Whisker Waters

Whisker Waters is a cute RPG centred around cats and fishing. Despite its overwhelmingly cute and wholesome appearance, the game itself feels very unfinished and lacks some core features that it so desperately needs. The game is filled with many things to do, but it is hard to focus on these as the awful, choppy performance and terrible camera angles started making me feel nauseous so I had to stop. I hope to return to the game if some of the issues mentioned are patched in future updates as there does seem like a fun game underneath the issues, just needed more time in development. [b] [u]Pros[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Excellent character creation [*] Absurdly cute. Cats & fishing = winning combo! [*] Variable fishing mechanics [/list] [b] [u]Cons[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Floating objects everywhere you look (including needed objects such as wood or apples) [*] Missing textures with severe clipping [*] Lack of quest markers or directions on quest items, locations etc [*] Severe frame rate drops in towns [*] Choppy camera angles and movement that became nausea inducing [*] The same song seems to play on loop the entire game [/list] [quote] If you would like to see more reviews written by me, please follow my curator page and help support my work [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34936724/] Cookie Reviews[/url]. [/quote] [h1]Story[/h1] You play as a young feline who has aspirations of improving their fishing skills and finding out what happened to the prestigious Fish Rangers, and can they live up to their expectations? Explore the area, help out townsfolk and complete ample quests. There are many different regions to explore and the environment is semi open world, with more villages unlocking as the game progresses. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Whisker Waters sets out to combine two lovable things, cats and fishing. It succeeds at this and managed to draw in the “cozy gamer” crowd, myself included… however, sadly, it so desperately needed to be Early Access or have more development time before release. I see great potential in this and am disappointed to see it in such a poor state at launch. I am hopeful that developers [i] Underbite Games[/i] will continue to update and improve on its current issues. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237432905&tscn=1714641446 The crux of the game is that you run around, complete standard fetch-type quests for characters and of course, fish. Fishing was ok and had a few different mini-game variations to try and keep things fresh. It still wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be, given that it is the games main feature. Collecting different bait will attract different fish, some fish will be easier to catch than others, some may be scared if you cast your line too close to them etc. I found it difficult to tell which fish is which before I caught them, as many look the same from a distance and there is no way of identifying them prior to catching them, unless you can recognise their colours just at surface level. There is also a light combat element which I did not expect. You have a spear and can hit enemies, but take one hit and you will “die,” but will respawn at the entry to the hazardous area, so it is very forgiving. [b][u]Quests[/u][/b] Besides the performance, I found quests to be rather frustrating. There are no quest markers or icons on the map. There is no way of telling which character is going to give you a quest, or a simple “hello” dialogue. This means you must interact with everyone to see if you might get lucky and get a quest. There is no ability to track quests either, there will be no map pinpoint, only a vague description that typically only makes sense if you remember where you originally picked up the quest. Even if you have found the needed item, the map will not distinguish the quest giver, so you have no idea where to take it, or which region it is in. These are core features in most RPGs and to have them completely lacking here just felt like a big waste of the players time. [b][u]Performance Issues & Motion Sickness[/u][/b] I cannot quite describe why this game induces such bad motion sickness, but even at higher frame rates, it just feels very choppy. Moving the camera angles quickly gave me a headache and lowering sensitivity did not seem to help. Venturing into highly populated areas resulted in a FPS tank from 90 to around 40-50 which made the motion sickness much worse. Trying to catch bugs or scratch on scratching posts will often cause the camera to rotate to a strange angle, being blocked behind a tree or within the ground or skybox, blocking the cute animation. My character was commonly missing one leg and there were floating objects everywhere. Apples floated in the air beside trees, logs were also floating which was frustrating as this was a quest item that I just could not get without purchasing them due to most being floating out of reach. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237463251 [h1]Visuals & Sound[/h1] The graphics are very simple with some expected missing textures but overall is quite cute. Unfortunately, the many bugs undermine the simple but effective visuals. Sound is very lackluster. The same song seems to loop on repeat for the games entirety, or at least for the first few hours. There is no voice acting and a severe lack of ambient sound. [h1]Technical & Stats [/h1] [quote][b]This game was played using a keyboard & mouse, and with the following PC specs.:[/b] AMD Ryzen R5 7600x 5.4 GHz 32GB DDR5 5200 CL36 RAM Radeon RX 6800 XT 2560x1440 resolution NVMe 3.0 SSD Windows 10[/quote] [b]Playtime:[/b] 2 hours for me until I had to stop due to dizziness and motion sickness. [b] Controller Recommended? [/b] Player choice. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237433492 [b]Replayability value:[/b] No, but I suspect it has a hefty playtime with all side and main quests. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Whisker Waters has many areas where it needs improvements and could have benefited from more development time, which may not have been a viable option for the Dev team. However, I hope developers will take onboard the constructive criticism and continue to improve their game, especially patching in quest icons and fixing the motion sickness / camera angles. [quote] Follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] [b]IndieGems[/b][/url] if you enjoyed this review and wish to see more like it[/quote]

DON"T BUY THIS GAME IT HAS BEEN ABANDONED!!!!!

Dont get me wrong I do really like this game. The minigames are a lot of fun once you get used to them. The graphics are cute and I just love the premise of the game. It does have a lot of bugs. Most of which I can let slide without it ruining the game. What stops me from recommending the game is the camera and the combat. The camera is either getting caught on something or blocked by the environment. When using the spear or bomb tool the camera is locked at an awkward angle. when you go to pick up something while having either tool equipped the camera spins around. The combat is just... bad. I actually like a little combat in my cozy games but in this game its just ridiculous. It only takes one shot for an enemy to knock you out. You only have a spear to fight with so you have to get up close. Enemies will gang up on you and they can clip through the environment so you cant even see them til they already hit you. Every time you get knocked out you lose a quarter of the day. Combine all that with the bad camera and it just becomes so frustrating. I also found it way to easy to fall into the water. And unless you are next to a ramp you will drown in 3 seconds losing part of your day.

I love cats, I love fishing games, this seems like a game made for me. 29 minutes later and I am on the floor begging for a refund. What even is this?

まったり釣りを楽しめるアドベンチャーRPG🐱🎣 釣りミニゲームは連打やタイミングなど魚の種類によって色々なパターンあり。 レベルは無く、釣り具をアップグレードして大きな獲物を狙います。 バトルや探索要素もあってじっくり楽しめる。 猫ちゃんのキャラメイクや着せ替えができる点がポイント高い！うちの子可愛い🥰 カメラがちょっと独特で三人称視点でも酔いやすいのが難点。

I have played this game for 2.5 hrs had no issues or bugs and the only thing I noticed was the camera which I can understand it making people feel ill while playing the game. I went into the settings and fixed the camera issue and don't feel sick it's a simple fix sadly this game is getting bad reviews due to that I am here to give it a good review I am hoping that the developers can fix the game and make it better loving it so far and enjoying the fishing.

As the game is now i cannot in good faith recommend the game. It is far too unpolished. The world is pretty empty and the camera is far too shaky (i had to stop playing the game due to nausea) This game needs way more time to cook

고양이와 낚시라는 환상적인 조합에 고양이가 꽤 귀엽지만 낚시는 실망스럽습니다. 손맛을 느끼기엔 컨트롤러를 지원하지만 진동이 전혀 없고, 낚시의 짜릿함을 느끼기엔 찌를 물 때부터 어종과 티어를 알려주며, 여유로운 힐링을 하기엔 낚시 시스템이 너무 번거롭거든요. 원하는 물고기를 잡으려면 미끼를 물려 타이밍에 맞게 물에 던지고, 방향 조작으로 물고기의 환심을 얻은 후, 약 서너 번의 미니 게임에 성공해야 합니다. 서식 환경과 어종에 따라 다른 미니 게임이 등장하겠지만, 물고기 하나를 잡는 동안에는 같은 미니 게임이 반복됩니다. 원하지 않는 물고기가 찌를 무는 일도 빈번한데 게이지를 모아 사용할 수 있는 내쫓기 스킬로 물리쳐야 합니다. 원하는 물고기도 같이 달아나는 문제가 있지만요. 이런 복잡한 시스템의 가장 큰 함정은 물고기를 낚지 못했더라도 미끼가 소진되며, 미끼를 구하기가 어렵다는 겁니다. 획득하는 방법이야 덤불을 뒤적이거나 끈끈이 볼을 던져 잡으면 그만이지만 리젠 주기가 너무 길어 미끼가 쉽게 모자라는 상황이 일어납니다. 퀘스트 물고기를 잡지 못하고 미끼를 다 써 버려서, 물에 빠지는 방법으로 이틀 밤을 보냈지만 덤불과 물가에 벌레가 다시 생기는 일은 없었습니다. 당장 쓸모 없는 통나무만 계속 주울 수 있었는데, 최근 패치 노트에 통나무 획득 이슈가 있던 걸 보면 자원 수급의 밸런스에 미흡함이 있는 것 같습니다. 전반적으로 만듦새도 좋진 않습니다. 컨트롤러 기준으로는 팝업창의 우선순위가 꼬여 있어 작동하지 않거나 원하지 않는 동작이 일어나버려서 다시 메뉴에 들어가야 한다거나 하는 UX의 정리가 심하게 부족합니다. 버튼과 퀘스트 설명이 생략되어 있다거나 퀘스트와 지도가 제때 갱신되지 않는 문제로 혼란을 주기도 합니다. 카메라 조작은 감도를 낮추면 훨씬 나아지긴 하지만, 화면을 전환할 때나 특정한 상황마다 일어나는 카메라 연출에 멀미가 나고요. 가장 듣기 좋은 사운드인 고양이 목소리가 너무 작은데 다른 소리와 분리해서 키울 방법도 없습니다. 인디 게임의 부족함을 크게 감안하고, 복잡하지만 독특한 방식의 낚시 게임을 고양이 콘셉트로 즐기고 싶은 분에게는 아주 제한적으로 추천할 수 있습니다. 하지만 일반적으로 낚시 게임에 기대하는 손맛과 부담없는 반복, 무난한 쾌적함을 바란다면 다른 게임을 하는 게 좋을 것 같습니다. [quote] [url=store.steampowered.com/curator/44960677]✍🏻 [b]큐레이터[/b]로 활동 중입니다. [b]팔로우[/b]하고 리뷰를 구독하세요.[/url] [/quote]

Runs poorly on Steam Deck with noticeable frame drops (like single digit fps) in beginning area. I didn't have issues with reading the text though, and the graphics were very cute. I adjusted the camera speed down before playing, so it didn't make me sick or anything, but I agree it needs a little work. Gameplay feels okay. Controls felt a little tank-y and unresponsive, but overall it was decent. The tutorial was very thorough and does a great job introducing you to the mechanics. The fishing itself is nuanced and interesting, I think the devs did a great job with it. However, during the reeling in, you get periodically interrupted with little minigames to help you reel the fish in. I think it's a neat idea but I found it more bothersome than fun, because they were quite frequent and I felt like it took me out of the experience a bit, to rapidly shift from action to action like that. That, and the framerate, are the main reasons I refunded. I think this game has a ton of potential, but as of right now, I personally don't want to sink hours into it. However, that doesn't mean I don't think others will like it. I think if you're playing on a PC with better specs than the Deck, and if you like little minigames, you should give it a try (at least when it's on sale).

As someone who loves cats and fishing in games I really wanted to love this and decided to try it out for myself despite all the negative reviews, but the game was just more stressful and annoying than it was fun/relaxing for me. I loved the customization of the cats and the graphics are beautiful. I liked running around getting the bugs and even enjoyed the fishing mini games as it was something different, however the fishing itself was more annoying than it was relaxing to me. It felt way too chaotic and difficult having so many fish in one area trying to grab my line when I only needed one specific fish for a quest. Even when using the mechanics to try to get other fish away it was still so many leaving me too overwhelmed to actually enjoy the game so I ended up requesting for a refund.