Back in the early EARLY days of the App Store, one of my biggest obsessions was Strange Flavour’s Flick Fishing, which was published by Freeverse. Back then it was extremely novel when games took advantage of the iPhones unique capabilities, and although it might seem gimmicky now there was nothing cooler than being able to cast your virtual line by flicking your device and mimicking a casting motion. The actual mechanics in Flick Fishing were great too, as you had to strategize with what baits to use, what locations to scout, and knowing when to reel your fish in and when to cut it some slack so as not to snap your line during your little game of underwater tug-o-war. Anyway, Flick Fishing was super popular for a long time, but in 2011 it stopped receiving updates and eventually was pulled from the App Store altogether.
After Freeverse was bought by Ngmoco and eventually shuttered, Strange Flavour went on to create a library of awesome games which they published directly, including their attempt at a pseudo sequel to Flick Fishing released just over a year ago called Fast Fishing (Free). It took the whole idea of Flick Fishing but turned it into more of a “blitz mode" version, which was a nice enough idea but didn’t feel so great in practice. Fishing can be stressful and exciting at times, but it’s also a classic form of relaxation, and tacking on a frantic timed element kind of wrecked that. To Strange Flavour’s credit they added what was essentially classic Flick Fishing gameplay to the game by way of new modes and updates, but it sort of felt like it was too late for Fast Fishing.
Well, now they’re taking another crack at it on iOS this week with Fish!, a true spiritual successor to Flick Fishing where Strange Flavour itself adds “this time we didn’t mess around and we gave it the same game modes as the original."
You may have already experienced Fish! as it’s been available on the Apple TV for a few months, but the iOS release will actually contain 2 brand new locations and 3 new types of fish to catch. As with all of Strange Flavour’s games, it’s fully Universal so if you already own the Apple TV version you’ll magically be able to download the iOS version for free when it releases this Thursday. That also means the new content will be heading to the Apple TV version as well.
I haven’t tried out the game on Apple TV yet so it’ll be an entirely new experience for me, and as a huge Flick Fishing fan I appreciated what Strange Flavour tried to do with Fast Fishing but it never quite captured my heart in the same way, so I’m hoping Fish! will be the game to do that. Look for Fish! later this week for a price of $2.99.
