What it is
DEEPWATER is a mobile fishing game. You drag a slingshot on the screen, release, watch the lure arc and settle at depth, and a fish drifts in. That's the core loop: calm, tactile, short sessions.
The ocean has eight zones, Shallows to Hadal Void. Each zone has its own species, art palette, and audio. Across all zones: around 102 codex entries (60 real species, ~30 real-biology variants, 12 distance-gated legendaries, and one fictional creature at the very bottom). The codex fills as you catch. That's the retention layer.
Design spec v1.0 locked 2026-05-05. Full 8-zone launch from day one. No trimmed MVP.
Built mobile-first (180x320 internal, painterly pixel art, touch anywhere to cast). Targets iOS and Android. No day/night cycle, no energy bars, no daily timers. The pier evolves through 12 stages as you progress. Gear upgrades infinitely but is never replaced. Everything is permanent.
The story
I wanted to build a game. I also didn't want "build a game as a learning project" to be the whole reason. That framing produces demos. I wanted something with a real purpose: a game worth shipping, with real species, a real codex, a real atmospheric arc that someone would actually want to finish.
Fishing games have clear demand (Tiny Fishing, Cat Goes Fishing, Webfishing all have audiences). DEEPWATER's angle is the geometry: horizontal cast power gates vertical depth. Go shallow and fast, or charge a longer cast and reach deeper zones with different species. The codex is the goal. You're not grinding gold, you're completing the picture of what lives down there.
I chose Godot 4 over Unity for indie alignment, pixel-art native rendering, and the fact that it won't change its licensing terms on me mid-project. The build plan is 6 phases over roughly 11 to 15 months. I picked Option A scope (the full 8-zone arc) over a shorter MVP. If the first version ships, it ships complete. That's a long bet. I'm treating it like one.
Behind the scenes
Phase 0 (greybox prototype) is complete. The core cast loop ran on my phone. That's what it was supposed to prove, and it did.
Phase 1 is the Shallows vertical slice: everything the Shallows zone needs to be finished-fidelity before I scale the approach to the remaining zones.
- P1.1 (Real species): 8 Shallows species replace placeholders (Cod, Mackerel, Pollock, Sea Bass, Flounder, Striped Bass, Bluefish, Tautog)
- P1.2 (Codex + visual pass): Codex scene and caught-species tracking, pier planks/posts, sun halo, caustic rays, fish swim animations (squash + tail wag), first-catch particle burst
- P1.3 (Pier evolution + UI polish): Pier stages 1-4 (gold milestones), fading ghost arc, gradient tension meter, splash, icon-only shop UI (rod silhouette, coin stack)
The GUT test suite was at 45 passing tests at the end of Phase 0, with more added in Phase 1. CI runs on GitHub Actions, including iOS builds via macOS runners (Windows dev machine, iPhone device, no Mac required).
Where it's at
Phase 1 is actively in progress. The Shallows species, codex, and pier stages 1-4 are implemented. The remaining Phase 1 work is audio (5 stems for the Shallows zone) and final art polish before calling the zone finished.
Phase 2 begins when the Shallows vertical slice lands as finished fidelity: complete art, complete audio, complete codex, polished UI, all pier stages for the zone working. That's the template the other seven zones get built against.