Hi everyone and welcome to the Don't Fish My Firends devlog! As some of you may already know, the game was originally built for the Fishing Jam 2 in around a week. In that week I found out that I really love to write my progress while I'm working, not only is nice to get feedback from the people interested. But also I think that having the duty to write your progress frequently really pushes you to work harder and better. And so I've decided to continue my work on DFMF because I really like the concept and the overall project so let's try to transform this fishing jam entry in a full fledged game shall we?

Latest Update

Try Latest Version

The game idea is rather basic, Red is a really smart fish, who is really tired of watching his friends get caught by humans.

He builds a submarine thanks to which he can go really fast and grab the fishes and then carry them to a safe area. While doing so, he earns shells that he needs in order to upgrade both the submarine and the fishing area. Upgrading the fishing area means that more fishes will be attracted, and as a consequence human interest will rise and more fishermans will come, making your work more remunerative but harder at the same time.

Different kinds of fishes:

And not only that! More hazards are hidden in the ocean, you must be careful around them, but I'm sure that under the right conditions you may find them useful.

This is the main concept, the game is now fully playable in browser HERE. I will update the game directly on the page and of course I will let you know in this dev blog.

A lot of content and corners have been cut to make it available in time for the ending of the jam, so there's a lot of work ahead, I'll write a little to do list, which I will tackle in no particular order:

TO DO:

• Add Sound
• Graphics touch-up
• New fishes
• New submarine upgrades
• Hazards introduction
• Better UI implementation
• Bette Upgrade Visualization
• Fishpedia

Screenshots:

Update #1

It's time to post the first update as I'm working slowly but steadily.

1- It's now possible to see at which level The Fishing Zone and the Submarine are, making a little easier to understand what's happening.

2- A new upgrade it's been added, it's needed to directly address a new problem:

3- Hazards have been reintroduced, for now only in the form of the jellyfish, that can spawn after the fishing zone have reached the level 4. the jelly fish can stun fishes for a small amount of time but be aware, it can stun the player too

4- some minor improvement in the background to make it feel less fake with the add of starfishes and shells on the sand.

The next target is to improve the look of the safe zone and finally add sounds and music!

Update#2

Still some time to wait before the sounds are ready, I'm having issues in finding a good main theme. But in the mean time I've worked on the Ui making it a little more pleasant to watch:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

And I've redone the safe zone, now the fishes get carried away from a fast current:

Before:

After:

Update #3

Smaller update this time, I've introduced a tutorial image at the game start:

And finally the sounds are in! But they are quite hard to show, so I invite you to hear them out Here

Update#4

I've slowed down a bit (thanks real work), but I'm currently working on the fishpedia, it is done actually, but there's something in his look that feels off. It's very simple in presentation, a small fish icon, the name and a description, maybe I could add other infos? Like size weight etc.? What do you guys think?

Fishpedia:

A new fish is born! Welcome the Cupcake fish! It's still a work in progress of course but i like the idea.

Update #5

A small update this time, just to let you know that I've uploaded a new version of the game with the new things present in the 4th update, and that i've rebalanced the fishing area upgrade system. Now the shells needed to upgrade, and the consequent value of the fishes, automatically scale with the buy order. The fishes all start at the same price, in this way the player can buy the ones that finds more interesting first, and then buy the others to earn more shells.

Try the new version

Update #6

We are approaching the final steps, and I consider the game to be in a complete state. I'm still working on a second hazard (the zombie fish) and on some graphical additions. And due to next monday, the downloadable version should be up and running. In the meantime here are the last improvements:

This is a gameplay change, now it's possible to upgrade the number of carriable fishes and the speed up tp three times. Making them more effective and valuable.

The fishpedia has been through a full restyling and it's now in it's final state: