Hello everyone!

I’d like to announce the development blog for Topwater Odyssey. This is a game that has been in the works for the last 18 months. I’ve come a long way, but there’s still much more to come.

The Vision Behind Topwater Odyssey

My goal is to recreate the intensity of the Australian topwater fishing scene and fishing in Australia in general. Fishing culture varies greatly across the globe, and Australia offers some of the most thrilling fishing experiences this world has to offer. Just look at some of the Australian fishing adventure YouTubers—we do it completely differently from the rest of the world.

Bringing Exploration Back to Fishing Games

This trend also follows into fishing games. I’ve lost count of the number of bass fishing games that have been created. Most fishing games don’t celebrate the hunting aspect of fishing. As Australia is enormous, you need to know where the fish are. That’s why a major design goal for the game is maximum exploration. Anywhere with water, you can drive and fish, and there can be anything in any part of the map.

This led me to build systems from the ground up to accommodate this design choice. I feel I’ve finally reached a point where I can say I have a somewhat fun game. I’ve certainly had some enjoyable moments just playing.

The Complexity of Fish AI

This brings me to the fish AI. I say it’s complex, but they’re just boids. However, I was certainly impressed with the dynamism of using steering forces and how creative you can get. Every fish is doing its own thing, and when it comes to fishing, each fish has a mind of its own. Each fish also has states to allow different steering behaviors at any given time.

They are single-threaded; however, a simple culling system seems to do the trick. I’ve been able to spawn 20,000 individual fish into the level, only dropping to 40 FPS on my machine. Depending on level size, the number of required fish to fill a level would be around 3,000. This will definitely need work in the future, but hey, it works for now.

Enhancing Player Interaction

A lot of effort was poured into the lure movement system, as this is what the player is interacting with most from moment to moment. I believe it feels good and smooth and can withstand long play sessions.

Another big problem I’ve faced is line collision, as nothing is physics-based. I’ve conjured up what seems to be a solid raycasting system. It also seems to hold up in fights.

What’s Next

Now that the whole fishing loop is closed, I’m focusing on some crucial visual work, such as casting animations, splashes, cast markers, and even some simple boat and engine noises.

About Me

As for me, I’m a fisher from Victoria, Australia. I usually fish Western Port and Nagambie. I’ve also been a game developer for 10 years and have been working in Unreal Engine for the last 2 years. I’ll do a post with a little more about me in the future. This is just a quick write-up introducing the game. There will be a lot more posts covering previous work in the future as well.

Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for joining me on this exciting journey!