The Lynchian About Fishing reels in the dread beneath the familiar

In my next attempt, I would be patient. I would wait for “the bite, and not the whispers” as the game initially tried to tell an overeager me. The second attempt was much faster. Learning the current, the full length of my line, where to place myself and the angle of the cast… About Fishing is about some damn fishing. 

Ultimately, fishing—no matter how pleasurable and tranquil—is about breaching the liminality of water. The surface versus the deep, held in place by a membrane. And down there, with the fish, are secrets and mysteries. And for this playtest, one very dead, pretty blonde girl. 

Let’s be clear. When there’s a pretty, blonde, and very dead girl wrapped in plastic on a cold, rocky shoreline, it’s Lynchian. There’s no way around it. We are all drink Arnorl Palmer here. I expect before the end of it, I’ll be exhausted hearing about how Lynchian About Fishing is from myself, friends, and fellow critics, but it’s unavoidable and astonishing that it actually works.  Such a direct, easily abusable, and unmistakable referent. But that’s the playground The Water Museum has chosen for About Fishing: tension in the familiar.

When I finally got that trout, my smoking, french-fry-tantalizing, in-game grandfather didn’t care. He kept staring at me and telling me there was more fish to catch. A bug, quickly remedied by reloading and trying again. But the imagery of a disappointed grandpa not giving a damn that you’d just single-handedly delivered a full-grown trout with a child’s fishing rod cuts surprisingly close to home, and I couldn’t not mention it. Much like Arctic Eggs, this is a game about connections to other people as much as it is about fishing. Just like how Shenmue, another touchpoint that is openly namechecked by The Water Museum, is a game about all the other people who aren’t on Ryo’s singularly-minded and impossibly-boring mystical revenge quest, but are still a part of his life and world. The conversations with Grandpa in this playtest are weird and unnerving, because they highlight that weird familiarity. Adults are weird, grandpas—even the loving and kind ones—are fucking weird, especially when you’re a kid. Every line of dialogue from Grandpa reminded me of both my own and every time you have to talk to an adult in Boku no Natsuyasumi. I felt my stomach sink like a stone when he goaded me into having some of his curly fries in exchange for filling my tackle box with dead fish—the inciting quest for the playtest and a reminder of the bargains we make with grown-ups as children, so often for their own entertainment. Their games, their rules, always opaque and more than a little unnerving.

Yes, this is a more normal-seeming world than that of Arctic Eggs, but it just seems that way because it’s much more familiar. I expect before the end of it, About Fishing will be equal parts harrowing and delightful, but assuredly weird in a way that runs through the gamut of déjàs. 

But even if we agree all games need more fishing, does Sega Bass Fishing need to be weird? If there’s anything that games have taught us, that The Water Museum is indulging here, is that yes, fishing is weird. The underwater world is weird and murky and primed to be explored with a psychic connection to the swallowed bait dangling on the end of a hook. And as things wrap up in this 30 minute dalliance, you’ll come to understand the patch note “The dead girl’s hand now properly collides with fish.” This is what I want out of a fishing game.

I think where About Fishing will sink or swim largely comes down to how well The Water Museum manages to not snap the line while reeling in the fishing mechanics. The vibes are here—disarmingly gorgeous art from Angel Perez Guzman, the pensive young woman protagonist and the brusque paternal figure dangling curly fries and cigarettes all drenched in the dreamy fog of atmosphere. There’s even incredibly sick bass riffs and dreamy-dreary shoegaze guitar from Arctic Eggs composer, Cameron Ginex. But, in talking to friends, the truth is Arctic Eggs didn’t lose players over its impeccable narrative and aesthetics—it was the temperamental nature of its T-Fal skillet juggling, particularly in the mid and late game. The answer burbling up from the depths of my Magic 8 Ball is that the outlook is actually pretty good and this is shaping up to be a more approachable experience; they’ve already implemented mouse sensitivity adjustments, and fishing is a much more sedate experience than cooking eggs to order, even when the fucking needle fish gets stuck under the dock. As for hammering out the strained relationship with french fries and family, well, let’s just say I’m also still working on that one.