FISH FEAR ME News

Ahoy, cosmic debtors! FISH FEAR ME Friday brings with it a bounteous tide this week: the controller support update is now live!! Let's dive into it!

• Added controller navigation support to the entire game! All UI elements can now be interacted with via controller. You can play the entire game without once touching the keyboard or mouse!
  
• Similarly, beefed up support for mouse and keyboard players. You can finally use the scroll wheel to select bait, or use the keyboard to navigate UI menus!
  
• Updated the key binding menu backend to support a much more robust interaction system. The result of this is that more control rebinding options are available. Try it out!
  

Huge shoutouts to visiting programmer Noé Charron for pinch hitting this update. Seriously, this would NOT have been possible without them. Everyone say "Thank you Noé!"

This update involved a LOT of backend changes, so PLEASE let us know in the Steam forums if you notice anything awkward or awry. We're determined to make it so every player has the best experience possible!


Uhhhhh fish?? How about em??? (It's been a long week.)

Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers

[h2]Patch notes:[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where selecting one item in the shop with the controller and clicking another item with the mouse would buy the first item for the price of the second one, allowing you to buy an infinite number of each item and breaking the game.
  
• Fixed a bug where pausing while selling fish would result in nothing being selected
  
• Added a selection delay to the death screen so you can't double-tap A and accidentally skip the run summary screen
  

Thank you to everyone who's been playing the controller support beta and letting us know their thoughts! As always, your feedback is our top priority.

To check out the controller support beta yourself, follow the instructions on this post!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3000120/view/523089487392145902?l=english

Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers

Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Welcome to FISH FEAR ME Friday! I, your humble captain of the post-apocalyptic waves, come to you with a new public beta!


Over the past several weeks, visiting programmer Noé Charron has been working hard on getting full controller support for the game up and running. I'm excited to report that this project is now complete and ready for beta testing! We want to make sure it's good and solid before pushing it to main, so that everyone has the best experience with the game possible.

[h2]BETA CHANGE NOTES[/h2]

• Added controller navigation support to the entire game! All UI elements can now be interacted with via controller. You can play the entire game without once touching the keyboard or mouse!
  
• Similarly, beefed up support for mouse and keyboard players. You can finally use the scroll wheel to select bait, or use the keyboard to navigate UI menus!
  
• Updated the key binding menu backend to support a much more robust interaction system. The result of this is that more control rebinding options are available. Try it out!
  

[h2]TO ACCESS THE CONTROLLER SUPPORT BETA:[/h2]

• Right-click FISH FEAR ME in your Steam library
  
• Go to Properties->Betas
  
• Type in the code ControllerTest
  
• Opt into the beta
  
• Update your game
  
• Have fun!
  

Of note: participating in the beta will not alter your save in any way!

Controller players, be sure to let us know what you think! And non-controller players, please do the same! We're trying to make sure that everyone has the best possible experience with this update. The best place to give feedback is in the Suggestions and Bug Reporting threads:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/3000120/discussions/0/594016102539910965/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/3000120/discussions/0/594016102539910793/


If all goes well, we'll be pushing controller support to the main game very soon!


The eldritch goddess RAMONA appears in both FISH FEAR ME and SNAKE FARM. But do you know where the character that inspired her namesake originally comes from?

Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers

Ahoy, cosmic debtors! The fish are chasing me, and they're humming a new tune. It's FISH FEAR ME Friday!

This week: Progress updates on the controller support update and the free WOMEN WANT ME expansion!


I'm excited to report that the controller support update is nearly complete!! Visiting programmer Noé Charron and I have been working together today to start putting together the finishing touches and hammer out the last couple bugs.

Look! Controller button prompts and everything!!

This has taken a fair bit of work because a certain someone (me) didn't listen when a certain someone else (literally everybody I talked to) told me to build out this UI with controllers in mind in the first place. Retrofitting it is a lot more work than just doing it right the first time, it turns out!! Lesson learned!!!

Anyways, the controller update should be ready for beta testing soon, and ready for public consumption soon after! Thank you all for your patience!


Something very key to FISH FEAR ME's charm, in my opinion, is its use of live instrumentation and singers in its music tracks. I've talked a lot about the upcoming new track, KINGFISHER, over the past few weeks -- let's talk a little about what it takes to put together a track like this!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Above: legendary bassist Audrey Zee Whitesides absolutely shredding.

The first step of the process is between me and Josie Brechner, the project's composer, where we hammer out the themes and vibes of the track. This is usually a meeting where I ask "can we have it be, like, sorta witch rock, but also kinda power metal, but also it's all medieval themed so there's a lute? Here's a bunch of lore on the character this song's about. Could we incorporate this, somehow? And also maybe a monastic style melody, but it's still rock?" and Josie miraculously interprets this as a coherent train of thought. Then, I write up some lyrics and send them over, she works out a melody, and the work begins in proper!

The track then goes through a ton of iterations as we both play with various ideas. What if the lyrics were in iambic pentameter? What if we added a chorus here? What if there was an organ playing in the background at points? Once the structure of the song is solid and we're both happy with it, Josie's able to bring live musicians into the studio to make the piece, well, sing.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Above: dloot, the vocalist for the FISH FEAR ME theme, returns to the studio for KINGFISHER.

Once the live sessions have been completed, all that's left is final mixing and polish! Much like the FISH FEAR ME theme, this song has an instrumental version that plays during gameplay and a vocal version that plays during special in-game circumstances; this is the part of the process where both pieces are finalized at once. Both pieces are put in-game, and the expansion gets one step closer to completion!


What's a video game song that you never get tired of listening to?

Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers

Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Tides rise, the moon falls, and FISH FEAR ME Friday returns gently once more.

Today, I wanted to talk about everyone's favorite eldritch monstrosity, the Leviathan! Making a satisfying ending to a roguelike presents interesting challenges for design, programming, and narrative, so let's dive right in!

Spoilers abound for the end of the game, so beware!!


From very early on, I wanted FISH FEAR ME to have a strong finish to its "main storyline." The obvious comparison point is the Reaper from Vampire Survivors: you've reached the time limit, which means it's time to die! Overcoming this barrier (and meeting the actual endpoint of the run) is the final challenge of the main campaign, so it's important that it shines.

The design for the Reaper is interesting to me for a few reasons. First is the fact that it can be done in any run once you reach a certain point. All the items you need are available on every map; all you have to do is take the time to walk to them (and accept their downsides/challenges). This is a very core principle which I wanted to uphold while making FISH FEAR ME. Preparing to fight the Leviathan may be a significant undertaking, but it's doable in every map once you've unlocked the Bell of the Deep and Ghost Knife.

However, where our design sensibilities differed is that I wanted the Leviathan to be a unique fight for each map. An original design for the game had a completely different encounter for each map: a kraken for Shipwreck Bay, a horde of fish for Nightmare Lake, etc. It would've been a cool idea, but a significant chunk of work (and it would've somewhat dampened the impact of the fight, being with A Leviathan rather than The Leviathan). In the end, I made it so that the Leviathan summons guardian fish from your current map and forces you to fight them, making each fight substantially different while maintaining the unique character of each map!


FISH FEAR ME is a game with a wide variety of player builds, which means it's very difficult to know what setup the player is going to have when they reach the Leviathan fight. All I can know is that they're strong enough to complete all five altar rituals. Can they deal fifty damage per second? Five thousand? I don't know!

Therefore, the Leviathan boss fight must be winnable by all types of endgame build: if you have high DPS, you can gun it down (but not too fast). If you have high health, you can outlive it (at a high risk). If you summon the undead, there are undead for you to summon (but not an infinite amount). Eventually, the following design decisions were reached:

• The Leviathan itself has relatively low health, but regularly becomes invincible. This way, high-DPS builds are rewarded but can't completely curbstomp it, and low-DPS builds can make decent progress.
  
• To end these invincibility periods, you need to either kill all summoned guardian fish OR survive for 45 seconds. Again, multiple solutions! A good survival build can make it through the 45-second maximum no problem, while the DPS build can chew through the spawned enemies.
  
• When the clock strikes midnight, ALL fish spawning pools are refilled. Even if you fished out the entirety of Nightmare Lake on Day 7, there are still new fish for you to catch during the fight. This way, you're given ample opportunities to heal (and summon skeletal minions) while battling the Leviathan!
  

"Writing" is an interesting word given the low word count of the game, but I do generally try to keep an internal sense of logic: why things happen, why things happen again, etc. The biggest question every roguelike invites writing-wise is "Why does this keep happening?" Why does the Fisherman keep fishing after he dies? Why can you fight the Leviathan multiple times? Why does paying off the life debt not end the game?

The world of FISH FEAR ME is one of cosmic loops: death and undeath, debt and undebt. "As above, so below, so further, so above." The relationship between the Leviathan and the Fisherman is one of these loops: we live, we fish, we die, we fish again. The two are permanently connected. Even when you slay the Leviathan, it gets its revenge.



That's all for this week! Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week for another FISH FEAR ME Friday!


What are some of your favorite bosses in roguelikes/survivorslikes?

Happy fishing,
Heather Flowers