displays! And as mentioned above, we did our best to very these props in color to break up the general orange to brown and green feel of the level.

Coding

Dialing up the immersion!

This week we made use of various sound chunks in the game, enriching the gameplay with them. Our mini-games visuals became more polished, providing more clarity on what time it takes to finish them. Rest of the time was spent on fixing issues in logic that have arisen during playtesting, making the fishing activity and in-game joining spotless!

Pesky movement strikes back!

This week we worked on improving movement rotation speed and making character go up the stairs faster. We also fixed animation issues and now the character can freely convert between physics and animated setup. We also improved fishing line spawning to fit the fishing circle. We also made sure RFX are spawned at correct time. By the way, now around the character there is a floaty that keeps him on the water (keeping all fishermen safe regardless of swimming capabilities). Fun!

The game is starting to game!

This week we polished the HUD to its final state with the final new sprites to make it look super clean. We also introduced some navigable buttons on the starting screen and ending screen. These give our game a much cleaner look and add a new way of interacting for the players.

Future plans!!

• Polish this child of ours to hell and back and then some!!!!!!
• Gazing longingly at the light at the end of the tunnel of this final stretch of development
• Stressing over the light at the end of the tunnel of this final stretch of development

With steady hands and a full net, until next time fellow fishermen!