This game was reviewed using Version 1.25. Your experience on other versions may vary.Short Answer:
A fishing-themed blend of idle game and Tycoon-style management sim that you can complete in a matter of hours. Simple yet fun in its current state, though more content is planned in the near future to add complexity and extend the playtime, so it's still worth keeping on your radar even if you don't want to commit to a purchase just yet.
Long Answer:
Pocket Idler: Fishing Pond is an idle game about managing a small fishing pond with the goal of turning it into a legendarily popular attraction. All you need to do is stock your pond with fish at the start of the day, then watch as anglers pop in to see what they can catch until closing time. The ones that catch fish leave positive ratings, the ones that don't leave negative ratings, and these factor into your popularity score to bring in more anglers and help unlock new fish for the pond. Just keep the pond well-stocked and you'll keep the anglers happy, simple as that!
Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. It actually plays a bit like a Tycoon game, requiring you to manage your money while simultaneously keeping customers happy. You earn money every time someone successfully catches a fish based on the price you paid to add it to your pond, and you'll need to use this money to buy things like better poles to catch bigger fish, better bait so fish are hooked faster, capacity upgrades so you can stock more fish, and decorations to improve popularity. Additionally, you can change the price of tickets and the resell rate of caught fish, which you're encouraged to set based on your popularity. You have to make your purchases and price adjustments before opening the pond each day, after which the game runs on autopilot until the day is done, which takes around 5 minutes. If you want to maximize the idle aspect, you can use the Auto-Stock feature to automatically refill the pond with the fish of your choosing at the end of each day, letting the game progress on its own until you're ready to turn it off and buy some upgrades.
There's a balancing act to managing the pond, as every purchase you make can affect your day-to-day activity in ways you might not expect. For example, investing heavily in poles and bait so anglers catch fish super quick sounds like a good idea at first, but doing this can cause them to clear your stock of fish well before the day is done. You can run into a similar problem if you try to rush the purchase of decorations, which can boost your popularity before your pond has a high enough capacity to meet the increased demand. In both cases, it prevents anglers that arrive later in the day from reliably catching anything, and you're going to be met with a sudden influx of negative ratings as a result. The idea is to strike the right balance so fish are steadily caught throughout the day, watching for any noticeable changes in activity to determine which upgrade you should aim for next. All that being said, there's no way to outright fail as you can always climb your way back up if you run out of funds, so it's mainly about optimizing your gameplay to see how fast you can unlock everything.
I managed to get all the achievements in around 8 hours, but I was definitely playing sub-optimally since I've seen other reviews that mention beating it in as little as 4 hours. Suffice to say that you can complete the current version relatively quickly even with minimal interaction, but the patch notes do state that more content is planned in the future to extend that playtime. The developer's been very responsive to feedback in general, so I'm looking forward to seeing how development progresses going forward. For now, though,
Pocket Idler: Fishing Pond is a short but entertaining idle game with lots of potential, perfect for killing time during your next lazy weekend.For more game reviews, check out my Curator page!
