by paul » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:12 pm
Thanks, folks. The underwater view won't always be available to the player. One of the pieces of equipment you can earn is a "Fish-o-Peeker", an underwater camera system similar to an AquaVu. That's a submersible video camera on a cable, with a compact monitor. For ice fishing you can drill a second hole in the ice next to your fishing hole and drop the camera down, then position it so you've got a real-time view of your bait. They're a lot of fun to use since you can make sure there are at least fish around, and even when the fish aren't biting you at least have something to watch. In the game the underwater view will be available only once you've acquired the camera system, so there's fishing with and without it.
Some of the other views in the video may not be available to the player in the finished game, either. The video includes some clips of just touring the lake, the bait shop, etc. A lot will change - more fishermen on the lake and in the bait shop, more species of fish, scenes of setting up a shanty, drilling a hole, etc. And lots of things can happen to keep it interesting. You'll need a heater and shanty to stay warm, and other fishermen may offer trades of fish for equipment or money, etc.
Here's the scenario: There's a 5 day tournament. Big fish like pike and walleyes require better and more expensive equipment to catch than small stuff like bluegills. Each fish is worth a certain amount of money, from a few cents per inch for bluegills to several dollars per inch for pike. Earning money from the fish you catch lets you upgrade your equipment for the next day of the tournament. The catch is that the weather is getting much colder each day, so that by the last day of the tournament you need a good shanty (portable fishing shelter), good quality heater and a supply of propane to stay warm or you'll freeze to death. If you do well and make the right choices, you could win big money. Do poorly and you won't survive. There's a good mix of luck and skill, and the skill is more in making the right decisions than in the fishing itself. There are also elements of comedy throughout the game that I don't want to give away just yet.
A few years back I explored the concept for the gameplay in a simple text game. Each turn uses a certain amount of time, and you can spend it fishing, moving to a new spot, etc. Even in simple text the game was really addictive. The people who tested it often played game after game, and some are still playing it after several years. My intention was always to get the concept worked out with the text prototype and eventually build a graphical game around it. Last fall I decided to do it in full 3D. It's a big project, but I think it's going to be a really fun game when it's finished.
Paul
