Dev Diary #4: A Lobby You Can Swim In

Three big Fish Frenzy changes this week, each fixing something that held the game back.

From menu screen to lobby

Between runs, Fish Frenzy used to show a menu over a slowly turning camera. It worked, but it was lonely. You never saw other players until you dived in.

The best games of this type have a lobby you spawn into, and now Fish Frenzy does too. Between runs you swim around a safe reef as your own fish. The shop, the egg hatchery, the Fishdex and the daily rewards are places you visit instead of buttons you press, and you can see who else is online.

The first version was one round area. By the end of the week it had grown into a hub with five areas, so the leaderboards and the shops each have their own space. The Hall of Fame has a podium for each leaderboard, where the top 3 players' avatars stand and dance.

Eggs instead of nets

Last week's loot system had a flaw: a run only earned a handful of Treasure Nets, so only a handful of fish. At ten copies per merge, reaching even the Crystal tier took forever.

Fish Eggs fix that. Every 50 food points you eat lays an egg, kills add bonus eggs, and they all hatch together at the end of the run. A good run now hatches dozens of fish, so merging is something you'll actually do. You even earn eggs while you're offline.

To stop the Fishdex filling too fast, eggs slow down as your collection grows: full speed for your first 15 entries, half speed by 75, and never below a quarter. New players get lots of catches, and veterans have to work for the last entries.

Coins and pearls finally have plenty of uses too, with permanent Upgrades and short Boosts in the Shop.

50 fish, rebuilt

The original ten fish were made by hand in Blender, and the 50 new fish didn't match them. Their first models were built in Roblox Studio and looked blocky next to the originals.

So all 50 were rebuilt in Blender, using the original ten as the style guide: the same flat-shaded look, big glossy eyes and a shared skeleton, so they swim with the same animation. Then every merge tier got its own skin on every fish: 300 skins in total.

The finishing touch is the Merge All button. With eggs bringing in so many fish, merging them one at a time would get old fast.

World At War

World At War had a quieter week in Studio while Fish Frenzy took centre stage. It now has its own wiki on this site, covering the vehicles, the Armoury and how battles work. It isn't public yet. We'll post here when it is.

Next

We'll keep tuning eggs, the economy and the new lobby based on how players use them. If you've got feedback, join the Discord: the best ideas in these diaries came from players.