Fishing Inc turns waiting for a bite into an incremental upgrade chase
Catch fish, buy better gear, the standard loop
- Upgrade your gear to reach new fishing spots
- Track down rare and Legendary fish
- Pre-registration is open ahead of November 25th
From everything I’ve heard from people who actually do it, fishing is largely sitting about and waiting. Incremental games are much the same, just with a number going up while you wait, so the two were always going to get on. Fishing Inc is the latest to try it, and it’s now open for pre-registration on iOS and Android.
BigBonk Studios is developing it, with Snapbreak taking publishing duties. You start off with basic gear and catches that wouldn’t impress anyone, and from there it’s a case of moving on to new spots and finding more species as your kit gets better. Cash from every catch goes back into equipment, plus new abilities, most of which seem to be about catching things faster.
It’s a cosy fisher, or a cosy number-goes-up game that happens to have fish in it. I’m not entirely sure which comes first. Chicken and egg.
The fish get trickier the further out you go. Rarer species start showing up, and there are Legendary ones to hunt down for your Fish Log, which I’d expect to be the thing that keeps people coming back once the upgrades start blurring together.
Completion logs are an old trick. They still work. I’ll stick up for an idle game when I need to, but it needs something to aim for, and a log with a few stubborn gaps in it will do. Mostly.
Catherine got her hands on it back in August, when it was already playable in early access on Google Play, so her Ahead of the Game piece on Fishing Inc is the place to go for an idea of how it actually plays.
Fishing Inc launches on November 25th on iOS and Android.
Until the line goes taut in November, our list of the best fishing games on Android has a few to keep your hand in.
