While everyone loves positive reviews, negative ones openly reveal the flaws in a game, and I'd like to start by saying that I've heard you...and I'd like to thank everyone who has given feedback on Discord, and given positive reviews, as well!
This update addresses the game's slow start, makes it a bit more exciting with more fish and customers overall, and adds a more detailed way to manage your prices and customers.
Overview
New Features:
- Customer happiness value that can alter spawn rate.
- Visual representations of customer happiness and the spawn rate.
- Rod, Bait, and Pond Capacity upgrades now increase popularity a little bit to help boost the start of the game.
Adjustments:
- Higher customer spawn rate.
- Double pond capacity.
- Adjusted fish values to match the increase of above values.
- Popularity gain flows better with the increased customers and fish catches.
- First new fish unlocks, and upgrade purchases come a lot sooner at the start.
- Birds now give a small percentage of the pond's total fish value so, it keeps up with progress.
Bug Fixes:
- Disabled upgrade buttons when filling the pond, which would cause issues.
- Disabled the ability to open the pond when filling it.
- The fish display card when deleting will now be disabled when the pond auto-opens, if active.
Now let's get into the details!
More Fisher Peoples & More Fish
The start of the game was too slow, and I've addressed this.
I started with the number of fish by increasing the max capacity upgrade levels, which has been doubled. To catch all these fish, the spawn rate of customers has also drastically increased.
These two elements combined make the game quite a bit more exciting to watch and provide a more satisfying experience.
It's important to keep in mind that this is still an idle game, so it does still start off slower and increase in rate as the game progresses, but I hope this helps make things less boring.
Keeping the game running in the background can also cause popularity to increase at a higher rate than money and upgrade purchases due to not actively adjusting the ticket prices and markup, and using the new, more expensive fish.
More Management
I've gotten a lot of really good feedback from players in the Discord - seriously, it's been just amazing to have you all be so involved and helpful, thank you!
One of the elements that have come up there, and from other players I've talked to, is the expectation of adjusting the ticket/markup prices to alter the rate at which customers will want to visit.
I've increased the value of tickets to a max of $1,000 and the markup to 300%, and now it can be used to go beyond the popularity threshold to help slow down spawn rates if your ponds capacity is currently too small and keeps emptying too early.
The best part is the addition of a happiness meter and a visible customer spawn rate to show how your adjustments will be utilized.
A Better Start
While the game is an idler, it just started way too slow. The first fish unlock seemed to take forever, and once things got going, it was a bit better with progressing through them.
I've addressed this in a few ways. The rod, bait, and capacity upgrades now increase popularity a little bit each level to give a small boost throughout the game and get to the first few fish much faster.
The game is now more smoothed out overall, but there will still be a bit of adjusting as things go on, because there will be more content coming, and the game needs to be ready for this.
What's Next?
There are a few items I still want to get to from the current to-do list, but some new, big items have been added.
The major one is working in a Prestige mechanic to extend gameplay. While I have a few more details to figure out before implementing this, I know that it will introduce new pond locations with their own shop designs, decorations, and some new fish unique to the locations.
Character customization and a hat shop will be added. Hats can be equipped to your character and will also randomly show up on customers once purchased.
There will be a new mechanic that will allow you to fish your ponds instead of open them up to customers. Doing this will either earn you unique currency that is used to purchase hats in the hat shop, but there is no ticket cost, so there won't be any money earned on these days.
Beyond this, I will continue to playtest and utilize feedback to improve the games experience even further.
Thank you all for your support and for reading this far. I look forward to the next update!