Fall update: Fish IQ, and the Codex, Too!
Hey, friends! Welcome back to another Black Hole Fishing update! I've been releasing some smaller stealth updates over the past few months, but it's finally time to pull all those changes together and throw a big party! If you haven't played in a while (or still have the game on your wishlist), then now's a great time to jump (back) in!
Now with smarter fish:
Let's start with the headliner feature: Fish are smart, and they now come with little icons!
These icons come with tool-tips that describe the fish's behavior at a glance. This fish scares others away, this fish swims in schools, etc. This gives you much more power when choosing your fish - pick the best combination of traits, behaviors, and boosts to maximize profits!
And better trait details:
The codex now shows way more details about each fish and trait. If you're looking to optimize, you can now easily compare stat multipliers, science values, or synergy boosts. We also have mass ranges now, so you can see the smallest and biggest fish you caught. (This also means mass is the one value you don't know up-front, so go catch a whopper if you want to see how big a Bass can get!)
Finally, I cleaned up the UI, so there are some pretty colors on the cards :)
Speaking of UI:
I also did a fair bit of clean-up in multiple game scenes. There was a bunch of leftover polish work after launch, and this update contains the majority of it! I won't go through the whole list, but keep an eye out for some fancy looking bits and bobs (like a color bomb bar that actually sparkles).
I also did a localization pass, so we shouldn't have any language overruns any more. If you see something, say something, but I believe I got them all.
Finally, safety.
We unfortunately have had a few issues regarding save games. I patched the autosave system, and haven't heard any new reports of lost (corrupted) saves in a while. But, I would occasionally get a sad bit of feedback from a player who forgot to put their fish in the pond of holding before a prestige, and didn't realize it until it was too late. Now we have a popup to remind you to stash your fish before you jump in the hole.
Also...
There are a bunch of little updates in this release (and the quiet patches leading up to it), but in no particular order, enjoy:
Roughly 2X performance compared to the previous major version (at least by my measurement).
A bunch of random bug fixes and tweaks.
Some re-balancing to go with the fish stats upgrade.
There are still a handful of changes that I'm still testing out, so expect another (smaller) in the near future, and at least one more major update down the road (late-game focused this time). If you want to try out the latest changes, check out the beta branch. It should be safe (no save file changes), but you can always make backups of your saves from the options menu if you want to be extra cautious (or share with a friend).
Anyways, that's all for today. Happy October, and stay fishy,
~Matthew