Laying the Foundations of the Game

It all started with a “what if”

Months ago I sat down one evening and thought, “what if this could be a game?” The idea was simple: the boat up top, the line going down, fish coming in, obstacles in the way. But I had never once opened Unity.

The first few days went entirely into learning. “Why is this object falling?”, “why won't the camera follow the fish?”, “how do I even get the score on screen?” Every answer produced a new question. But past a certain point, the pieces fell into place.

The first working game loop

The biggest achievement of Milestone 1 was this: we could actually play it. There was no start screen, no sound, and the art was nothing but ugly placeholders. But the run system worked — the line went down and came back up, fish were caught, the score built up on screen. It may sound small, but it was really everything.

The run system works like this: every dive is one run. The run ends, the upgrade screen opens, money is spent, a new run begins. The money and score systems were built on top of that — catching a fish gives points, points accumulate into money; simple, but satisfying. The combo mechanic rewards catching fish back to back with a bonus multiplier, which gives the game a rhythm. The best score is saved locally, and beating your own record turns out to be addictive on its own.

Small touches that mattered

The first time we ran the game, the static, lifeless look of the boat bothered us. The fix was a small sway animation: the boat rocks gently back and forth. That one thing alone made the game feel alive.

The depth gauge arrived in this milestone too — a circular dial showing how far down the line has gone. Visually it does two jobs at once: it informs, and it creates tension. “Should I go a little deeper?” is a question you answer by looking at that dial.

The shield system was our first surprise. Instead of hitting an obstacle meaning instant game over, we put a shield layer in between. The player is punished less, but the sense of risk is still there. Our first playtesters loved it.

Looking back today

Most of the code from this milestone is still in the game. The naming is in Turkish, the structure is plain, and it is easy to read. Everything that came later — the shop, the characters, support for 10 languages, the animations — was built on top of this foundation.

Maybe our biggest lesson was this: working code before perfect code. However ugly the prototype looks, everything changes the moment it becomes playable.