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Beta Build 01 Now Out

Hello everyone

Beta Build 01 is now available to play! This first batch of Beta content will focus on the new lakes, procedural weather, and procedural time of day. Content will be added and tweaked over the next few weeks.

The latest content has not been polished and debugged to the same standard as our previous Phases, which allows us to concentrate on production and only worry about fine debugging at the very end of the process (the game will then be thoroughly polished and debugged right before launch).

Please follow the instructions below to access and enjoy Beta Build 01, bearing in mind that you cannot have version 6.1 and Beta Build 01 installed on your computer at the same time.

Please also make sure you have a look at the Know Issues below. This is a beta build and nothing is set in stone at this point

Thanks,

Kevin

Beta Build 01 Content:

  1. Five lakes:
    • The Observatory (European training lake)
    • St John’s Water, Linear Complex (United Kingdom)
    • L’Arène (France)
    • Digger Lakes (United Kingdom)
    • Presa Del Monte Bravo (Spain)
  2. Fish types:
    • Common Carp
    • Mirror Carp
    • Leather carp
    • Bream
  3. 2 playable characters (1 male, 1 female).

Advanced gameplay features:

  1. Total cast control:
    • Overhead casting
    • Underarm casting
  2. Full netting experience
  3. Spodding
  4. Fish sense with dynamic fish AI and behaviour
  5. Procedural time of day
    • Choose to fish a fixed or procedural time
    • Time of Day affects fish behaviour
  6. Procedural weather
    • Choose to fish fixed weather conditions or have them change procedurally over the session
    • Weather conditions affect fish behaviour

The full list of content that will be available at launch is available here.

To install the beta version and content:

  1. Open Steam
  2. Open the Library tab
  3. Right click on Dovetail Games Fishing
  4. Select Properties from the menu
  5. Select the Beta tab at the top
  6. In the password field, type YG9fdfYwKPFQTh3g
  7. Click the Check Code button
  8. From the drop down menu, select beta - Closed Beta Branch
  9. Dovetail Games Fishing will now update to the Beta version
  10. In the Steam Library, your game will be listed as Dovetail Games Fishing [beta]

To uninstall the beta version and content:

  1. Open Steam
  2. Open the Library tab
  3. Right click on Dovetail Games Fishing [beta]
  4. Select Properties from the menu
  5. Select the Beta tab at the top
  6. From the drop down menu, select NONE - Opt out of all beta programs
  7. Dovetail Games Fishing will now update back to version 0.6.1
  8. In the Steam Library, your game will be listed as Dovetail Games Fishing

Know issues:

  1. About lakes:
    • General for All Lakes - All lakes are still VERY MUCH a work in progress and should NOT be considered 'finished'.
    • Digger Lake - This is very much a work in progress and only viewable. Fish will not bite at this location so you will not catch.
    • L'Arène Lake - This is very much a work in progress and only viewable. Fish will not bite at this location so you will not catch. Colour lines will be visible in the sky.
  2. Fish & Fish AI:
    • Fish AI - We're actively working on a number of things surrounding Fish AI (updates to bait and rig preference) and Movement and so there may be unexpected behaviour. This will be worked on throughout development and may sometimes appear worse as we tweak areas and add new functionality. Please let us know what your thoughts are on how the game is playing at each Beta update.
    • Tench have been added to The Observatory, St Johns Water and Presa Del Monte Bravo. Catfish and Roach will be added to all lakes in a later build.
  3. Multiplayer:
    • Multiplayer Settings - MP settings aren't hooked up so you won't be able to change these. You can still set up matches but they'll be on the Observatory as per Phase 6.1. We're actively working on this now.
    • Multiplayer Chat - Functionality has been improved. Awaiting new UI update. Partial match of filtered words is still on which will be addressed before launch.
  4. Miscellaneous:
    • UI - We're actively working on transferring all screens to the new UI system. We're approx 75% complete on this but you may experience some issues with game settings not functioning as expected and old style screens still in evidence.
    • Character Selection - We've added placeholders for the additional characters being worked on. If you select any characters other than 'Male' or 'Female' then your character will not appear on the Post-Catch menu.
    • Academy - We're adding VO to tutorial 1 and subsequently it's very fragile. If you do exactly as asked it should work but any deviation will lead to a null state where nothing will happen. Work is ongoing on this.
    • Main Menu Settings - If you go into the settings menu from the main menu (top bar) then you won't be able to exit so please don't use it as it will require a force quit (alt-F4). You can still change settings from the in-game pause menu settings screen.
    • Single Player Tournaments - Work In Progress and not functional beyond selecting a tournament and having the option to change to a different peg. Swim limitations are placeholder. AI opponent scores cannot be viewed currently.
    • Store / Tackle Shop - Work in Progress but should now be functional. Use the arrow keys to move the equipment grid around to see all the different options available. Pricing and XP / TP awards are placeholder and will be tweaked based on your feedback / internal metrics.
    • Metric display bug: if you change your unit settings to metric distance will not be show properly. Reinstalling the game does not fix this.
    • The wind has a really weird effect on some of the tree's across several lakes, this could be a work in progress as well.