Devlog 4 - Getting the math right

Welcome Back!

Hey, and thanks for joining me again on this little dev adventure! I’m picking things up from memory, since I built most of this days ago and didn’t log every step in detail. Still, here’s what I’ve been working on:

Fixing the Core Game (Finally)

After dipping my toes into probability theory, I decided it was time to focus on balancing the core gameplay loop. Right now, the base system includes:

• Waiting time for a fish to bite
• Biome-based fish selection
• A “fight” mechanic where you tap to reel in the fish as a bar drains based on the fish’s difficulty

From there, I started brainstorming how to deepen the system, and here’s what I came up with:

• A real-time fight mechanic with rod durability and line tension
• A full fishing build system using Attack and Defense stats (inspired by FFXV)
• Fish stats based on depth, weight, length, and size class

I asked ChatGPT how I could structure these, and that’s when I learned about scaling — a simple way to combine multiple stats into one meaningful value.

One of the ideas looked like this:

(base_number + (fish_length * 0.25) + (fish_depth * 0.25) + (fish_weight * 0.25)) * general_size

Where general_size can scale values like so:

• Small: 0.75
• Medium: 1.05
• Large: 1.25

This formula taught me how to control difficulty based on multiple attributes and scale the outcome depending on size.

Closing Thoughts

Honestly, this part only took a few hours to set up, but I hit a creative block again after that. Still, I’m proud of the progress — even if it came in bursts. Thanks for reading!