Edit - Our discord (The original link I didn't realize discord puts a expiry on, updated and fixed it now!)

Hello folks! For this devblog update I finished some big goals for the game! I focused on wrapping up what I called 'Alpha 2' which focused on finishing our core systems, and getting the game stable enough for a very rough early demo! I did this so the game could get a bit better promoted in the steam fishing festival. Now that the systems are in place, I can begin moving into 'Alpha 3' and focus on content, which is way more exciting to show to people!

Demo Launch

• The demo is now officially accessible on the main store page! However I caution against trying it out yet - The game has very little content/polish since I had to build the skeleton first. It's more of a 'Do you like the idea of this game?'

• I'd wait to try the demo when we've made enough progress in Alpha 3 and I've gotten much more content for the shop, town and biomes

• I will put out patches to the demo over time; But I will mostly be focusing on the beta branch so the players can test it first and make tweaks/fixes

• Once the content looks stable, I'll push it onto the demo and we'll keep building up a stronger early game for people to experience

• We now have a discord, you can join via the link on the page here if you are interested in joining the beta branch or just have questions or suggestions for the game (Especially for fish ideas)

Shop Level 3

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/4d3d2cc4622636dcb08b1a794091d7cfc91ac85c.gif"][/img]

• I plan on doing another pass on this shop! I want to have a better fish sign, and I need to get doors for it still

• Way more floor space

• Unlocks better furniture for your store that isn't made out of cardboard and feeling like a hobo! You got a roof over your head now

Display Shelf Level 2 & New Animation

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/5a386b36b3dca1b0d31f4a2319038282b5c3c90b.gif"][/img]

• I'm actually not happy with the art direction of this, I plan on overhauling it down the road - But it works which is the most important thing! It holds up to 3 fish and displays your fish price

• Made a very janky animation of you tossing the fish onto the shelf, just adds a bit of fun to it!

• I think the redesign should be more metal-ish and not plywood, this kinda doesn't match the store it unlocks with

• I'll keep the model still, and maybe this could simply be another shelf to let you choose from - I'm all about variety in simulator games

Bait Boosters

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/cf892b9c794155b4d7a9d4893fd83d0f070a688b.gif"][/img]

• This is still very early and rough; I want to do cooler animations and effects! I definitely want a good dopamine factor going on

• Later on, we might experiment with you having a chance to pull some kind of super-bait

Tutorial

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/eea23d3aab8f7ff99093bbd9dd85236da23d92bf.png"][/img]

• Very very rough tutorial right now! I'll keep it rough because the game is in alpha and will keep evolving

• When I get into Beta, then I'll replace images with little videos instead

Title Announcer

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/51241b9ef7dc27e981cb1046f5debf13b952dde2.gif"][/img]

• Totally not needed, but I love the idea of some cinema in my janky game - Hopefully gives you a bit of chills knowing you entered a new biome

Unlocking Biomes

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/317fa51370a36f4a9924bfbd20e42c66fe03d7dc.gif"][/img]

• Very rough and silly looking right now! But it works, and that's what was most important

• You currently pay money to blast open a blocked off area, which leads you to the ocean biome

• Later on I'd love to have a shady NPC show up, and you have to talk to him and offer him money to blow open the entrances

• Your home region will be like a central hub which connects more and more to the biomes

Alpha 3 Content

• Now that we finished all my Alpha 2 goals, we are moving into Alpha 3 which is way more content focused

• This also can mean improving mechanics (The fishing rod, NPC's, etc)

• More fish, more shop props, more NPC's are planned

• I want to start making the town that builds around your shop look really interesting

• Make biomes more interesting and having lots of cool areas to explore to find fishing spots

Here is some of the items I've gotten done already for Alpha 3

The hidden pond - Located in the Ocean biome, this is tucked away in the forest

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/6612e5593a55fbec7e3087f45472174059fab813.gif"][/img]

New Fish - Giga Guppy! This will be a bit of a rarer catch to find in the hidden pond

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/a6e61b48b5f81dae8f033d724f6fe5da4b723f52.gif"][/img]

Save System

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45475716/f21173b31b6dcc3d48f907317ec4e50c3fc12dca.png"][/img]

• This is very ugly right now - But it was a huge victory to get this working properly! You can now have as many save files as you want

• When you save a game, it moves to the top of the list

• Time stamps for your save file - Really happy this is working its a nice quality-of-life for users

[ 2025-06-26 01:13:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everybody! For this months dev post, I wanted to update you on the biggest amount of progress the game has made. It's not a lot of visual progress; so not a lot of screenshots. I have been really focused on very early alpha tests! This has helped me so much... I now have the game in a stable (Not perfect) situation and it really helps give me focus for the game. The fishing festival requires you to have a demo, so I hope I can have a small demo that can show the game. I'm hoping this will be a good way to make sure I've actually made something fun that people want to play! I will keep rolling out the early alpha over time (Currently on my twitch discord, in the future I will create a new discord specifically for the game), currently I'm doing this with my twitch community. I don't recommend for most people to try it at this point - I'm getting all the systems stable but it still lacks content. I'm hoping with a few weeks away from the fishing festival, I can now focus more on content and get some more upgrades/props for the store and fish to catch.

Early Alpha Testing

• This is huge! I have begun rolling out some keys to friends and twitch viewers to begin playing the game
• I had to learn how to get the game uploaded to steam, it was a bit confusing at first but now I'm used to it. It's good early training to get used to when the game is actually live or when I have a lot more people playing the active development
• Getting people to play it now has helped dramatically, I've begun building a proper gameplay loop now and it's a great way to have focus
• Lots of bugs had to be fixed, there was a bunch of issues with the customer AI that I learnt. Tons of UI issues and just making things feel better - I'm not a UI artist so its a challenge for me, my rule is keep the UI as simple and clean as possible
• Reeling the fish has been totally redone, while it was funny to have fish launched at you with full physics, people were loosing fish everywhere and it was super glitchy. It's not fun to get a big catch and then loose it! I made a more stable way of pulling the fish out and it lands right in front of you safely on the ground
• Fish catch rates are redone and super visually easy for me to see % rates and adjust them now. This will be really nice for balancing purposes. I feel like a corpo casino manager who needs to tune the winnings

Day/Night System

• Since the game has stabilized in the early alpha, I've begun moving back onto content. I just got this working this weekend! I now have a timer system that also controls the day/night lighting
• At the end of the day, you get a 'end of day report' which shows you the amount of fish sold for the day, and the amount of profit you've made. I'll keep building this up for other stats over time.
• When your end of day report happens, you spawn back at your shop. I'd like to try and animate your character yawning and blacking out/falling asleep. I'll try to add in a bed mechanic to help fast-forward you to end of day as a future mechanic!
• There is also 'Gross Profit' and 'Total fish sold' for the entire game. There is a stats page on the console near your store where you can track that stuff!
• As posted above, I've also started collecting stats now. We'll keep adding more to this. I'd LOVE to get graph charts working, I think its cool to visually see that, but no promises I'm very new to coding! It would be super cool though, I think as simulator/tycoon gamers we love seeing graph charts and numbers go up/down
• In the future I will keep building this system more. I plan on having some fish only catchable at certain times of day (Morning/Night fish for example). I am also thinking customers won't spawn to your store too early or too late at night either

Music

• This was super unexpected and I kind of thought I'd have to go the route of not having music!
• Kronlid from my community had some software and equipment and very quickly hashed out some music that I felt actually fit in the world! I finally figured out the genre that fits for the game, I believe its called 'bitcrushed' when you have music that feels a bit 'compressed' so that it fits with the weird lowrez/PSX style I'm doing
• When I do a new trailer in the future you'll be able to hear some of it! (I'd like to do a new trailer before the steam fishing fest demo)
• He hasn't posted it on his youtube yet, until he's obviously happy with the music
• Kronlids Music Channel

The next devblog I'll try to post before the steam fishing festival starts! I'm hoping to push myself before the cutoff and try to get in some content I've been really wanting to add to the game! If your interested or want to see the game live or have questions, follow my twitch and ask me live, or my socials and I'll definitely try to respond when I can!

[ 2025-05-25 19:58:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everybody! Apologies on a bit of a delay with this post. I'm again very pro 'Only show you something when it's real and functioning' but what I might do in the future if I have a busy month or no visual progress, is just at least do a small bi-monthly post mentioning the things I'm doing.

Town growth mechanic

• I now have a system in place for the town that will begin growing around your shop - When you start feeding the other homeless wanderers around you, more tents/shacks will begin moving in!
• When more people move in, the more often customers will begin showing up near your shop
• When you get your shops 'cozy bonus' high enough from decorating, the NPC houses will start upgrading into nicer quality homes (I need to still make nicer home models looking forward to that).
• In the future, I plan on having higher quality homes spawn higher tier NPCs who will have better buying power, or also unlock certain unique buildings or NPCs

This is the very start - Only one tent living nearby
Fed some fish - Somebody else has moved in now
Upgraded & Decorated the store - This persons house upgraded!

New Fish & Achievement Cards!

Red Snapper -
Wahoo -
New Achievement Cards (I still need to make the rare/foil variant)

Options

• Please ignore the super ugly layout and proxy art for the screenshot, its a 1st pass and just focusing on getting it working so I can test it in first few technical demos!
• This might seem boring but it's really important for me to learn how to get basic options working before I start demoing the game - I now have fullscreen/borderless/windowed working!
• Audio controls are now working, also default audio is 50% when you start the game (I noticed this is a issue for a lot of indie games when I watch my streamers on twitch)

Early Demo Preperations

• In preparing for demos, I needed to focus on getting the main menu working and getting a loading screen for the game!
• The first few demos are going to be very technical and just for a small group of friends at first - So I can just make sure the game is running on peoples computers and its installing properly. Making sure things like saving/loading is working and overall the game is functioning properly.
  
  

Future goals

• Get the game into a demo state, and keep improving the early game loop until its very solid
• Dog AI needs to be improved and hopefully can get a feeding mechanic in
• Start working on a finished built shop (That won't be the final level of course)
• Foil Art Achievement cards
• Do a art pass on the starting region
• Get level 2 display tables to sell fish on
• More fish, always more fish

[ 2025-04-22 02:23:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everybody! I just wanted to share with you some of the progress I've been making on the game this month.

• I plan on doing a newer trailer/video showing all the new stuff I've been cooking up!
• The last major systems I need to get working are options (Like sound controls and graphic settings) and the debt/payment mechanic (Which I'll reveal once I have it working).
• Then I'll begin prepping the game for early alpha tests to make sure the game is fun and everything is working as intended!

Ocean Biome

• The ocean biome is in a very solid place now, this will be a area that you'll unlock to start catching saltwater type fish. I wanted to at least have one new region to unlock before I start demoing the game out!
• I now need to start making a bunch of saltwater-type fish to catch here (Red-Snapper is my first to do). If you have ideas for cool fish, please let me know in comments or on my socials!

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see a video I posted on youtube showing it a bit better, though I've added a bunch more to it since that video

Decoration/Cozy System

• Decoration/cozy system working really well now! The higher your cozy score is, the more likely customers will spawn. It's properly tied to the customer system now.
• I have started working on the actual decoration props now, you'll see these props below are a bit... hobo-feeling since you're homeless at the start.
• When you get your shop in better shape, you'll unlock better quality decorations which will give a better cozy bonus (Which means more customers, and richer customers).

Achievievements/Records

• Achievements are now fully working!
• Please ignore the ugly proxy art, I plan on doing a nicer job! I want to make them feel fun to collect.
• My plan is to make the records/fish look like trading cards - I enjoy collecting cards as a hobby and loved the idea of sneaking this into the game.
• It will keep track of your biggest catch, and the total amount caught.
• I plan on having fish descriptions also added, maybe to give hints on how to catch them more often.
• I hope in the future to have more stats on this page, like your profits, total sales and etc.

Fishtank System

• This will be the main way you increase your shops cozy bonus, and a reason for wanting to catch all types of fish!
• You get a cozy point for each fish type you display (You won't get more cozy points for displaying the same type of fish).
• Rare variants will give a higher cozy bonus if displayed... but you'll also be tempted to sell them for big money.

Ocean Biome Video

[previewyoutube=ZPbrqPm5t4s;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2025-03-18 19:40:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi folks; I've been busy working away on getting progress done on the game! I plan on doing a official update post for it soon. I'll try to do a weekly or bi-weekly post of any general progress - even if there's been very little progress I'll just keep the post short.

• New Region system added This will allow me to load/unload as many extra areas or regions as we want. I wanted to get this working early before I plan on making lots of areas for you to explore.
• Improved the store system The store was super basic before, I had to manually type everything in. Now I have one 'Master List' where I put the items and their prices, icon, description and title in. I want this to be very flexible because I imagine I'm going to be changing prices a lot while I balance the game.
• Water system added I didn't have a water system figured out yet, but now I do! Its working really nicely and it's going to let me make all kinds of shapes/waterfalls/bodies of water that I need.
• Decoration/Cozy System added Its really basic at the moment, but this is now working. When you place decoration props down, they make your shop more appealing, which then increases the chances of customers spawning. I really enjoy the idea of rewarding you for placing props/decorating the store. I also have a cap per type of decoration, so you can't just spam 20 carpets (Well you can, but they won't stack the cozy bonus!)
• Fast Travel system added This was important to get working on early in the game, when you unlock and discover a new region, fast travel gets unlocked for that area. This will also help me test the areas more easily!
• Making art for the first region (Ocean Biome) Very excited for this, I've been spending my time now getting this ready before I officially post a official update on here. I also plan on designing a few ocean-type fish to catch here (Red Snapper, Wahoo, Sailfish are some ideas). You'll see in the gif I posted a part of the new ocean area... you'll walk your way down the creeks to the ocean - This is still a WIP but its making solid progress!

That's it for now! When I finish up the ocean biome and the fish for it, I'll do a small video showing the new stuff that's been added.

[ 2025-02-26 19:37:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everybody! Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for wishlisting, it means a lot especially since I have no marketing budget and attempting this all by myself. Big shout out to my friends, twitch community and everybody who's managed to find the game on the opening days! I'm having to rely on your word of mouth for the game to find people, and so far its done absolute wonders and I appreciate it so SO much. I've been quietly working on this game on my free time over a year and I can't emphasize enough how much it means to me to see people being interested in this! I come from a video game artist background and never thought I could make a game by myself. I'll be straight honest though - The game will be jank (I'm new to learning coding), it won't be perfect but I'm learning a lot and my main mentality is find the fun! I'll try to use the steam announcements page here as the main way of keeping you updated on progress. I also finally have a use for my social media so I'll post updates on them (I have the links to my socials on the steam page) when I make significant enough progress I'll post a video on the youtube channel!

Twitch

I am also a part time Twitch streamer so if you're curious about seeing the game live I can show you during the stream! (Sadly only around 9PM PST timezone though). I'll sometimes be streaming miniature painting or playing games (Plenty of simulators). I think its really healthy and important to keep playing games as a developer, even if its not in your genre... sometimes you find fun and cool inspiration to pump you up for your own game!

Plans & Roadmap

To give you a rough idea of my plans in the near future, I'm focusing on getting the remaining 'Core Mechanics' in the game, I'm trying to make sure to have all the main parts in before we go crazy with adding content like fish, upgrades and regions. I have way more things planned but these are my main priorities at the moment: * Cozy/Decoration System * Biomes/First new region * Debt/Rent System Cozy/Decoration - Good news on this part, I took a break from the wishlist announcement and started figuring out the system and got it partially working! This system is important for the game because I want to reward the player for decorating. I took big cues from Valheim... I loved that it rewarded you and gave a 'Cozy' buff for decorating your base, it's something I've wanted in my own shopkeeper for a while. When I get the system fully working, I'll post some updates on showing how it works, its a really important system for progressing in the game but also making you excited to find/unlock decorative props!

Thank you!!

Thank you all again so much, I can't emphasize how I wonderful I feel right now and you've all inspired me to plug away and bring this little world to life! I also appreciate any patience (I still work full time in games and need to pay the bills) because there could be times where I make little progress - but I'll be honest with you about it (Which is what I absolutely love about indie development).

[ 2025-02-04 21:26:14 CET ] [ Original post ]