Fissh

Back when the console with a crank was first announced, everyone assumed there would be a bunch of fishing games. As a result, there weren’t any, for a long time. Eventually Toad’s Reel-istic Fishing came out and blew everyone away, and we’re finally getting other fishing games that have to live up to that impossibly high bar. The secret, it turns out, is to take some of the great ideas from Reel-istic Fishing but make the actual fishing activity feel very different. Enter Fissh.

In Fissh, you have a little boat and want to try and make some money. You don’t fish for fish, though: you’re reeling in crabs. There are short story cutscenes to set the mood and explain why you’re out there, and occasionally a possum will sell you some new boat upgrades. The actual fishing is more like a crane game. You’ll move your boat back and forth from a side viewpoint kind of like the classic Shark! Shark! on the Intellivision, and you’ll send your crab claw down into the depths, reeling in and out with the crank. When a crab (or a crab wearing a crown, worth more money) floats by, you push down on the d-pad to grab it. Reel it in, avoiding jellyfish and sharks and other obstacles, to make money. Catch enough crabs to get to the next level.

Each stage is timed, but there’s no apparent timer. Instead, the sun or the moon will float across the sky, and when it hits the other side of the screen, time’s up! You can get longer levels by buying upgrades, but it has kind of a funny way of showing you that the level is over: the Fissh title logo will slowly scroll over the entire screen, indicating that that’s it. There’s no real abruptness to it, and I appreciate the sort of gentleness of letting you know it’s time to stop fishing for now. You’ll be trying to reel in one last crab before the logo covers the whole screen; it’s pretty cute.

The normal levels, where you have to grab a certain amount of crabs before time is up, aren’t too challenging. Especially if you’ve bought good upgrades (the game is NOT long enough to get them all, so make sure you pick your favorite first), even the fastest crabs won’t be too much for you. The bosses are another thing, though. Each has their own strategy that will not be clear at first, and some will take quite a few tries before you can figure out your way past them. This flow of easy-but-interesting normal stages (each with a new something to differentiate them from each other) alternating with challenging bosses really worked for me. The whole game is just a few hours long and will take a lot of focus on the tiny screen to do well. The jellyfish (bad, will shock you) look a bit like the crabs at first glance, but I think that’s by design. Sharks will eat your crabs right out of your claw, and there are a good variety of ways to keep the game interesting right on through to one of the multiple endings.

It seemed like everyone would make a fishing game on the Playdate, but they haven’t. I’d like more, please, if they are as good as Reel-istic Fishing and Fissh!

(Released August 5, 2025, on Catalog. Free demo available on Itch. Copy provided by developer.)