fishing resort might be the greatest game of all time
From the human perspective, there is basically an infinite amount of worthwhile art in the world. This is both good and bad. It's good because there's always something to choose from. It's bad because you will never get to experience it all. So how do you choose what to engage in?
I don't know.
One opinion I do have, though, is that you should feel no obligation to maximally optimize your time. It can be fun to try the new hot 10/10 indie game that everyone says is amazing but you aren't committing a crime if you don't do that. You are never going to experience all of the great art, play all of the great video games. So you can arrive at a greater sense of peace if you simply accept this fact and make your video game decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Once you have enlightened yourself in this way, you may realize that there is a game which calls out uniquely to you; a game that makes you really feel something; a game you would happily spend hundreds or thousands of hours in at the expense of playing the Hot New Game.
And if you are anything like me, which you probably aren't, that game is Fishing Resort. The fishing game to end all fishing games. The fishing game that, if you'll allow me to try, can even win over people who weren't particularly interested in a fishing game to begin with.
Note: Fishing Resort is not reeeeeally an indie game; it was made by Prope, which had about 40 employees at the time of its development. Not huge but also not tiny. The game is, however, in a category of niche old video games that feel spiritually—if not literally—indie. And because this is my blog and I get to make the rules, I am going to call Fishing Resort an indie game.
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So what makes a fishing game good? Weird question. It's a weird niche. I want to start by pitching you my grand theory: all fishing games on the planet can fit into three clear categories.
First there are sauceless (i.e. charmless, soulless) fishing games. These are the Microsoft Flight Simulator of fishing games. Have you ever played a flight simulator? They are fine for the right audience. But if you started with the goal "let's make a super fun flying game," I don't think you would ever end up at Flight Simulator; I think you'd make Ace Combat 7.
Sadly, most fishing games fall into the sauceless category. There is Fishing Planet and there is Ultimate Fishing Simulator and there is Russian Fishing 4 and 100s of lookalikes.
These games tend to describe themselves as "ultra realistic". They aim for the 'best,' meaning most true-to-life, graphics their budgets allow. They are grindy. They mimic real-life fish patterns and fishing gear and fishing rods and fishing lures. Their UX/UI tends to look kind of soulless and get out of the way as fast as possible so you can pretend you're really fishing. They, for the most part, do not have any interesting theming or story or 'vibes'. Sauceless fishing games are scared of being a game; instead they are just Microsoft Flight Simulator for fishing.
When I tell people in the real world about my love for fishing games, I often hear the retort: "Why don't you just go fishing instead?". I usually have a list of excuses. But if I were a fan of any of these sauceless games, I wouldn't. Honestly… I should be fishing instead.
The second category of fishing games is fake fishing games. These are video games which may be quite fun but which are not really fishing games in any real sense; the fishing is just window dressing for a fun game. One great example is Dredge. Another is Dave the Diver. On mobile there is one called Ridiculous Fishing. All of them are fun. None are fishing games.
(When I say they are not fishing games, what I mean is that the core gameplay loop in these games is so far removed from real-life fishing that you cannot really describe these games as scratching the itch of 'I want to go fishing'. These are just fishing-themed video games.)
Then there are real fishing games. I mean that quite literally. These games:
(1) Include a core gameplay loop that is actually trying to represent or pay homage to how actual fishing works (choose tackle, cast, hook a fish, reel it in).
(2) Recognize that they are video games and, instead of trying to replicate real life 1:1, take advantage of the video game format to add things that don't exist in real-life fishing.
There are a rare few games that fit into this category. The fishing in Stardew Valley fits. The iPhone game Flick FIshing, which no longer exists in any true form, was in this category. Sega's fishing games, like Sega Bass Fishing and Sega Marine Fishing, fit.
And so does Fishing Resort - perhaps best of all.
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The least interesting part of video game writing, in my opinion, is when they just explain how the game works. But I've done so much windup that I may as well explain why Fishing Resort fits so neatly into the "fishing game" category and what makes it so great.
The fishing
There is a goldilocks zone, a medium rare, with fishing mechanics.
See, all "real" fishing games (including the sauceless ones!) generally have the following gameplay loop: select your tackle, cast, hook a fish, fight the fish. On paper there might not be much difference between Fishing Resort and any of the simulators I mentioned before.
What is hard to get right, though, are the details. In the case of Fishing Resort, it is a bunch of little micro-decisions that end up creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
For example… You only have to make three decisions (rod, reel, lure) about your tackle, and none of those decisions are very complicated (rods are S, M, L, XL, and so on). You usually only have to wait between 5 and 20 seconds to hook a fish. During the fight, you only have to control two variables—line tension and rod position—as the fish tires. Your tackle decisions have an impact on your success (speed-to-bite, fish quality, fish fighting) but not to the point you ever feel yourself needing to go online and hunt for secrets in a wiki. It's all there and rather easy.
The fishing in Fishing Resort is the perfect abstraction of fishing mechanics from real life (where fishing is often only rewarding because you are literally outside in nature) to the video game format (where you need to compensate but still have it feel a bit like fishing). This is the insight that fishing simulators and idle games don't get, in my view. And it doesn't need to be particularly inventive to get there: it just makes a bunch of good, small decisions.
The game
With something like Dredge, which is not really a fishing game at all, the whole game is the game. It's all game-y. There was never going to be a simulator version of Dredge, a Dredge with the theming and narrative and soul sucked out of it. Nobody would want to play that!
It is sad to me, then, when other fishing games (arguably most fishing games!) seem to forget that they are a game. Being a video game means you can do video game things! In the case of Fishing Resort, for example, it means that you can create a super-unrealistic-but-also-super amazing-fishing-paradise-island that houses all biomes and all types of fish within a short driving distance of each other. You can create cool hotels for the players to walk around in. You can invent fun characters. You can use cartoon graphics. You can give the player an aquarium!
There's not some sort of life-changing narrative in Fishing Resort, but there is enough video game packaging outside of the core gameplay loop that you don't feel like you're playing a soulless simulator. You feel like you are playing a game. And that's the point, right?
I could write 10,000 more words describing what it is like to play Fishing Resort, but I'm on a deadline and you are kind of crazy for even having read this far; crazy enough, I think, to simply find a way to play Fishing Resort and see what you think for yourself.
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"Have you played [X] yet?!" "Damn, [Y] is so good." "I can't believe you haven't seen [Z]."
There's a version of your life where you choose how to play video games like a Twitch streamer. Or like these anonymous gamer guys I'm quoting above. Where you track the hot releases and stay glued to whichever game review outlet you like. You could even apply it to other parts of your life: you could watch all the Oscars nominees every year. You could decide what to watch by seeing what's trending on Letterboxd. And frankly, if you do this, you might be fine. You might love life. You'd certainly have more to talk about with other people who are doing the same.
But, if you can, I think you should find game(s), and art more generally, that are interesting to you, uniquely, in particular. Stop trying to keep up. Stop trying to optimize.
Just go find your Fishing Resort, and play that.
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