There was a time period in the post –Stardew Valley an era where it felt like half the indie games announced at various video game conventions fell into the “wholesome, cozy fishing simulator” genre. It was a terrible oversaturation of the market on par with post-Manufacturing 101 era of Korean pop music. There was Moonglow Bay, which was largely sidelined, even though it featured music from Lena Raine. There was Luna’s Fishing Garden. There was Fishing paradise. There was A cat goes fishing.
But jump forward a few more years and the fishing game genre has expanded! Nowadays there are so many fishing games, of so many different varieties. I pull up the Fishing category of the Steam store and my Steam recommends the Exploration fishing cross games “because you’ve played games tagged with Exploration”. Right above it, my Steam also recommends the undoubtedly overflowing Dungeon Crawler fishing crossover game category.
For the sake of transparency, I’m currently only actively playing through two fishing games: Dave the Diver and Dear. Dave the Diver is a fishing game that also falls under the Sushi Restaurant Management subcategory. It’s a charmingly charming little game, well aimed at a general audience, and has boss fights and shark fights on top of the basic spearfishing. You can bring a gun into the ocean. The game’s daily structure makes it easy to play in mostly 20-minute slots as a feel-good palette cleanser. I usually jump to it after finishing a session of my second fishing game, Dearwhich I also run at 20 minute intervals because I’m a big baby.
Dear is a fishing game that falls under the Eldritch Horror subcategory. Not weird in the sense of jump scares or monsters chasing you. Instead, it’s the atmosphere. Each of the islands the protagonist visits is full of gloomy, world-weary inhabitants. The sound design is half the horror; catch a mutated fish and the game plays an eerie jingling sound while all other noises disappear. If you stay out too late at night, you start to see rocks popping up where there weren’t any before, and glowing red eyes in the distance that your weak headlights can’t see. I play perhaps too cautiously and haven’t died yet – it’s not very common as other people who have played have informed me that they die many times – and after encountering a huge fish that damaged my boat the first time, i panicked and still not coming back Dear again.
This is with this experience and authority, plus 150 hours of work Stardew Valley, that I present to you a very scientific intervention in the field of video game classification. I’ve searched—dredging, even—through the top selling and recommended games in the fishing category on Steam and sorted each game into the main groups. Without further ado, here’s the official fishing video game taxonomy, complete with examples.
Healthy, cozy fishing
- Moonglow Bay
- Luna’s Fishing Garden
- Fishing paradise
- A cat goes fishing
- Fantasy fishing town
Dungeon Crawler Fishing
- FATE
- Battle Chasers: Nightwar
- 9th Dawn III
- The Quiver Dick Chronicles
- Fish RPG
Realistic fishing
- Fishing planet (including DLC on Fishing Planet: Japanese Odyssey Pack, Fishing Planet: Voyager Packand Sports kit for professional anglers)
- The Call of the Wild: The Angler™ (including DLC on The Call of the Wild: The Angler™ – South African reserve)
- Ships at sea
- Russian fishing 4
- Food and rearing: Fish
- The best fishing simulator
- Bassmaster® Fishing
- SEGA Bass Fishing
- Ultimate Fishing Simulator 2
Eldritch Horror Fishing
Restaurant Simulation Fishing
- Dave the Diver
- Catch and Cook: A Fishing Adventure
Introducing Dungeon Crawler Fishing
Actually a farm sim
- Stardew Valley
- Animal Crossing
- This magic
- Dinkum
- Rune Factory 5
- Farm Together 2
- Everafter Falls
- Rune Factory 4 Special
- Rune Factory 3
You see, but you don’t have to catch fish, the fish
You are the Fish
