If you were too relaxed playing Webfishing, you might like this fishing roguelike shooter where your catches can mercilessly gun you down

GamesRoguelikeIf you were too relaxed playing Webfishing, you might like this fishing roguelike shooter where your catches can mercilessly gun you downWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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Lake of Creatures - Release Trailer - YouTubeWatch On

Lake of Creatures - Release Trailer - YouTube

Lake of Creaturesis a new roguelike fromsolo developer Antenna Games, and having messed around for a bit, I can safely say it’s a solid romp. Like a can of tuna, it does what it says on the tin—you swoop around a set of lakes filled with mutant fish and alternate between gunning them down and trying to catch them.

It’s a neat enough concept that plays nicely in execution, too. While the gunplay’s pretty standard, the fishing mechanic is a novel layer on top of your standard top-down run ‘n’ gunning. In order to extend your casting line, you have to swing it around a bit, then click to stop the bobber mid-swing to land it in the water. This operates a little like having a flail with a button that freezes its head in midair. So a fish can bite it. I’ve lost control of this metaphor.

Fish will appear after you’ve cleared a room of combatants, and sometimes there’ll be multiple—which turns fishing into a cute combat challenge of its own, as the remaining fish’ll often try to mercilessly gun you down. Actually catching them involves a timing-based minigame where you need to click at the right moment to deal critical damage, though a whiffed reel still hurts them slightly.

(Image credit: Antenna Games)

A fisherman wrangles with an unruly fish in Lake of Creatures, a fishing roguelike by Antenna Games.

Otherwise, you have a gun, an armoury of weapons you can pick up, and a bunch of Binding of Isaac-style upgrades that’ll give you stuff like boosts to your boat speed, poison bullets, and a floating trident to stab your enemies. There’s also a melee attack, which unfortunately highlights the rough spots in Lake of Creatures.

I also noticed some weird framerate slowdowns which, considering this is a pixel-art game and I don’t have anawfulPC, is concerning. I went into the options to check if I simply hadn’t uncapped the framerate (I once nearly melted a new PC without doing this on Moonlighter, as it proceeded to try and run it at 400 frames per second) but I couldn’t find a setting.

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Given this is the solo dev’s first commercial venture, though, I’m happy to chalk it up to something that’ll be fixed down the line. If you’re itching for a bit of cheap roguelike fun with a novel concept strapped to the side, you could do far worse thanLake of Creatures. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got mutant tuna to slay.

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