Good Ol’ Fishin’ Hole
Responsibilities
Art Direction
Game Design
Platform
Mobile
Team
1 Artist - Vega Castaneda
1 Developer - David Brett
Year
2024
The Challenge
The challenge with this game was to reimagine Cash Machine's popular "win what you see" mechanic as a laid back fishing experience.
Rather than presenting numerical prizes on spinning reels, the game needed every reward to feel like something a player could actually pull from the water at a favorite secret fishing spot.
designing the prizes
Cash Machine contains 32 possible prizes represented by 6 numerical symbols across the 3 reels.
Since every prize in our version needed its own illustrated fish, the art scope for Good Ol’ Fishin’ Hole increased dramatically.
That forced us to rethink how prizes were presented while keeping production manageable.
Polish Decisions
We couldn’t rely on player bet to determine which fish were available because it didn’t match the cozy fishing spirit we wanted this game to have. All players should have access to ALL the fish in the water.
So the bet was locked at max bet to allow for this without changing anything about the math model.
The final lineup of all prizes that can be caught in the game including fish, variants and duds!
Final Result
This game was the hero project on display for Everi Digital at G2E 2024.
Upon release, Everi Digital held an internal fishing tournament to celebrate. Gameplay in a competitive head-to-head setting was a huge hit.
My biggest lesson
From this project I learned you have to make losing FUN. Of course a game needs its spectacles and exciting points but there will be much more losing than winning.
There are multiple ways to ‘fight’ with a catch in anticipation and snap your line as well as 6 possible ‘dud’ catches that can be caught which are worth 0 credits. Additionally, there are multiple fish worth less than or equal to your bet. All these options keep the game visually interesting while the player searches for their next big catch!
The team and I finished this product already knowing what we could expand on and add for the sequel!
