Does this game sound too repetitive?

I am making a fishing game where you get in the boat, drive around the ocean, catch fish until you run out of gas or your livewell is full, and then return to town to sell your catch and buy upgrades for equipment. I am eventually going to try to get it on steam if I finish it. Does this sound like it would get too repetitive after awhile? There are many different fish (you need certain upgrades to catch the big, expensive ones) and upgrades, but I am still worried it will be too repetitive and it is making me think about abandoning the whole game. If you think it is too repetitive, any suggestion on more content I could add in?

 

Nothing wrong with the concept in my opinion. I have played a few fishing games over the years. From a fisherman's perspective (at one time anyway) stick "the big one" out there some place. Maybe hint at its existence. This will drive fishing loving players to push forward getting a boat, fish locater and other gear trying to get the elusive granddaddy of em all.

 

I think it depends on how your fishing gameplay is implemented. Can you describe this part ?

Back in the days of PS1, I remember that I played Basshunter a lot, even if it consisted only to throw your fishrope, wait for a fish to grab it and get it inside your boat. But there was two successfull gameplay mechanics :

First, it was fun to try to catch fish because there was both a fisher view and an underwater view, so you could see the fish circling around your line. When it grabbed it, you would have to play with the fish a play of push-pull. If it forces to the left, give him a little free space and when it stop forcing, smash your gamepad like crazy. It feels very satisfying to see the fish try to counter your moves.

Second was the reward itself. You would see the fish in its entirety with information like length and mass, and it was compared to your previous catch.

And like GarBenjamin says, push the player to catch bigger ones. I could see two distinct item categories : when for fish catching equipment, lines more robust, with more range, more mass resistance and other for fish location, like sonars.

Edit : I forgot one small feature that I enjoyed a lot : I could see all fish that I catched during my play through a transparent water tank. It was fun to see those small and big fish that you catched.

 

Very good input guys, thanks! I am definitely putting a big granddaddy fish in now, thats an awesome idea. Each species of fish has weight ranges, so each fish has a random weight. Im thinking maybe an online leaderboard or something will make the weight thing more appealing. As of now my fishing gameplay is very similar to acefishing on android. You click to reel, which raises the tension in your line. When you stop clicking, your tension lowers. If your tension gets too high, the line snaps. As you reel, the fish gets closer to you, and eventually you catch it when it gets to the boat. That was the only thing I could think of for it, maybe I will spice up the catching part after the core is done. I like the underwater view idea, I think I am going to try to put that in.

 

Have a change of scenery. As your fisherman gets better at fishing, he might travel to some exotic places. How about a fast running stream in Montana? Or deep open fishing off the coast of Florida? A trip to Hawaii might be fun or maybe a tranquil mountain lake. You don't have to use huge open world terrains for this so shouldn't be too difficult and each destination could be a level. Fishing is a relaxing sport and part of that is the environment.

 

On the random sizes: be sure to use a normal (bell-shaped) distribution rather than a uniform one. This will naturally get you some very large sizes, though they will be quite rare. (Technically it should be a binomial distribution, but I think that's harder to compute; just use the normal distribution technique here and clip it only on the "small" side, not on the large side.)

Also, I would be sure to put plenty of options & depth in the economic part of the game. Improving your gear will be lots of fun if there are always more goodies than you can afford. I remember way back in the day, playing a Ghostbusters game on the Atari 800, which was basically exactly what you've described, only it was ghosts instead of fish (and a car instead of a boat). Great fun!

 

Would agree with this. While the ocean would be a good place to catch big fish, it's also pretty boring (*disclaimer* I'm from Missouri, so factor that in to my lack of oceanic appreciation). Although if navigation was handled sort of like FTL, you might be able to get some interesting variety.

 

I think it sounds fun, I like fishing games. I do agree that a change of scenery (maybe with location-specific fish to catch) would be a good way to keep it from getting repetitive. Maybe have a minigame contest where you compete to catch the biggest fish. Or certain fish react to certain bait in different ways.

 

[QUOTE="RockoDyne, post: 1871951, member: 602432"(*disclaimer* I'm from Missouri, so factor that in to my lack of oceanic appreciation). [/QUOTE]

I live in Florida. The middle of the ocean is very boring. A lovely lake or bubbling brook in Missouri is much nicer, and I will add my own disclaimer, I am from Illinois originally, so may also not appreciate the ocean as much as I do Missouri.

 

First things first: Are you going for realism? If so, it's probably going to be a pretty repetitive game.

Now, if you're going for a more arcade-y experience, there's definitely some work to be done. You'll need to shake up the core mechanics of fishing. Don't do the easy thing and just make the fishing mechanic harder as the game goes on. It has to get more complex.

Add new layers of complexity as you get new equipment. Make each breed of fish have different AI and require a different strategy to catch (but be careful with that! If I don't know what fish I'm currently dealing with, this could be very frustrating! Also, if I'm trying to learn how to catch a new type of fish, make sure I can try over and over again)

 

Maybe you could have a sense of progression so the first level (or whatever) starts off in a calm area with lots of fish, now you could fish any type of fish for as many fishes as you want.

I guess it depends on how wacky you want it, but. In the background there is a global totalitarian green dictatorship thats starting to gain power. At the start of each level you could have a "newspaper headline", lets say you are banned from catching fish-type x, then level 3 has it so you cant get fishes x,y,z. Now later your banned from this plentiful fish area (its now a nature preserve) and you have to go to a dangerous area full of sharks.

 

Kind of going away from a fishing game, huh? LOL I only laugh because we always think we need "action" and "danger" in games to make them fun. But not sure that is always true. People who fish like to fish. A game that recreates that challenge well and creates an immersing environment might do quite well with those fishing gamers stuck inside for the winter, especially if it is more simulation. A game that has a rpg-like background mixed in with danger (other than the usual fishing dangers of catching a hook, getting swept downstream, etc.) and things to attack with your weapon that you pull out of your tackle box probably will appeal to a very different set of gamers. I imagine it would take a lot for them to consider a fishing game as exciting.

Mixing genres can be very cool, but be careful. Make sure you are mixing genres that appeal to both types of players. I remember the complaints when EA started trying to mix simulation with rpg.

 

Yeah I guess so.

 

You could use the money form selling fish to get permits to access certain areas / catch certain fish. Maybe tipping some policemen around a dock will let you go fishing for blue crabs, which cannot be eaten.

 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Nice idea for a game.

But it sounds a little too repetitve.
Just a little.
Gotta put more excitement to a game like this, to keep the gamer wanting to play it more and longer!

Make things like sometimes on very rare occassions, when you go to catch a fish, a giant sized Fishy sea monster Boss Fishy, /or octupus or other sea monster creature etc, comes to attack you, and you have to use harpoons/other Fishermans weapons to fight and destroy it.
And if you destroy it, you carry it back to the fish port and get a large super duper sum of cash!!
Or you could auction it like those old people do on TV.

Or regular boss battle Fishies.
Where your fishing line catches a rare large fish. And you have a tug of war type struggle to reel it in. Like in the Old man and the sea story.
If it escapes, you get no bonus.
If you are successful, you get a rare bonus for reeling it in.
Like a rare golden fish tooth.
Golden Fin etc.
And you can carry it to the fish market to sell.

Or, there are certain special clients in the town, who hire you to catch certain rare fishes or fish monsters etc.
And if you accept, they will give you a map or info, on where to find this rare fish/monsters fish etc.

Or they might want rare items like pearl necklaces, rings, lost pirate ship treasure, etc, that you might accident find, as your fishing line hooks/touches on the sea bed.
Or found inside of a fishy!
And if you find one of these rare jewel accessories:
You take it to that certain special client and he gives you a Big Bonus/rare upgradable parts, for all of your hard work.

There are so many ideas for a game like this.
Just too many to write about.

Note: Many of the ideas expressed by the other posters sound great too!

Good luck on your game!

PS: If you run out of gas for your boat etc. How the beans are you gonna get back Home? He! He! Lol!
Then again, it's a video game.

 

It would be epic if you had to cast/reel/net with simulated arms a la surgeon simulator.

 

Spot on. Most games are super repetitive. The repetition is only a problem if you can't make it engaging.

Think of an FPS - you walk for a bit, then people start shooting you and you have a fight. When you win the fight you carry on walking until you find the next fight. That's it. Super repetitive, right? But building variations into that can make it engaging and fun.

You need to figure out how to do the same thing. What can you do with fishing to keep it engaging over time similar to the way that Call of Duty or Halo keeps a series of firefights engaging over time? Give a good FPS (or anything else with super simple mechanics) a go and see how they do it. How is a firefight / puzzle / race in the mid-game different to one at the start? How are ones at the end different? The fundamental mechanics will stay the same, but different things will be layered on top. What can you lay on top of your fishing?

 

I voted "yes", but only because of the points mentioned by several others above. I believe your target audience is people who like fishing and/or fishing shows/competitions. If you ever watch fishing/hunting shows... half the fun of watching them is getting to "experience" all these great places to hunt/fish/enjoy nature. Changing up scenery is a must, or it can feel kinda pointless. Also learning little quirks about different locations can be fun. Where are the best spots? Are there any "one that got away" stories or "grandaddy fish" legends at this location? Could he be caught? etc.

 

Heck yeah. Take the stereotypically fun parts of fishing - the parts people tell stories about - and focus your game around those. Amplify them, and minimise (or ignore) the boring bits.

FPSs don't focus on the months of training, the fitness regimes and the months of years of relative peace between conflicts. They just shove you into a series of firefights so you can shoot people.

 

I did look on steam and it did seem like there wasnt any good ones released recently.
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_4_4__12&term=fishing

 

The most notable fishing game on steam right now is this:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/314520/

It is being made by the guys who make Train Simulator, so they probably have a huge budget and manpower to make it the most expansive simulator of this kind. So, what I'm trying to say is if you want to make your game stand out you have to make it different, rather than try to go head to head with the masters of simulation.

That said, you haven't told us much about your game. How is the presentation going to be (2D/3D, art style, etc) and what the main gameplay style will be (ex: simulator vs arcade). Also, what single thing can you say about your game that will get people's attention in a second?

 

I did look at that one but if you read the comments theres only 1 type of fish and the reviews are mixed.
Positive (89)
Negative (41)

 

1 type of fish?? lol thats weak..
your game sounds cool actually! .. i never really cared for fishing games much, but ive tried a couple looong time ago, lol the minigame in zelda ocarina of time is probably the coolest minigame, i played that like crazy haha

all games get repetitive.. try to make yours take longer to become repetitive i guess.. get new boats, new fishing rods etc.. many different lakes or locations, different fish .. a good progression, where like, everytime you come to the shop you can get just a little better, with significant differences sometimes,

 

Do you know the audience you're going for? Is it going to be a sim?

Can you simulate the act and the experience of fishing effectively and if so, how repetitive is actual real fishing? Do you fish in real life & do you know what the appeal is?

Why do people who fish fish? Can you give them that same experience in game-form? Even if you can, would they want it?

Is there variety in the methods used to catch different kinds of fish and will that variety be represented in the game-play?

Can the games economy be rooted in reality? Do people actually fish for profit and might that be an aspiration of a lot of people who fish? Can you simulate a pro-fishing career for people who like to immerse themselves in the hobby of fishing? Can you tap into peoples aspirations in terms of fishing and why people fish or does it just need to be an atmosphere or competition-based thing?

Would it have to be real time in order to work? Can you run it on secure enough servers so that an impressive catch can actually mean something in the community?