A simple fishing game about staying afloat, inspired by the times I've had too many fish to fry. Created for an assignment in COMP_SCI 376: Game Design and Development, taught by Professor Ian Horswill at Northwestern University.
- Version: Unity 2022.3.47f1
Welcome to Not My Fish. You have a boat. You're fishing. But you can only carry so many fish! Catch as many fish as possible without going overboard.
Each fish has a weight, and your boat has a maximum weight it can hold. Get your remaining weight down to as cloase as 0 as possible without sinking. Fish weight is generally dictated by size. The smallest possible weight is 1, and the largest is 8 lbs.
Every time you catch a fish, you'll hear a chime. If you get your boat down to exactly 0 lbs, you'll hear applause. If your remaining weight is 0 lbs or less, your boat will sink, and the game will restart.
Guide your fishing line using the arrow keys. Press space to catch a fish. To catch a fish, your hook must be under the fish. Sometimes, fish don't bite.
I have a friend who loves to take the phrase "I've got some fish to fry" and absolutely hammer it into the ground. Everything is a fish. If someone asks her to do something she doesn't want to do or shouldn't have to do, she says, "That's not my fish." If it's an easy task, she tell us she's "got minnows," but if it's diffiicult, she might "have a whale." If you can imagine a way to twist this classic idiom...she's probably done it.
At first, I wanted to make a cooking game. Y'know, frying fish...filling orders... But when I was doing the assignment that necessitated the development of this game, I had a bunch of rubric items I had to fill, and I couldn't figure out how to do that without compromising my original vision. I also wanted to be able to use as much existing logic I had already implemented in previous projects as possible, and I felt that idea was conducive for that.
So, I returned to the feelings this phrase communicates: an overwhelming sense of stress, a defiance against the futility of balancing school work with social life and creative endeavors. I wanted to create a game where the stress is momentary. The player wants to try again and thinks to themselves, "I'll get it next time!"
- Sometimes fish don't bite. Such is life.
- Fish highlights when touched
- Maybe some prettier graphics
- Local leaderboard
- In a perfect world, this is a timer-based game
- Information about the fish just caught, maybe a point value pops up on the screen
- Originally, I wanted there to be goal fish for the player to try to catch. Not sure if I still like that idea
- Fishing line logic: Metalstorm Games on YouTube and this forum post
- ScreenPosition and IsOffScreen logic and starter code: Ian Horswill
- Fish sprites: Craftpix.net on itch.io
- SpawnUtilities, Spawner, and Respawn logic and starter code: Ian Horswill
- Drop sound: Adrija Ray on Sample Focus
- Fishing rod reel sound: tosha73 on Pixabay
- Chime sound: finn.appleton on Pixabay
- Applause sound: Driken5482
- All other artwork: Me :)