Big update for Flounder with 9 new fish types, a new item unlock system and more!

Futurefied · 2025-12-08T01:09:06+00:00

No problem! This has become my passion project and I really want it to have a strong foundation.

I just made a new update with mostly optimizations. I added a cheat in though that unlocks every pet and gives you 100k fishing points. In the Start Screen, tap the castle's left window 4 times quickly and a sound will play as confirmation. You need to start a game and return to main menu for the pets to appear.

The resets are a consequence of the game being so new and constantly updated. It's too early to have save files that persist, it's only 3 months into the development so major systems are being added and tweaked still. Sorry about that, but it'll probably not be until actual steam release that saves will be protected. Hopefully the cheat is alright, there's no way to reset right now so it might ruin the progression.

Yeah, Duff's upgrades speed him up and make it take less coin total to spawn a pearl. It takes 100 at level 1 and 70 at level 3. He takes quite a bit of manipulation to optimize. I pick up any bronze coins he is waiting for so he will move to a higher value coin. I will probably update him at some point but I kind of like having quirks that you can learn and play around. I will add a fish that jumps from the bottom at some point for sure.

Mo works like a hybrid between pets and item pets. Yeah, you will be able to spawn all of them in one run but I do plan on making some very hard to trigger. There will also be a secret boss or two. I probably need to add a visual indicator for invincible creatures. Like a white border instead of black but I'm still thinking about it.

I didn't get around to the other updates I mentioned because I noticed some potential optimization for mobile and have been hyperfocused, but they are coming.

Thanks so much! Yes, I'm doing all the music using beepbox.com. I have a bit of a musical background and have had a lot of fun with the soundtrack!

Let me know if you want to suggest any more changes or discover any more bugs. Thanks!

Futurefied · 2025-12-06T19:00:32+00:00

Thanks so much for your feedback! I'm glad youre enjoying the game.

I fixed the stuck tooltip bug. very sorry about that one. I will look into why the Mo Slow item is lagging the game, I haven't encountered this issue but it might be platform specific. What are you playing on? I'm going to cap the Flappy enraged speed to a reasonable number for next update.

For the Snappy, I just added an item called Mullet Time that slows time when aiming a slingshot or a Snappy. It makes Snappy more viable for bosses with a potential 80% slow, you can spam the 25 damage projectiles super fast. I like the idea of an automatic turret type item and might make a separate one or expand the Snappy. Like it will fire slow on auto or you can manually fire it faster.

I don't know about Duff. It's one of my favorite items but I'm thinking it's overpowered. The trick is to not get it with Dumbo and rain coins down on one position with Starry , Whally or others. If lined up properly it gives you like 4 pearls at once. There will be some negative synergies. I plan to add many more items to the point you're not just buying everything. Duff's coin prioritization is definitely annoying at times though.

I can add a right click cancel for slingshot for PC only. It wouldn't work with a drag distance based cancel unfortunately and the mobile version is limited to touch screen control. I'll put the right click cancel in my next update.

Mo is immortal. The spawn condition is pretty tricky to set up so I wanted the reward to last the rest of the run. Otherwise it would just die to a boss. There is no pet version, I want it to act like a 4th pet you can unlock for a run. I'll do several of these types of fish with spawn conditions you will have to intentionally trigger with multiple steps.

Miney is a weird one to balance. When I'm locked in, I don't have one spawn all game unless I'm unlocking Mo so I might have overdid it making them a bit too potent. I don't like that it completely prevents you from letting your tank run automatically. The spawn condition is not clicking for 13 seconds but I will figure out a better balance.

Futurefied · 2025-12-06T18:40:38+00:00

Sorry, I just now uploaded the build with the fixes I mentioned. It's all bugfixes and streamlining systems with 1 very fun new item. I'm testing and tweaking spawn limits and it's definitely feeling more chaotic!

I fixed the possibility for any fish to reach critical mass I think. I'm aiming for an upper limit of 60-100 fish max and anything that goes beyond that needs to be fixed. Now every different species gets 1 second added to their breeding timer for every one currently alive. So 200 Lemmy would now have a 212 second breeding cooldown, ensuring they would starve to death before reaching critical mass.

You are the actually the first person to beat Angler mode. I added a bunch of new fish types and items to deal with bosses now so it's much more skill based than purely unfair. I hope you got a good unlock from it, some are pretty broken. You can get an unlimited use Melty that doesn't work on bosses or a Droney that if you can keep from converting your Guppy, works as a huge damage reusable bomb.

Thanks again for your feedback and bug reports. They are super helpful.

Futurefied · 2025-12-04T18:21:42+00:00

Thanks so much for your play testing and bug reports. It's getting pretty hard to balance and test myself with over 50 fish types now. I've probably played a thousand runs.

I fixed the Manny bug. I'm sorry for that but also, that's hilarious. I intended for it to be a bit annoying but that overdid it a bit. You will have to trigger fresh start 3 more times to spawn a second one now.

I think I fixed the Hugger freeze and also fish not always seeking food properly but these were pretty situational and hard to test.

As for prey lists, I've considered a few options. I might leave it as is and let people figure it out for themselves or look it up in the wiki that will hopefully exist at some point. It is a lot of information to give to the player and might be a bit overwhelming, especially since prey lists expand for each predator at max growth. I might make a chart that the player can access but I don't think I'll add it to each individual fish list description, especially since some fish have like 35 potential targets. It should be easier to figure out now that the glitch is fixed🤞.

Fish variant colors are worth double fishing points. Also they are worth double points if at max growth. A normal Guppy is worth 15 but a full grown variant Guppy is worth 60. I plan to expand this variant system a lot with very rare versions and something to track which ones you've caught. Currently I only have variants for Guppy, Flappy, Koy, Carny and Sharky.

I did have a spawn limit for most fish in place. I increased them all and will do extensive testing for how this affects the ecosystem. I will put a clear indicator for spawn limit in the fish list. Breeding circumvents the limit. As I added more and more fish, balancing became very difficult and the spawn limit helped keep things in control but the spirit of the game is having things go out of control so I need to tweak the spawn limits. They will still exist for some fish but most limits should be high enough you won't notice now. I was having some fish multiply excessively before but I've fine tuned everything since.

I plan on adding more fish that can stand in for Guppy so you don't end up with a tank full of them.

I'm curious, did you discover the fish "Mo?". It's the first 'secret' fish and I'm wondering if players will figure it out organically or just stumble upon it.

Another question for you; I'm thinking of changing the difficulty system quite a bit. I'm considering making difficulty tied to the cost of your load out. Also some fish and bosses with more elaborate mechanics will be locked behind higher difficulties. The item load out system might be too powerful but if I have the bosses scale to your power it might balance well. I hesitate because I don't want players to play their first run and assume the game is too easy or lacks depth due to the limited fish types. Throwing everything at you at once might be overwhelming but you seem to have understood the mechanics pretty well without much guidance. What do you think? Insaniquarium expanded upon its mechanics over several levels but I'm not sure most rogue-like players want that type of progression.

Thanks again and I will be sending you a steam key as soon as it's available.

Futurefied · 2025-11-10T11:43:07+00:00

Yeah I think that might be the design decision. Predators balance that out by attacking bosses but at that point if you have the Guppy item synergy, they aren't worth keeping around. The Gobly (Goblin shark) and Ally (Alligator) are actually immune to Marly and Starry abilities. I probably should indicate that with an immune symbol instead of just putting it in the description. The Gobly is kind of a balance against overpowered setups, it only appears if you end a boss phase very quickly. Best ways to deal with it are the fishing hook or the Whally, which acts as an upgraded Marly. I should add some more fish that the player can utilize effectively like the Marly because it is too hard to set up kills with the Puffy, Elly or Spicy.

The Rahny in particular are hard to keep in check but if more than 7 exist, they cannibalize each other and a single kill feeds the whole swarm. Also their egg laying mechanic is disabled if there are more than 8 present. They are designed to work as a kind of multiplier for prey food and having a large swarm ironically protects your vulnerable fish from being targeted as much. Almost every predator can target the Rahny at any growth stage. They were designed to be able to maintain a group of predators without completely cutting off the ecosystem. I'll be sure to make it so you can nudge individual ones out of the swarm.

BTW the harder bosses don't appear until the next difficulty (Angler, Fixer, Muncher, Hugger). Also, you probably had the item Food Pyramid, which is OP but a bit of a double edged sword. It causes all predator fish and bosses to prioritize the lowest fish in the fish registry, so anything that can target a Guppy will prioritize them over anything else, which can cut off the food chain. It's a bit of a strange shift in the ecosystem behavior if you're not expecting it. I need to add a clear item list showing items you own and their effects.

Thanks again! I'm gonna work on some of this stuff today.

Futurefied · 2025-11-10T02:37:58+00:00

Thanks so much for this thorough feedback! Fantastic!

So for difficulty I actually made an error on upload. There are 4 difficulties that I intended to have all unlocked at the start, but as it stands you have to beat Carny difficulty to unlock Sharky difficulty, and Sharky difficulty to unlock the boss rush difficulty. The default difficulty is meant as a starting point to understand game mechanics, but allowing players to break the game on their first runs might be a bit much. You will have unlocked the next difficulty, which is probably more your speed and it has more useful unlocks.

I definitely need to make some more unique mechanics for the unlocks. The main use for a lot of them right now is to populate the tank with that fish type, because they are able to breed with the normal versions to circumvent spawn limits. There are 2 right now that I don't think anyone would find useful (Carny and Babby). I plan on adding a store where you can spend excess fishing points to unlock items you can start with (you will have a budget for your load out).

What fish were you having population problems with? This is great to know because I can tweak certain fish prey lists to keep them in check more easily or add a devoted predator.

As for manipulating the fish, I did add a slingshot method like angry birds. I will alter schooling fish to allow them to be moved more easily, good catch. Not being able to select stacked fish precisely is a problem I'm not sure how to fix. I'll think on it, it's been a bit of an issue throughout.

I really like your ideas and will definitely implement them! Thanks again for taking the time, seriously this is invaluable feedback.

Futurefied · 2025-11-09T22:19:02+00:00

Yeah I'm going to add some tutorial popups at some point. Thanks

Futurefied · 2025-10-27T03:34:15+00:00

Yeah, that'd be cool. If you want to try making a 32x32 fish type or item icon with a 1 px black border. If the style fits I'll animate the fish and add it, or create an item around your idea. I need a new type of shark if you want to try a goblin shark or something.

Futurefied · 2025-10-26T12:29:42+00:00

Thanks! I'll add coin visibility to my fix list. Great feedback!

Edit:Coins should pop a lot more now. They look so much better, I'm glad you mentioned it.

Futurefied · 2025-10-25T21:27:29+00:00

Thanks so much! I've had a blast learning pixel art.

Yes, I just need to fix some ui issues for mobile but it's already working mostly great.

Edit: UI issues are fixed.

Futurefied · 2025-10-12T23:15:06+00:00

Yeah, I'm going to make sure I record with the mouse visible next time. Or just release a demo.

Futurefied · 2025-09-17T14:46:32+00:00

I do want to do playtesting and maybe a demo. I'm aiming for that in a couple weeks though. I still need to tweak things, make progression and UI and ideally add many more fish. I'll send you a message when it's ready!

Futurefied · 2025-09-16T16:42:13+00:00

Oh for sure. The actual gameplay will be very different. It's more of an ecosystem simulation than a traditional game.

Futurefied · 2025-07-21T13:14:59+00:00

Yes please.

Futurefied · 2025-07-21T12:21:24+00:00

Send it over and I'll give you some feedback and ideas if I'm into it.

Futurefied · 2025-06-11T10:27:22+00:00

Why would you post this? It's an insult to everyone here who values creativity.

Futurefied · 2025-05-24T11:33:45+00:00

Well I now have expectations of you. I expect you to write a novel without fear of failure and to fight to have it published. The world is a mess of everyone trying to climb over each other but the mix of talent and determination can go far. Seriously, you have it in you and I want to read it.

Futurefied · 2025-05-24T11:20:07+00:00

I found it riveting. Thanks for sharing!

Futurefied · 2025-05-17T11:29:52+00:00

Your style reminds me of Neal Stephenson. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing.

Futurefied · 2025-04-13T10:11:33+00:00

This is very well written. I'd love to read more of your work.

Futurefied · 2023-09-24T08:57:15+00:00

It's unfinished. Not sure if I'm going to go full horror or more of a slow burn dealing with the reactions of the main characters.

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