[WIP] Fishing Planet/The Angler Game - First Person Online Fishing Simulator

Hi there everyone!

We are now on Steam Greenlight
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=456473697


I'd like to share a project which our team's been working for the last couple of years.

In short words, we're creating first-person online fishing simulation game «The Angler Game» with realistic graphics and environments that would make you actually feel you're on a vacation with your friends.


In following updates we would like to cover the issues we faced on our journey creating photorealistic graphics in Unity, mastering the art of photoscanning the nature, the transition to Unity 5, dealing with PBR, dynamic sky, dynamic water, realistic physics, emdeding social elements and a ton of AI and gameplay challenges to make the game interesting and breathtaking from the moment you're fishing on your first lake.


For the moment, here's a first screenshot while we're wokring on the gameplay demo video.


We'll keep you posted!

To know more visit theanglergame.com

 

Surprised no one has commented on this it looks great! I don't think I've ever seen a fully first person fishing only-game. Can't wait to see more

 

WOW amazing graphics!

 

Thanks! We have put a huge lot of work in visuals which should make the experience very immersive on par with gameplay and audio.

Btw, guys, we're currently concentrated on sound of the game, which tools and tricks do you use in Unity for setting up really immersive surround sound? And what does Unity 5 has to offer?

 

I like the idea, but can you add bow fishing as an option? I've never fished that way, but it might be fun.

 

Well, why not?) But then it'd almost be hunting))

 

Very cool, what do you use to simulate the line?

 

Dear Derkoi! We're indeed flattered to hear that from an experienced game-developer and a keen fisher =) Your project is really cool as well, but most importantly done by an angler with attention to what anglers see and value (not all projects do that even in terms of holding a rod right,eh?).
Now in terms of the line we've tried using a lot of different solutions for rope physics which is a complex task (like dynamic water which we will cover a bit later) and finally we came up to using our own GPU-based shader solution for line (same for rod, water and other high speed calculations). Dx9 & OpenGL ES 3.0 compatible - so no problems on mobile devices in future. DX11 computational core also looks good, but not so universally applied.
We are preparing a separate post for that so hopefully more details will come next week.

 

This looks very good!

 

Thanks for checking out my project. It still has a way to go to get to where I want to take it. Sounds like you've put plenty of work in to your system. I'll be keeping an eye on your progress.

 

You've clearly not seen my simulator then.

 

Old but nice screenshot

 

The core idea of each simulation game is delivering the experience that player is actually present at his/her seat in a plane, ship, submarine, truck, etc. performing what he would in real life in every possible detail. This includes both - functional and audio/visual experiences.

The complexity of this task in a simulation game like ours is higher comparing to average sim game, particularly in terms of delivering realistic and dynamic nature environments.

In other words, we had no other choice but squeezing all the graphic sauce Unity 4.6 had to offer for the joy of anglers around the world. In the end we have profoundly worked with shaders, implemented our custom solutions and fully enabled IBL and PBR. As many of you may know implementation of IBL and PBR requires a lot of accurate work with props.

But the main issue we have encountered was the understanding that no matter how good your artist is - humans just can't make nature objects look really true. We knew there had to be another way, a terra incognita for us - photo scanning nature object and placing them in-game. Our search took us to Agisoft Photoscan which completely changed the way our art production process was organized. And well, it revolutionized the graphics of the game itself and opened the door for virtual reality and fun stuff like Oculus Rift. Photogrammetry was a risk and we took it.

How do you think, was it worth the risk?)

Here's a peak in dynamics of the environment day/night and weather change

 

Hello there guys!
Dynamic sky is a cherry on the total immersion pie. Here's our shot.

Anybody wants to know how we do this?)

 

Hello there!

Here's our weather test, phase 2 video!

How do you think what methodology is used here?

 

Weather system is almost complete.

 

Looks amazing! What kind of areas are you looking at including?

 

MickM, thanks!
We are looking forward to covering North American locations on the first stage as a lot of Anglers in the world look up at North America as sport fishing paradise due to diversity of species and nature conditions. In particular, Oregon, California, North Carolina, Florida, Great Lakes area, Alaska and much more. Each state has been chosen specifically for the game fish that is best caught there in real life and with consideration of where the anglers like to go based on American Sportfishing Assosiation statistics and reports.
P.S.
We are starting with freshwater fishing and look forward to delivering all the fishing experiences.

 

Sounds interesting... some disagreement re: sport fishing paradise.... Compared to Northern Australia; everything from the reef (Marlin, Tuna, Mahi mahi, Mackrel, GT, Wahoo, Cobia and Kingfish etc for pelagics, take your pick for demersals!) to estuary (Barramundi, Mangrove Jack, GTs etc with a few crocs to boot... adds a bit of extra excitement when fishing from the bank...)
This gives a good idea of options on my doorstep...!
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/

That said - Good fishing is good fishing! While your plan sounds more ideal for river/shore based fishing, I could see it being just as immersive on a decent rocking boat out on the reef. And if it is as good as it looks like... it might tempt me into heading over for a fishing trip!

I very much like the reality focus; the screens look great but have you come up with a decent way to handle the rod handling and actually fighting the fish?
(it would be interesting to see if this could be hooked up to some decent customised force feedback device to really feel the fight...)
Strewth... I might get a rift just for this game (Especially if you include Aussie locations!!!)

Regardless; following very closely and loving your work so far!

 

Thanks a lot!
It's awesome to read anglers feedback Mick, as anglers too we'd make all the fishing there is if we could but our resources are limited as of now and for phase one we have decided to make freshwater fishing in America. In our plans there's definitely saltwater fishing.

Rod handling and the fish fighting teaser video is soon to be released, I can only say that we've done a lot to make rod and line physically realistic which means the reeling out experience will deliver both in terms of how the rod behaves (test) and the line (weight) and how the hands/rod/line interact with the fish. Cause you know, putting a lot of work in graphics without making it about fishing indeed would be a bit crazy and as we ourselves fish it would be awkward.

Casting and reeling makes us happy and we hope they will make you happy too a lot of fine tuning with camera and controls are currently being made.

 

New screenshot

 

Pretty! : D

 

Thank you

 

Not bad for Unity 4.6

 

Looking amazing; cant wait for the rod handling teaser!!

 

One of our assets we are planning to sell in the asset store soon:

 

What asset pack was used for the willow trees and cliff faces. Im the leading level designer of Tales of Rhayne and would be interested in using these in our game. Thanks and great work with the game, looks like a seller

 

Also from the resolution of your textures being 2k to 4k from what it seems. Alot of PCs aeeare going to struggle running this game. UnlEss youve included graphic presets.

 

Looks absoulutely fantastic.

On your website the into page says 'COMMING SOON'. There should be only one 'm' in 'coming'.

 

Hello there!

Richardh, thanks for the input. Fixed. =)

Uninity, the willow trees are heavily modified SpeedTree's, specifically processed for our needs. The cliff faces are our in-house produced assets, these are photoscanned assets. We are aware about texture memory limitations and reduce the use of it as much as possible by optimizing UV layout and using the same texture for a group of meshes and individual meshes in a package.

We are currently submitting our assets to the Unity Asset Store, so we hope you're right and they are going to sell well, we personally think that this is a unique thing as of now.

Some assets will be available for free to showcase the quality.

Seems like there's been a lot of level design work done in Tales of Rhayne, looks very nice.

BTW, all the images above are taken in Unity 4.6

 

Hey there!

Here's the first ever photoscanned asset by our team!

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/29072

 

Asset Store Thread => http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/photogrammetry-stone-asset-collection.297350/

 

A small update here to tease people before the closed beta.

It took us a lot of work getting all the things on the picture right.

BTW: this is actual in-game screenshot

Like it?

 

That screen shot looks great, Killerwhale. So do the rest of the pics and videos. Keep it up!

 

Thank you! We are working hard to keep the graphics and gameplay on a high standard

 

wow! where is the pre-order button?

 

Actually, good idea

Now the rods

 

You could probably get some sponsor for the game easily, "The Angler : Rapala edition" : )

 

I know there are a few guys in the iRacing forums that will be interested in this one (the ones that asked if my boat sim would have fishing, which it won't). It's a members only forum, so I'll post a link there at some point.

 

As always, the "sponsor" wants to see the game already done and with a lot of players to keep all risks as low as possible Will try after beta test

 

Reels

 

Very nice indeed

 

Dear all! We are happy to announce that we've moved to Unity 5!

 

Been away for a bit but looking even better than I remembered... Almost enough to make me want to come to the US to drop a line..!

Looking forward to seeing the rod handling implementation.