So, let's say you're relaxing on the beach with your little sister, and a mysterious bottle floats to shore. Inside is an SOS message from some strange boy stranded on an island! If you squint, you think you can just spot him, way across the shark-infested waters, hopeless and moping. Whatever shall you do? Well, if you're Rocket Girl, you fly your butt right over there and save him. If you're Contraption Girl, you build a raft out of seashells, twigs, and your protesting sister's hair. If you're Crazy Girl, you do a back somersault and proclaim yourself the arch-duchess of Luxembourg. But if you're Fishing Girl, well, you've got to fish your way to a solution.
Fishing Girl, the first game from developer Luna Drift, is the most tranquil, unhurried game about a life-or-death rescue operation you're ever likely to play. Your mouse controls the angling action. Just hold the mouse button to start your back swing, then release it to cast. Once your lure is in the water, hold the mouse button to reel it in. Between casts, you may change lures, once you've collected more than one type, in order to catch different sizes of fish. The floating buoys between you and the lost boy's island act as shops for incremental power-ups. Strike one with your lure for a chance to buy larger bait or a fishing pole with longer range.
The beginner's level is perfect for a casual fifteen minutes of laid back fun, while the expert level feels more arcade-y, bombarding you with hungry ocean dwellers hoping to snatch away your precious lures. There are two possible endings, each one with a creative surprise in store. Suffice to say, you can't rescue a stranded individual with mere fishing skills alone. You'll have to get either clever or violent.
Analysis: What a neat little game. Because it plays entirely by its own rules, every new detail feels like a discovery, with greater treasures always lurking a little deeper, or a little further out to sea. It manages to capture the peacefulness and melancholy of fishing without bending to realism, and the whole thing is built on an emotional foundation of devotion and perseverance. If you ever lose motivation, your little blobby friend/sister/thing-um-a-whoozit is right there offering love and encouragement.
Fishing Girl's visual prentation is lovely, composed of subtle color choices and flat character designs with strong silhouettes. As much as I love the nostalgic use of chunky pixels, as in The Majesty of Colors, to me Fishing Girl's art style is a more natural evolution of the simple artwork from the 8-bit Nintendo days. It preserves that level of abstraction you need to form a quick emotional bond with the characters, without imposing any artificial technical restrictions.
Certainly nothing has been sacrificed in outlining the main characters; look at how detailed their living situation is. They've built themselves an elaborate three-story home, and planted a vibrant-looking garden. It looks like there's a cozy beach house too, decorated with sprigs of some cattail-like plant with heart-shaped bulbs. I'll bet that would make a good guest house, once the stranded boy is saved. You get the sense that these passionate, humble pillow-people will make a nice life for themselves once you've relinquished control and closed down the browser window; that after all this effort, they'll really be okay. What a great feeling to take with you into the rest of your day.
Note: If you'd like to learn about the origins of this game, and see a dissection of its gameplay, look at this: Dan Cook's Lost Garden Blog. Thanks, Derek!
Such a lovely game :)
I think "little blobby friend/sister/thing-um-a-whoozit" is trainer...
Sweet!! Once you get used to the casting action it gets better. Except that big fish seem to be less hungry than small fish XP
Finally a good fishing game! Well there are some good i guess, but most of the time they are just annoying (Breath of Fire series anyone?), or overly complicated.
I prefer this laid back, simple style.
Great game! :)
In the tutorial mode...
There is a limited number of fish, don't over-do it or you'll never rescue the boy across the way!
I was excited to see this entry appear, because I remember seeing this game idea and graphics before. It's neat to see the idea in it's completion. Check out the origins of this game at Danc's Lost Garden blog.
The art and game concept are from a game prototyping challenge by veteran game designer Daniel Cook (www.lostgarden.com). Since the graphics are part of another commercial project Cook is working on, I'm not sure what the legality is of using them in another commercial project -- especially without any attribution at all. I certainly deplore the ethics of it.
Bug? Glitch? When I start up the game, it loads... then when the screen opens up... well, let's say that fish flash across the screen faster than Super Monkey in Bloons Tower Defence 3, at the bottom it swaps between submit high score and start faster than I can click it, it says that I finished in 21 minutes when I haven't played yet, and yeah... I was looking forward to it! :(
I beat the game by
killing both sharks...
but I get the feeling theres another way, Possibly to do with the
bird?
Can someone confirm? I'm curious but don't have enough time to catch all them fish again.
Thanks!
First ending:
Save the boy with the bird lure.
Second ending:
Kill the sharks with the bomb lure.
Mitch-
Yeah, there's two ways. Here's how to do it the other way:
Cast your lure so that you catch the bird (kind of hard). Then, using the legendary rod with the bird, haul your lover-boy back to you. Everyone will live happily ever after except for the fireworks (hehe).
I found that way to be more impressive, but less satisfying because
it reminds you that you didn't get the sharks...
wb:
We've spoken with Daniel Cook about it, and he says Luna Drift published this game with his blessing. There's no ethical dilemma here. :-)
Danc from Lostgarden here.
The fellow that made this is Andre Spierings...a very talented web developer who was inspired by the FishingGirl challenge to jump into flash game development head first. I encouraged him to try to sell the game. I'm of the opinion that making the game is good experience, but selling it is even better. You learn a lot about polishing and commercial constraints that are otherwise hard to teach.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Lostgarden.com challenges, I give away all graphics associated with my prototyping challenges for free (no strings attached.)
In order to train up the next generation of great game developers, it helps if existing game folks give a little back to the community. My challenges are a small step in that direction. I think of them sort of as those brownie baking starter kits. :-)
Glad you are enjoying the game. Critical comments or ideas for improvements are most welcome!
take care
Danc.
I really enjoyed this, except that I found it very annoying and a little frustrating trying to hit the bouys to purchase more lures. Precision aiming is rather difficult.
Also, TheZeu: that's the case in both difficulty modes.
I almost got the legendary rod when I accidentally clicked a link. I lost it all, pf.
But anyway, good game. Sometimes it was a bit frustrating when those little fish nibble off my lure. Not to mention those big fish. But that's the game, right.
Wow. Very relaxing game. I enjoyed it very much. Wasn't too difficult either.
I've no idea why don't they make the two task possible at the same time
Cause I've enough bomb lures and the bird lure to clear the sharks and save the boy at the same time.
Why don't they make this ending?
You know, for a "relaxing" game that I enjoy quite a lot, it sure pisses me off frequently. :) But I mean that in a good way.
I was really lucky, I caught the bird on my first cast with the legendary rod. Then I was wondering; why is there a bird on the end of my line??
I was also wondering why, on the tutorial mode, there didn't seem to be very many large fish, especially the bright red ones that were worth a lot. Interesting you can overfish this lake!
Ok, I just tried for the second ending, but I lost two bomb lures to small fish after the sharks wouldn't take them! And I'd run out of fish to buy more! How did you guys get it?
A bit late commenting on this one, but I found it quite relaxing and enjoyable.
The littler fish seem to be more eager to go after the lures, while the bigger fish, especially the high-scoring ones, need to have a moving lure right in front of their mouths. The big fish will swim right past a stationary lure, but if a little fish is close by they'll come in and nibble at it. This makes it a neat challenge of finesse and timing.
I loved this game, very exceptional casual game to my liking...
Just asking but I completed the
Bird pulls island ending
but was wondering what happens after
you kill the sharks
And if you get bored... pop the bubbles with your mouse cursor :)
Aw. Poor sharks. Why shouldn't they live happily ever after? Boy has been rescued, they aren't hurting anyone. Seems weird that in such a relaxing cute little game, the optimal ending is the one where you
needlessly bring gratuitous death to creatures who may or may not want to eat you.
This game was so awesome. It did get frustrating sometimes, but I loved the two endings!!
1
pulling the boy in to save him
2
killing the sharks BOOM!!!
Oh, what a charming game!
I achieved what I felt was the optimal ending
rescuing the boy with the bird
and was a little disappointed that the game apparently wanted me to do the other thing. Still, a lovely way to spend twenty minutes.
how do you get the bird
I got a little annoyed at first, because everything is kind of slow, especially when you are on the first rod. But when I got the hang of it, I was hooked(!).
It seems like a good strategy to spend all one's points on lure at first, then buy better rods after a while. It's very boring to run out of good bait.
I did one ending, now I need to try the other.
[Edit: Spoiler tags added. -Pam]
I was wondering...
Do you think that fireworks can be created by blowing the bird up with a bomb lure? Someone should try it!
How on earth do you get that bird?! I've been at it for 1 hour now, only trying to get that bird. Any tips?
The lake ran out of fish!!!!
I played this long ago and didn't "get it." I do now. Very serene. And I got both endings!
It would be much funnier if at the end:
The bird droped the boy.
After nearly two hours of nerve-killing (interesting enough for a fishing game...) fish-dodging action, and after getting the two endings, I only wanted to hurl a bomb lure at the boy.
Why can't he swim across a mere 70 meters wide channel that has two sharks at 65 meters deep, that do not seem to care even for other fishes or lures?
Update