I love a good fishing game, which may be a controversial opinion for the PC Gamer team, but I stand by my convictions. Fishing is a nice, calming experience that gives me a desperately needed break from my regular horrifying and brutal games. But sometimes fishing with Willie in Stardew Valley doesn’t quite cut it, and that’s where Steam’s Fishing Fest (a fishing-themed sale that ends soon), and Scale the Depths come in.
Scale the Depths is a cutesy pixel-art fishing game which sees players catch fish and prepare them to sell off to hungry patrons. Not human patrons, though: There’s a ton of different visitors who’ll come to your boat situated in Loch Ness, like otters and ospreys, selkies and kelpies, and of course the Loch Ness monster if you’re doing particularly well.
Every creature has different needs, with a couple of small fishes being enough for the otter and a whole host of massive fish for Nessie, and your job is to make sure all leave happy and well-fed.
But it’s not charity: each patron will pay you for the food they get. The money you make then can go to upgrading gear which will let you get better fish and in turn more money. The cycle is pretty basic, but that’s what makes it so great.
Everything quickly becomes a habit, and after the first couple of fishing outings I soon became a well-oiled machine, catching, preparing, and selling fish as if I were an old fisherman who’d lost his arm in the Nordic sea and tells tales of Krakens and monsters seen in the deep ocean. Honestly, the only thing separating me from that dream is the fact that the only part of this game I can’t quite get the hang of is the fishing.
Now that sounds really pathetic, but I assure you that it’s only a little pathetic. You don’t just drop your line and wait for fish to come knocking in Scale the Depths, you go full-blown hunting. You can control your fishing line to actively chase the fish you want to catch, but the controls are a little finicky.
Instead of following the direction of your mouse, you use the A and D keys, which is all well and good when you want to go left or right. But for some reason as soon as I want to do a 180 turn or god forbid a full circle my brain times out and all coordination leaves me, as you just need to keep pressing A or D—although this is clearly a skill issue instead of anything actually wrong with the game. Upgrading your kit does make hunting down prey slightly easier, even for me.
By browsing the in-game shop you can upgrade several key items. There’s your fishing rod which will increase hook speed, and give you more line so you can venture deeper, the hook which will increase the damage fish take—some fish need to be hit a couple of times before they can get caught—the knife which makes it easier to de-scale and prepare fish, and lastly your inventory size.
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The most helpful upgrade has to be the longer line. With this, you can actually start exploring the sea below you. There’s better fish to be found, alongside levers which open doors to new areas, and some trinkets like treasure and a message in a bottle.
These new locations host bigger and better fish to catch. The humble minnow is in abundance on the surface of the water so isn’t very effective, but the Atlantic Salmon, Northern Pike, and Ferox Trout, which all hang out in the depths, are big enough to fill your patrons up almost instantly. Although the rarest and most sought-after inhabitant of the deep sea is the Beithir.
This is a mythical serpent-like dragon which is prevalent in Scottish folklore, known to inhabit remote mountainous caves and corries, closeby to rivers or lochs. It’s also bloody massive, so it’ll feed even the most hungry patrons.
In the end, after scaling the depths, catching mythic monsters, and feeding all the residents of Loch Ness I was able to upgrade my gear to the Iron Rod, Harpoon, Zweihander, and the plastic crate. And in doing so I’m one step closer to my dream of turning into a seasoned fisherman.
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