Deep sea fishing by Spexxilove
In deep sea fishing you collect fish to make money, upgrade your gear and try to reach the bottom. - There might be something shiny down there
created with Unreal engine 5
hope you enjoy


| github | https://github.com/Spexxilove/LDJam57 |
| windows download | https://spexxilove.itch.io/deep-sea-fishing |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/deep-sea-fishing |
Ratings
| Overall | 246th | 3.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 266th | 2.737⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 200th | 3.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 66th | 3.895⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 257th | 2.816⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 142th | 2.765⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 149th | 3.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 42🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
So yeah, made it to the bottom as well. Very fun take on the theme, sucking up the fish felt pretty neat, especially once you have all the bait upgrades and the whole area is swarming with fish. That was extremely satisfying. Had a nice balance of when you get upgrades, there was a nice progression there, I thought that was balanced very well. The dark atmosphere with the little shining star-esque effects gave it a nice mood as well. All around a very fun game, very well done!
I wish you added some intriguing music to it. It doesn't need much, just a note here and thereAlso some sfx for sucking the fish, it would have been the only sound your hear down there. It would have added so much!
Nice job!
Simple graphics but it comes together well with the black&white, fish look cute, fred looks cute and scary, and you did the atmosphere quite well with the lighting! I love how you implemented the little marine snow particles to indicate water flow, it adds a lot of recognizable deep sea atmosphere and makes the mechanic feel satisfying.
And I like the straightforward set of upgrades. Definitely impactful to get the bait upgrades, and I think you tuned the progressing cost well.
My main suggestion would be to better express the feeling of progression. I liked that the fish got more valuable over greater depths, but I bet if you gave them different colors based on their value, it'd hit that recognizable feeling of "Oh sweet now there's more purple fish, I can get even more money." I didn't realize at first that the value of the fish was changing, and was nervous that it would get grindy. You certainly balanced the values well, but a bit of variation would have boosted the dopamine.
Also I would suggest a combination of faster descent speed and much more distance with each rope upgrade. The feeling of the depths was definitely hit here, but you could have really made them feel like they're encountering the yawning depths without changing the game's duration/pace at all.
Last thing is I felt it was a bit tough to tell how the vacuum was operating sometimes. Again the particles were a great way to communicate this, but there were certainly times where I was pulling in a fish and it escaped, or other times when it seemed like I should have been hitting them. Other times I was surprised the vacuum was reaching.
Some simple feedback on the fish to indicate "this fish is being vacuumed right now" would have helped with that. You didn't have much to work with but even like a simple spin on the fish when being vacuumed could have worked :) This is just a more nitpick thing that doesn't necessarily warrant priority.
All said, wonderfully executed on a simple but nice idea. Unique take on fishing, good use of upgrades. I enjoyed the gameplay, especially towards the end. It is missing a bit of variation and progression, but you did deliver some sense of that with the bait upgrades and price scaling. You definitely hit the theme as well. Good stuff!
I loved the atmosphere the use of limited lighting, monochrome, anchor point with progress number, and particle effects had! Fun twist at the end.
Also, thank you for playing Sacrisquare last year!
It is a very good entry! I loved it.
I see how it can be further developed and I believe you see it too!
Very good result for COMPO
Good job and all the best to you!