Bit-Cremental: Fishistry

This is the slowest most boring idler i've played. Progression is slow, musics are overly repetitive, automation is almost worthless...

If you want an idle game that hijacks your dopamine and gives you a ton of things to work toward for dozens of hours, this isn't that. If you want something more akin to a cute desktop distraction that you check in on here and there for a few hours, this fits the bill. The progress is pretty slow feeling until the endgame and it didn't often hit a very satisfying balance for me, but for a few bucks the cute aesthetic was pleasant enough to carry me through catching all of the fish. It's a light recommend from me, but by no means is it bad.

chill

I have a love-hate relationship with idle games. In many ways, it's difficult to call them games at all. Often they're more like interactive screensavers. I would say Bit-cremental Fishistry (BCF) certainly falls under this category. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Idle games fill that niche where you find yourself too busy or preoccupied to actively engage in an experience but still yearn for that lizard-brain dopamine hit of "making progress". Having said that, I don't think BCF truly scratches that itch for me. It's a bit too superficial, a bit too repetitive, and a bit too simple. It felt like a developer's first game. Which surprised me further, when I realized that Inner Realm Studios has been making games for over 5+ years. In such a scenario, it may as well have been a free experience. The moment you introduce pricing is the moment that this game now opens itself up to parallel comparisons with other idle games in a similar range. For instance, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3454590/Cornerpond/]Cornerpond[/url], developed by foolsroom, is also priced the same as BCF. In fact, it also shares the same fishing theme. But the detail and features are worlds apart. [spoiler]For instance, the fish are actually visually distinguishable in Cornerpond.[/spoiler] To be fair, even at a Free to Play price point, there is already plenty of polished and expansive games competing for your limited time as a consumer. As such, I can't in good conscience recommend BCF.

Not a long game, not a bad game. Kinda wish there was more, but I don't regret buying it.

Too simple and repetitive even for an idle game.

This is a pretty slow-paced surface level idler without much going on. It's got a good aesthetic, but unfortunately the retro presentation isn't much to go on by itself. The sound and music becomes grating too, so I don't think there's much worth getting this for and I wouldn't recommend it.