I love the concept! I think an inventory system might be the natural next step for the game, as well as music, but what you have is pretty fun! I love the graphics too.

I want to bet some aether but it doesnt let me! Pressing up or down doesnt change the number...

Art is nice.
Unfortunaetely it's not playable.
We don't know the controls so we can't play.
I tried to press random key and finally talked with someone and it got stuck in an endles dialog.
I wanted to play it but it's impossible :/

[My game](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/engine-in-shadow)

@sintel maybe your aether amount is small? I have a small bug with that so you need to have bigger than 10 aether to make first bet. And for all other bets you need to have bigger aether amount than bet.
Bets list:
fishPrice[0]=0
fishPrice[1]=10
fishPrice[2]=30
fishPrice[3]=120
fishPrice[4]=240
fishPrice[5]=500
fishPrice[6]=1000
fishPrice[7]=2500
fishPrice[8]=4000
fishPrice[9]=8000
fishPrice[10]=15000
fishPrice[11]=26000
fishPrice[12]=38000
fishPrice[13]=45000
fishPrice[14]=100000

So if you want to bet 4000 you need at least 4010 aether. I made tutorial in last 10 minutes of the jam, so i forget to mention about it.

@visumecadroide How can i forget to write about controls? Thank you for feedback

@visumecadroide Seems to be: z - to Talk, x - to Fish (and the rest of the fish interactions), b - for Bait.

I enjoyed the game for what it can be! It was a great base: The style is spot with its simplistic pixel style that feels a bit "soul-like" (also with some really good animations on the main character when you charge the rod etc). A good "combat" mechanic when you try and pick-up the fish, it would be great if you add different challenges depending on what fish you catch etc. and some interesting characters.

It does need a lot more work, some sounds etc. more content. Hope to see a finished version of this! Great entry.

@hauo thank you! That giving me motivation for working on that idea

Thanks, I got it now.

There is a mysterious atmosphere to the game, which is kind of unexpected for a fishing game!

The minigame is a bit too easy I tihnk, I never failed it once.

I got to the max upgrade and was excited to catch the guardian of the depth, but I only managed to catch iron and diamond fish...

@sintel You can catch Guardian at the center of sea, you also need max rod upgrade for max throw distance. Best spot: when the river flows into the sea, 4 cells up and throw to the max distance. Yeah, i dont have time to polish difficulty, also i want to make expencive fish harder to catch. Thank you for feedback!

dont understand controls. Had to smash the whole keyboard to find out that X does something. Dont know how to talk to the guy. Tried smashing the whole keyboard again and no luck. A big of guidance and feedback would be great. Love the graphics

@atelier-duchu thank you for feedback, yeah, that's the problem that many people mention. And lesson for me not to forget about tutorials.

whilst i like the visuals, i found it hard to know what to do, i could only catch "broken fish" and i'm not sure what i was doing wrong, i don't understand the fishing mechanic :( but i do like the game, i think if it were polished a little more it would have been really nice :)

@brendan-toy thank you for feedback! If you press Z near seller you can sell all your broken fish and earn Aether. After, you can attach Aether to your rod by pressing key B. The more Aether you bet, the more expensive fish you can catch. I wish I have time to make detailed tutorial in game

The graphics and animations are really great, as many others have already pointed out! I could see it having chiptune or 8-Bit music if you decide to expand it in the future, it's unfortunate that you ran out of time to add some ^^ Though I unfortunately couldn't find a way to increase my Aether count, so I couldn't try catching fish because of the 10 Aether bug that you explained

@rocketraccoons you still can catch fish with 10 and even 0 Aether, but just cheap fish. And after you catch some, you can sell it, that increase your Aether. Anyway thank you!

A bit difficult to understand at first but great atmosphere and graphics. A solid game overall in my opinion

Mechanically I liked the game idea, nicely done on that. I couldn't get the bet amount to increase using the arrow keys though, message me if I am missing something and I will re-rate. As others have said, sound would be nice too (look up bosca ceoil perhaps).

Once I understood what was going on, it was quite fun, and the mechanics have potential. Casting your line, doing the minigame, earning money, and catching rarer fish is a fun flow! The animations make doing things satisfying too. Like others, I wish the game taught me how to play - perhaps you could spawn near the fisherman with a text over his head "press X to talk to me", and the shop indicated that you could sell fish there. As well as the confusion that you can't bet with 10 aether. I also feel like the X and Z button could be merged into one button to make the controls simpler. Congrats on doing your first LD! :)

The graphics are really nice for being so simple, I think you are onto something but the lack of time shows in the game. Took me a while to figure out what I was doing but once I figured it out, but then it was really easy to complete the fishing minigame, just spam X and most of the times the obstacles don't even have enough time to spawn. With a little bit more work and some balancing, it could be a really fun game. Really good job for being your first LD.

@flukeshot thank you for feedback! You need to have at least 20 Aether to make first bet, for increase your amount you can sell fish to seller. You can talk with him by pressing Z. After, press B and then you can change bet with up and down keys.

@patrickgh3 Thank you! If only i put signs "<=" instead of just "<" in my code then aether bet can work as expected:(

@jangamesdev it is my first LD but not first jam, actually. I participate in small jams before, but thank you for the feedback!

This was a really great entry. I didn't really get the "souls-like" genre, until I gave the aether betting a bit of thought. Then I realized how you could lose it all, like a Souls game, and have to start from a less advanced position.

The catching mechanic was simple and easy to beat. I imagine that you might not have wanted to spawn things right away, since that could be an unfair loss, but a non-loss failure (e.g. push the lure away) could have let the minigame be more punishing and yet also more forgiving.

@seurimas Thank you, yes, that's exactly what i thought when trying to combine souls-like with fishing. Catching mechanic was meant to be more challenging with progression, including spawning things at the center, for example: obstacles which appear on minigame field, but it's small and grow up with time. But more obstacles can create the situation where player can't do anything and lose. And maybe i should do not instant loss while collide, but just penalty, like moving float more to the right.

There's a lot of potential here! I enjoyed the progression, although it was a bit easy. Managed to catch the guardian of the deep, and figured it was over there since that's what the shopkeep told me to go catch and I can't seem to bet more than 100,000. Very effective artstyle! I really like the casting animation, it sells the motion perfectly. I also got a bit of an undertale vibe from the minigame and just thought about how it would have been fun to have some bullet hell mechanics thrown in there too- and boss fishes that pull back with different bullet patterns... I think that's a good thing that your game was engaging enough to make people want more :)

I love the pixeled aspect. Bu i could not figure out how to play correctly ... sorry

the same for me, haven't figured out how to catch the fish =(

I love the way this game looks, and even without sound I enjoyed it. It was hard to figure out, and I don't understand the minigame, but I think I caught a fish or something maybe? Then something else happened and I don't know what. But I liked what's here. I think you should go on and take this further, and complete it so we can fully enjoy.