You play as a cat who has been sailing the world until you eventually reach an island where you meet four hungry kittens. Without giving it a second thought, you decide to help them by catching fish. This becomes the main gameplay loop, where you aim at fish with your mouse cursor while your cat fires magical bolts at them. The bolts explode slightly on impact, damaging every fish caught within the blast radius. Once a fish takes enough damage, shown by the health bar above it, you successfully catch it.
You only have a limited amount of time to catch as many fish as possible, but every trip back to the island is designed to make you better at fishing. After returning, you feed the kittens by hovering your mouse cursor over them, and they reward you with coins. The kittens take a few seconds to eat each fish, which can become annoying quite quickly because the more fish you collect, the longer you have to wait. The waiting time also depends on the size of the fish. Thankfully, like most problems in the game, this can be solved through upgrades.
Upgrades are purchased from the Cat God. The upgrade tree follows the familiar structure of many incremental games, starting with only one available upgrade. However, purchasing it reveals new connected upgrades. Buying those unlocks even more options, allowing you to slowly uncover the entire tree.
Some upgrades can be purchased multiple times, but fortunately, their price does not increase after each purchase. If an upgrade can be bought five times, every purchase will cost the same amount. On the other hand, upgrades start fairly expensive, so you will not unlock everything immediately. You can focus on the upgrades that matter most to you first, although eventually you will probably want to max everything out before moving forward.
The upgrade tree does not begin with too much variety. It includes the usual improvements like increased damage and firing speed, higher fish value, and the extremely important eating speed upgrade. As you progress, you unlock new fish types that appear in the ocean, as well as helpers that join you during fishing trips. These helpers are even more effective than your own cat, making it much easier to catch every fish before the timer runs out.
After playing for a while, you might start thinking that the upgrade tree only contains around 15 upgrades. However, this is where the cat’s level system becomes important. Your level increases with every fish delivered to the kittens, and reaching certain milestones unlocks new groups of upgrades and additional fishing locations. These new areas contain tougher fish, but they also provide better rewards. Sometimes, your progress through the upgrade tree is blocked by a boss fish that you must catch before it escapes. Luckily, this is not too difficult as long as you continue investing in upgrades.
The new batches of upgrades are mostly improved versions of things you have already seen, allowing you to keep up with the increasing difficulty. You get more damage, faster firing speed, higher fish value, and quicker eating times. There are also new fish types and additional kittens to discover. The gameplay loop is very familiar, but it remains enjoyable thanks to some unique upgrades, such as the ability to fire multiple projectiles at once.
The game also includes several interesting features that add some extra excitement. Treasure chests can occasionally appear and contain a random perk. These perks usually increase fishing time or the number of fish you can catch, but some are more unique, such as instantly catching fish or automatically feeding kittens, which works even while you’re out fishing. Another rare feature is the gacha card system, where fish can drop cards that are used to create a collection. Each card represents one of the fish available in the game. Besides showing the fish’s value and health, owning a card for a specific fish also increases the damage you deal to that type of fish.
The game has a decent length and includes some grinding, but it never becomes enough to ruin the overall experience. The biggest issue grind in the end game, where progress slows down significantly because you need to collect all cards and treasure, and earn large amounts of money to unlock all achievements. Still, reaching that point means you have already experienced the majority of what the game has to offer.
