Fish Box

Fish Box is a cute fish-collecting game where you head out to sea to catch fish and salvage loot from shipwrecks. The core loop is easy to pick up: sell the fish you catch to earn money, then spend that money on refueling, repairs, or ship upgrades. As you progress, you’re able to venture farther into the sea and catch rarer, more valuable fish.

Though in its current state, the game has a few noticeable issues. The most significant one is that the fishing minigame (which is the central gameplay mechanic) is rather poorly explained. It took me several attempts to fully understand how it works. For anyone still confused, keep reading for a brief overview. When the fishing minigame starts, a fish spawns with two bars and a circle beneath it. The top bar (blue) represents your progress toward catching the fish, while the bottom bar (red) shows the risk of it escaping (failure). To successfully catch a fish, you need to fill the blue bar. That can only be done while keeping the circle positioned underneath it at all times, and you do that by moving your mouse away from the circle in the direction the fish is swimming. What the game doesn’t explain is that the farther away your mouse is, the faster the circle moves. Once the circle is positioned correctly, hold down the left mouse button for a few seconds to increase the blue progress bar and reel the fish in. As you do this, the circle gradually shrinks and turns red; at this point, release your mouse button and allow the circle to return to its default state, all while keeping it under the fish. Eventually, QTE arrows will appear; you must press the corresponding keys in time to stun the fish (which also lets you have an easier time reeling it in). Failing these prompts causes the fish to attack your ship, dealing damage. Rinse and repeat until the blue bar is completely filled.

The second issue I had was related to the UI. Fish stored in your inventory don’t display their selling price, making it hard to decide which ones to discard when you catch better ones. Gold pouches or lottery tickets stored in your inventory can’t be opened while docked; you have to set sail first to open them, which feels unintuitive. The repair system is also confusing, as the game doesn’t clearly show how much repairs will cost or how many lives they replenish. Beyond that, there are several smaller annoyances, such as fish images occasionally disappearing from your inventory (even though the fish themselves are still there) and already-looted fishing pools remaining visible in the world and able to be revisited, which wastes your fuel. There’s also no indicator of whether you applied any bait or not.

Early on, the game also struggles a bit with economy balance. Fish sell for very little, often barely covering the high costs of fuel and repairs. Bait is also very expensive, which makes progression feel slow, especially regarding unlocking ship upgrades. And it’s made worse by the fact that new players are likely to fail the fishing minigame several times while learning it. On the positive side, the option to borrow money helps alleviate some of this pressure, and although loans are supposedly due within a day, the game doesn’t seem to enforce repayment very strictly.

Once I fully understood how all the mechanics actually work, the game became quite enjoyable. There are over 100 fish to collect, spread across different water habitats. Your current habitat is always shown in the bottom-left corner of the screen, allowing you to target specific fish to complete your collection. There’s also a day/night cycle, with the time of day directly affecting which fish you can catch. One aspect I find less well implemented is that the difficulty of the fishing minigame doesn’t correlate with fish rarity. You might struggle intensely to catch a common fish worth very little or effortlessly reel in a rare one, which feels inconsistent.

In conclusion, Fish Box is charming and full of potential, but it’s still rough around the edges. With clearer explanations of its mechanics, a more balanced economy, a more informative UI, and a higher level of polish overall, I can easily see it becoming a game that offers hours of relaxing gameplay. Achievement hunters should be aware, however, that it’s very grindy: catching 1000 fish, collecting all legendary ones, and winning a huge sum through lottery tickets all require a significant time investment.