Fisherman Classic, a retro-style game about...fishing! [Early Access]

[schumpeter]

lol hello,
I made a new game. I wanted to do something like this for a long time, and it finally happened. I choose to release it as early access, since I never did it before and I would like to know if it would help with the game’s development.

However, the game is pretty much done. It’s a single-player fishing game. You can fish in different areas/lakes/seas, and each one will give more or less chance of hooking fishes. When you caught a fish, you automatically catalog them, and you can keep track of that as well.

You can also sell your fish and buy new skins, hats and boats and properties. Some boats are bigger and can’t go through small lakes, but can carry more fishes (which means more money after!). The properties are not implemented yet, but I’m thinking about properties for storing boats and for decorating with in-game items…I don’t know yet.

If you don’t want to spend all your time fishing, you may buy a speed boat and travel across the map (which is kinda huge - about 28.000 x 6.000 pixels, with a 16x16 pixel character for reference) searching for items and cash.

Everything you do in the game, you can save your progress. I’m currently studying about doing online multiplayer with GDevelop, so this will be my focus from now on. Everything saved in the game (money, items, fishes catalogued), hopefully, will be transferable to multiplayer mode when (again, hopefully) it arrives! It will depend much on the receptivity of the game, for sure.

I’m kinda happy about this project to be honest. All my games I did so far was either a platforming or a adventure/rpg. In all cases the objectives were premeditated, which can be kinda boring. This one, though, it’s different. It’s more of a casual game…you can just travel and see the other landscapes, or grind it hard, it’s up to you, so I think this gives kinda of a good “casual” feeling about it. I don’t know if people are gonna like it, but for sure this is the game I most like by far (from the other four I’ve already made).

Here are some screenshots and trailer.
Trailer (I did with the final version that is going to be released on Steam - v1.0.0):

Fisherman Classic Trailer (Early Access)

Screenshots (some are a little bit old, but the features are pretty much the same):

If you are interested, you can add it to your wishlist! The game will be available around May 16th.

Again, as always, thanks to GDevelop and GDevelop community for making this possible!

[jamboman]

I really like the look of this. I don’t know why because I don’t like fishing!

Music makes it feel a bit 'Deliverance-like!

[schumpeter]

Hey man
thanks a lot!

[ninja]

This looks awesome! Congratulations for getting on steam!

[convictedweirdo]

This looks outstanding, well done I really do not like fishing in real life, but in video games it’s one of my favourite things to do. I spent way too much time fishing in world of warcraft back in the day.

[Uansa]

This looks really great. Congratulations!

[The_Gem_Dev]

This looks great​:+1:

[schumpeter]

Thanks so much everyone!!

[schumpeter]

Hi! I’ve been finishing the game for good the past couple of a days and I’d like to share some new info and screenshots:

SKINS (you can get them by buying, finding or completing quests) - can you get the two references? lol

OTHER SCREENSHOTS:

(This last image is a reference to the song Fisherman by The Congos. I felt like doing that since I got the idea for making the game when listening to this song).

NEW HEADER LOGO:

That’s it. 1 week to go!

[erdo]

Love the look of this game.

[grymmjack]

This game looks awesome! Congratulations. Where can we get a copy?

Nevermind, I can’t read things. Steam

Added to wishlist. Was it hard to integrate GDevelop with the Steam SDK?

[arthuro555]

@grymmjack

it hard to integrate GDevelop with the Steam SDK?

I made a guide for integrating that sdk if it interrests you. Just as a clarification, you don’t need the sdk to be present to upload to steam.

[schumpeter]

The game is officialy released as Early Access! If anyone has the interested in playing it, here’s the store page:

Also, if you can’t buy it for any reason, but still wants to play, don’t be afraid to ask for a key!
Thanks everyone.

[erdo]

I bought your game in Steam. I know it’s an early access version, so I will put here my toughts on it:

~I love the overall aestethics of the game.
~Its slow pace is perfect for the contemplative gameplay.

~The ambiental music don’t fits the aestethics or style of an old Atari-like game, at all.
~I miss some kind of 8bit sound effect.
~The use of the mouse just don’t fits the game. The controls would feel a lot better if there were the option to control the menus with the arrows and if the control keys were reduced to one or two buttons.
~ The controls are a bit tricky and not intuitive.
~ I miss a splash screen.
~ I found an bug: when the game ends due to lack of fuel, it cannot be started again unless the entire program is restarted, otherwise it enters in a return to the dock - automatic game over loop that don’t even allow to move the character for a second . This is because the fuel level variable is not restored to the initial value.

[schumpeter]

Hi erdo!
Thanks so much for your feedback.

I’ve posted a Devlog yesterday about an update that I’m going to release next monday with some bug fixes. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it. Unfortunately, I had to remove it today because it was as posted as a minor update, and not news. I’m posting it again later today.

But, regarding your feedback:

First of all, thanks for the compliments.

Regarding the music, I understand it doesn’t fit, but as I said earlier, this music is going to be changed later on. I don’t want to take a royalty-free 8bit music, but make my own and, since I’m not very good, it probably will take a while.

However, on the monday update I’m going to add SFX (sound effects) to the game:

• When riding a boat;
• When catching a fish;
• When catching item; and
• When finding a quest.

About the mouse, I understand what you’re saying but unfortunately I don’t think I’m going to change, because it would be a really big concept change. Even though the game reminds of a Atari, I didn’t want to copy it on every level, but rather add some “contemporary feel” let’s say.

About the splash screen, could you elaborate more? I don’t think I understand what you mean.

Thanks so much for telling me about this variable bug (when running out of fuel). I didn’t know that, and no one told me, even though some people sent to me feedback as well. I’m going to fix it and release on the monday update for sure!

The game sold almost 300 copies (100 on the first day) since its launch, so I’m really happy. Unfortunately, only 2 people posted reviews on the page, and one of them was negative (I liked the review. It was very constructive in most parts), so I think the game lost a bit of visibility because of that, but I’m happy with the results so far. I think maybe with the new update the game could get more visibility.

Again, thanks for your feedback @erdo! I hope you like the changes next Monday. I’m going to add new species of fish, a new quest and a little change on the design in addition with the bug fixes.

[Evertonsak]

Wow! congratulations bro, your game was very good, it’s good to see the Gdvelop community creating great games, so the public can see the power of the engine.

[Dodolulupepe]

IDK if you did this because it sounds cooler, in which case, keep it, but the plural form of fish is fish, not fishes. One fish, two fish, not two fishes. Again, if you think it sounds cooler for the game, fine, just wanted to tell you if you didn’t know.

[schumpeter]

Even though Fisherman Classic is already released. I’m still working on a Major Update to relase within the next few monthrs. Fisherman Classic has been my greatest success so far, selling over 1400+ copies so far. I though hard about it, and decided to release this as an update to the already game rather than publishing another one. This is the first image from the current state of development and designing. Any feedback is appreciated, specially compared to the older version of Fisherman Classic (which is available at Steam at Fisherman Classic on Steam)