Hello Everyone! We figured it was time to provide an update on the state of the game, as it’s become clearer and clearer the changes are big enough that they’re not just right around the corner. My name is Ryan; you might have seen me on the Discord or Steam boards helping people and answering questions. We are a very small team and everyone does multiple jobs, but in the loosest possible terms, I program (almost) everything. I am responsible for the art direction (not specific assets) and many of the design decisions are mine (though we’re super collaborative on this and make a lot of team decisions). I joke that I am responsible for all the bugs because this is 100% true. I am the bottleneck on the next update and am definitely moments away from covering my office in red yarn. This update is a DOOZY. In this devlog, I’ll talk about what I’ve been up to and what’s left to do. At the end, we’ll talk a bit about DLC, free updates, and what to expect from us as we continue working on this game.
Ryan also recorded a separate video where he walks through the progress he's made in Unreal. You can check out that video here! But if you're interested in reading about the development process and everything that Ryan's had to do so far to make the chemistry update possible, and all the things he's had to take into consideration and the systems he's had to muck around with, read on!
Chemistry
For better or worse, Fish Keeping is a lot of chemistry. I think most people aren’t drawn in to fish keeping for the test tubes and PPM readouts, but at the end of the day we love our fish which makes us become home chemists. The focus of Fish Game should be on the fish, so for the past 5 years our focus has been on that layer of the experience. I feared if we started with Chemistry we’d end up making Plumbing Simulator, and that’s just not what brings most people into the hobby. That said, we’re now at the stage in development where the only way forward is through the invisible connections happening in the water. This update is exciting, and interesting, and boring, and slow, and complicated, and super important.
Research
Ok, let’s start with the complicated. It’s always tempting to overcomplicate, and game designing experience has taught me to resist overcomplication. However, one of the implicit promises in Fish Game is that if something is happening--it’s really happening. So for Chemistry, the very specific relationships between each element must mimic the REAL thing. There is an equation for pH and many interlocking relationships between pH and everything else. There are interactions in the nitrogen cycle that make either the Walstad Method or High Tech setups viable. Temperature has a cascading effect into basically everything in an aquatic environment. The point is that this is not a recommended game development decision, but we’re doing very thorough research on the actual relationships between about 20 different chemical elements/constructs/systems. We’re looking for real data to make sure the system we’re making is spitting out reality at least in the big picture. Our sources (in order) are scientific papers, books, cited blog posts, actual measurements posted online, veteran experience, corroborated forum posts, mob vibes, and (if all else fails) personal experience. It is slow, difficult work with a lot of dead ends--but when all the equations are in place, the number ranges are confirmed with real world measurements, the time scales are normalized, and the connections between chemical concepts are hooked together--reality just falls out on the screen.
Some of the madness occupying my desk right now. My Chrome tabs make this look absolutely tidy.
A Google Sheets tool I made for finding the connections between chemistry parameters. You can read it like this-B16 (Algae) affects K16 (Ammonia) by lowering it. B9 (Food) does not affect H9 (Temp). This tool helps me not miss obvious connections I originally did not think to include.
For example: I spent weeks on pH and CO2. They are tightly related because CO2 is one of the most present acids in a fish tank, and, frankly, we heavy planters are very focused on it. For days on end I worked to plug in tables of data from research papers, make PPMs match measurements taken from standard fish tanks, and match up formulas with the vibes on Reddit. It was complicated and boring and had no real interesting output. One day, I clicked one more Lego brick in place and, like magic, the system came alive and started acting like the real thing. I noticed something unexpected when I raised the number of plants in the tank, so I searched online, “Can too many plants raise pH?” And of course they can, it turns out. So when everything is in place, the model has predictive power for real world chemistry that emerges from the system all on its own. That’s what we’re going for--we don’t describe every situation ahead of time. We give the game the rules of reality and reality describes itself.
Graphs
But really who cares if no one can see what’s going on? The other half of getting chemistry right is getting player communication right. As I go, I have been making tools to surface the numbers in a more visual way for both myself and future players. We have a graph to show the long term relationships between factors and the effect of time. We have filters and groupings like “Nitrogen Cycle”, “Illness”, or “Beginner” to make it easier to see just a few related things at once. We have range suggestions to show the consequences of any stat going too high or too low. Just like Fish Stats, every Chemistry Stat has tooltips that show what has affected it and by how much. In its current state, the graph is ugly and practical (it will get a polish pass later), but already, it has made the chemistry much less abstract and more tangible and understandable. Whenever I reach a dead end, usually the solution is found in making the graphs more usable.
My measure for success on this feature is that a complete fish keeping novice will wander in from Steam, fall in love with their goldfish Henry, discover that chemistry is important to keep Henry happy, slowly get introduced to the concepts in a way that’s not overwhelming, and, before they know it, they have intermediate to advanced knowledge of real world water chemistry. They’ll use it to keep the digital tank happy in the same way they would for a real tank, and if they ever dipped into the real thing, they would succeed with minimal effort. For those that are just not here for that level of commitment--I see you, and we will have robust settings to choose your level of engagement.
Equipment
On that note, let’s take a look at Equipment. For a few months now, the highest concern voiced by players is feeling like the game is too frantic. They want to design cool tanks, but they aren’t able to focus on that for long without their current tanks spinning out and turning into boxes of death. We do want a Creative Mode, but before doing that, I think it’s important for the game part of the game to feel balanced. The solution here is obviously Filters, Air Stones, Auto Feeders, etc. There are a million reasons why they aren’t in the game yet, but we’re working on them now because they are the other half of the Chemistry coin. Equipment will do two things--it gives players a way to play with the abstract concepts of Chemistry, but it also allows a certain level of automation that should give players a little more peace of mind when going to start another tank. Once that is in and working smoothly, of course we’ll make a Creative Mode.
We’ve started poking at the equipment features, but first, the chemistry system needs to be designed in a way to pull in equipment as a means to play and interact with the game. There are a lot of unsolved problems about the game part of making aquarium equipment, and honestly, I’ve had a cloud of question marks hanging around the whole concept for several years now. We have the direction to head forward, but it’s still a bit hazy.
Movement Tools Update
Along with an equipment feature set will come an upgrade to the movement tools. I love many things about the one we have for grabbing and moving hardscape, plants, and fish, but it has obvious limitations that I have meant to resolve for a long time now. Since aquarium equipment tends to be much more particular about where it goes, I figured now was the best time to revisit this toolset and give it the upgrade it deserves. I have a plan, but there isn’t much to show yet.
New Systems
Now with chemistry comes a lot of exciting new features that really only made sense to make after building the chemistry structure they would inhabit. We have Tannins that can leach into the water from botanicals or hardscape. We’re modeling botanicals like Catappa Leaves, and players will be able to scape with them. There is almost no research on this but enough fishkeeper experience to justify connecting Tannins to things like pH, bacterial growth, injury recovery, and fish stress. Soon I will be adding Flow, which, like temperature, acts as a connector for a large number of other Chemistry Stats. It will push things around in the tank, and I am looking into certain fish and plants either liking or disliking this happening. Equipment will have flow as a result either by accident or as the main feature. Bacteria will be joining the game, since it is such an important part of the nitrogen cycle. Bacteria are their own living system contained inside a few floating point number variables, but so far they are already showing the ability to bloom, crash, respond to the level of nutrition available, and die under extreme conditions. Yet another example of the real world playing out on the screen.
DLC
Let’s talk about time. All of this work is slow, complex, and not a fancy videogame marketing beat. We believe the art and craft of making an honest fish keeping simulator deserves this level of care. We have a vague timeline and expect the Chemistry Update won’t be ready for players until late Fall 2025. Every day spent working on this free update costs money, and the base game sales do not make enough to cover it. So we’re doing things to generate more revenue. Players will be seeing more of those because we’ve had them scheduled for a long time. We’re not the massive company behind Sims 4 (EA) and don’t make EA money, so all DLC sales are 100% “support-a-small-team-making-something-players-want-to-exist”. If this isn’t for you, absolutely no worries. More free stuff is coming soon via DLC, general content updates, and the Chemistry Update; we’re working on it.
Years ago I took a few months to create the tools necessary to make fish, plants, hardscape, and substrate, separating them from my workflow. Because of this, Erin and Josh can use these tools to make more content for the game without fear of interrupting whatever major update I’m working on. DLC updates don’t slow down free systems updates--they fund them. These DLC updates have been in the works since April 2024 after interacting with the community’s hopes for more fish. We release more free stuff like fish and substrate into the base game with each DLC and try to find ways to celebrate players through events like the seasonal hardscape.
All of this is to say that we care. We care about players’ experiences. We care about the fidelity of the game. We care about giving players content. We care about both new fishkeepers and the experienced ones. We care about finding the fun in the science and making that easy to play with. We’re really excited about this update and hope you are as well!
-Ryan