Webfishing, Or How Alexandra Day Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Online Hangouts And Fishing | Winter Spectacular 2024
It's fair to say that 2024 has been a year. With everything going on, it's not surprising that many of us have retreated into media for comfort or used said media to explore and contextualise the world we currently exist in as we try to survive it.
Webfishing is not my favourite game of the year (that would probably go to 1000x Resist or thecatamites' wonderful Anthology of the Killer). That being said, Webfishing offered me something that no other game has this year: a casual hangout space. When so many social media sites are either shutting down (RIP Cohost) or becoming a nightmare to use, this game offered me an easygoing, queer-friendly space to chat or just chill with my fellow fishers.
I'm old enough to remember the days of MSN Messenger being one of the de facto ways to hang out with your friends online. This was, of course, before many of the big social media sites were in their heyday or even existed in any real form, so messaging services like this were the places you hung out with your friends. Spending my teenage years in rural Ireland, MSN was a lifeline for me when many of my friends could only hang out in person outside of school occasionally or when our parents could drive us to meet somewhere. The customisation of the platform was very basic, only being able to edit your profile picture, share that you were listening to music on Windows Media Player and put dramatic lyrics from your new favourite song as your status update.
I mention this 20+ year-old platform because it's what Webfishing reminds me of most. Not just in the chatroom aspect but the simplicity of its design. Your player character is either a cat or dog and you have a relatively small range of cosmetic items you can get by catching fish. That is the entire game loop in a nutshell. You use that money to get new items, upgrade your gear or the facilities available to you on the island. So, what makes it so special?
First and foremost, the entry fee for playing this game is €5. There is no battlepass, DLC (as of writing anyway but it's made by a small team so probably unlikely we'd see anything like that for a while) and everything can be bought for in-game currency. There is no grind as such or having to craft your equipment at regular intervals to survive. Webfishing is remarkably free of a lot of what feels like busywork and padding in many contemporary games.
The other special aspect of this game is the public chat. The fishing aspect of the game is just engaging enough that it's possible to interface with both at the same time. Often, the conversations here are users trying to make each other laugh or just talking about their lives. Other times, you can find servers catering to different social groups and offering them a space to hang out. You are generally matched with people in the same country as you or in the surrounding countries so it's usually easy to find common ground in conversations. I've had silly as well as very thoughtful conversations by utilising this side of the game.
Finally, I want to highlight the reality that while there are groups that seem to play together across servers over multiple play sessions, it's not been a cliquey pain to navigate that in my experience. Users are generally friendly and eager for you to take part. Maybe that will change over time as more people discover the game and as it grows but for now, I've not felt like I'm on the outside looking in at others having fun. I think there is also joy to be found in the reality that most of the users you engage with, in the game, will only be a one-time experience, never to be recreated. When social media has become so much about putting forth this perfect version of yourself, it's nice to be able to engage with people who bring no preconceived notions with them. Also, there's something special in the impermanence of it all. So many games with built-in social aspects try to keep you on an endless dopamine loop, lootboxes and continuous progression stopping you from exiting from the game. Webfisihing doesn't ask any of that from you. You don't even have to fish (outside of the tutorial) if you don't want to! When so much of the current gaming ecosystem is built on live-service and games-as-a-service titles battling to be the next “forever game”, it's refreshing to play something that is built for you to hang out with friends or people you've never met and may never speak to again. Isn't there a kind of magic in that?
