Preview: The Fishery |

The Fishery is a simple 2D sandbox fishing simulator. The graphics remind a little of Minecraft. It’s being created by one person; developer Carey White. This new game entered Early Access on Steam about a month ago, and it’s safe to say it’s still very much in progress. White wishes to develop this game together with the players so that is exactly what is happening and regular updates are implemented. Let’s check it out!

The Fishery so far

Let me give you a fair warning first: the game is still in the early stages of development and new things are added very regularly, so keep that in mind. Right now, the game is pretty basic. You have your house and one other place you can visit to go fishing, called Carol’s Lake. You simply take your car, and you’re there in a second. The game launches super-fast, like in less than two seconds, so that’s great. It also exists quite easily. It’s also very easy to learn since the controls are simple: your WASD or arrow keys, and some extras like the E button and your mouse. The fishing itself is quite plain, and I think to some it would be very boring. I thought I would be one of those people, but I ended up finding the gameplay rather relaxing and usually put on this game while watching some television. The lake where you fish has some swans and ducks on it, so you know, that’s a small but nice addition to keep the lake from being ‘boring’. There are some tasks to fulfill near the lake, so that’s fun. And your house has a computer where you can buy bait, access achievements and statistics, and see your inventory. There’s also a fish rod stand where you can buy skins, and there was a Halloween event one available, how cool!

The latest things that were introduced when I played, were the Findex and collections. Both were a work in progress still, so I couldn’t really use them yet. The Findex is like a Pokédex, where you learn about the fish you catch. The collections seem to be like sticker books, as the developer explains himself, where you need to collect different types and a certain amount in order to complete a collection. Right now, there is one collection available called ‘The Naturist’. If you collect all items here, you get rewards, which apparently are exclusive and time-limited.

Still, a long way to go

This game can go so many ways still. And from what I’m seeing the developer still has a lot of plans for it! I’m hoping to see more lakes to visit in the future because constantly going to the same lake got a bit dull. There’s also a mailbox outside your house but right now it just says ‘coming soon’ when you click it, so I’m curious to see what’s that going to do too!

I did encounter a bug where I wanted to reel in a fish but my rod crossed the land instead of the sea and I don’t know what happened but I couldn’t reel it in. Nothing happened and my rod seemed to be stuck after a tree, very annoying. And since you can’t save the game manually, I had to close it and start it up again, while losing my progress. I think the only way to save your game is by going back to your house, but I’m not sure? It’s a bit unclear so far.

In short

The Fishery is a cute little game that you will either love or hate. It’s very simple right now, and I liked it for a few hours, but there wasn’t enough to do for me to play very long without getting kinda bored. It still has a long way to go and I’m excited to see what other features the developer will add in the future!