Fishing is for letting go. Becoming one with nature. It’s a spiritual test. Are you spiritually fit? Then you can be at peace anywhere. Then the wonder of the natural world can fill you with its abundance of love. Then you can let go of your desires and inclinations about how things can go. Fishing is life on nature’s terms. Broadly, it’s been awkwardly represented by videogames, either as an over-amplified version of itself or as a side quest. But fishing is profoundly simple. Adding much to it ruins the allure of the thing. That’s why Cast n Chill keeps it idyllically simple. Cast and chill: That’s most of what you’ll be doing.
Cast n Chill is a thoroughly pretty game. The pixel art is consistently gorgeous and screensaver worthy. One important function of the game is the “idle” mode. You can just let the game do the fishing and keep the game running on part of your screen. It’s made for this. Ambiance is the main vehicle of the design — soaking in the natural, but abstractly pixelated world, letting go of any worries.
But playing the game is better. Each body of water holds different fish. Each outing, you’ll choose which boat, pole, lure, body of water, and time of day that suits what you’re fishing for. A handy guide for everything that’s catchable in each space and what gear is needed for each catch is provided, and gives basic instructions on where to catch the fish.
First step is to have the right gear. Between trips, you’ll stop in at Rusty’s Bait ‘n Tackle shop, and can spend whatever money is earned on catching fish on poles, lures, boats, and maps to catch more fish. Then you’ll venture out in your boat with your trust canine companion. Secure what gear you’re using and pet the dog as you troll down the water, and he’ll alert you to a good spot to cast.
Then we get to the hook (ahem) of the game. It’s the fishing obviously. It works like this: you cast out with the right pole and the right lure and then the screen descends down into the water. You try to attract the appropriate pool of fish and eventually one will circle and bite on your line. Then it’s a mega-simple resistance game. If you’ve made the right considerations and have upgraded your gear at Rusty’s, it’s gonna be a breeze. Early on, fish will just take off with your line but eventually you’ll have the right sized poles and enough patience to land some legendary and massive fish.
That’s sort of the only problem with the game. It has that inverse difficulty trick. The more you play, the less there is to do. Early on, you’ll wrestle with the line and pulling up even medium to large sized fish. By the end, only extra-massive sized fish will really fight much. You’ll know the game by then anyway, how you don’t fight when they pull on the line, and how you make it more taut and reel in when the fish give a little bit of slack.
It’s an engaging and ultra-simple content loop. Most of all, the game is gorgeous and meditative. The idle fishing mode sort of gives away the game, cause it’s just so much more satisfying to catch ‘em yourself. And the idle fisher often gets stuck on simple geometry and rocks and takes a long time to bring much of anything in.
Eventually, you’ve caught all the fish in all the locations. There’s not a lot of installed longevity there, once you’ve really upgraded everything and don’t have much more reason to keep landing trophy-sized whoppers. All that’s left to do then is to cast and chill. But what a gloriously illustrated and transcendentally connected time that is.