- Patch notes 8/5/2026 - 5 August 2026
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Been a while, huh? Let me explain.Immediately before the Women Want Me expansion launched, I got very sick and was completely unable to do dev work. Fortunately the expansion had been finished a bit ahead of time, but I had essentially no ability to work more on the game for a very long time. By the time I had more-or-less recovered (less than four months ago!), I was focused on putting out my next game (which, I'm proud to say, has a demo out now).To be clear, the game is likely not going to receive any further content updates in the future -- I have many more games I want to make -- but I might poke my head in now and then and fix some stuff people ask for. I'm proud of this game, y'know? It deserves a little love.Anyways, I got a couple hours today to work on some long-standing optimization issues, and I'm excited to say I made some headway!Patch notesDecreased…
- The WOMEN WANT ME EXPANSION is OUT NOW! - 25 September 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! I'm excited to report that the free WOMEN WANT ME Content Expansion for FISH FEAR ME is OUT NOW! There's also a TON of other stuff happening today!A quick overview of the day's happenings (each enumerated below):FISH FEAR ME: WOMEN WANT ME!The FISH FEAR ME OST on Steam!Unfair Flips!Steam Daily Deal!Fallen London: The Shape of Infinity!Let's get started with the WOMEN WANT ME Expansion!WOMEN WANT ME Patch NotesNew ContentNew map: The Lake of the Lady! Explore a sunken castle full of magical fish and hidden areas!75+ new fish! Most of these are in the Lake of the Lady, but be sure to check the other maps, too...Five new metaprogression upgrades! To unlock this new upgrade tree, set sail to the Lake of the Lady! To reach the final pair of upgrades, though, you'll need to master this new area...New animated cutscenes by Gwyndolyn Marchant!Four new boats: Rocketship, Dr…
- CHAOS THURSDAY - 19 September 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Welcome once more to that most beautiful of holidays: FISH FEAR ME Friday!Next week is going to be incredibly chaotic. And exciting for y'all! Mostly chaotic for me. ALL of the following events are happening on Thursday, September 25th:The WOMEN WANT ME ExpansionIt's finally happening! The FREE major content expansion to FISH FEAR ME, featuring:A whole new region (The Lake of the Lady)75+ new fishFive new meta upgradesNew animated cutscenes by Gwyndolyn Marchant (check out that sword animation up there!)Four new boatsTen new weaponsA new song (with two variants!)A bunch of new game mechanicsTons of new achievementsA whole new final boss fightIf that sounds like a lot: that's because it is! We've put a ton of time and effort into this expansion over the last few months, and it's been a joy to watch it pay off. The Lake of the Lady will have something for players bot…
- THE KRILL UPDATE + An Announcement - 16 June 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! After untold aeons I have returned from the pit with ANOTHER FISH FEAR ME UPDATE!!Update Notes - THE KRILL UPDATENew ContentThree new boats! (Whale, Steamboat, Stygian Raft). Their unlock conditions are spread across the game, so players of all skill levels have something to hunt down!Three new weapons! (Bullet Krill, Steam Engine, Bounty Hook). Try each of the new boats to unlock them!Two new fish! (Spiral Krill, Coalfish)Nine new achievements! One for each weapon, and two for each boat.BugfixesFixed a bug where the post-run summary screen, um. wasn't displaying any unlocks. at all. Sorry about that!Each of these new boats comes with a gameplay mechanic that twists the rules of the game in a fun new way. My personal favorite is the Steamboat's DISCOUNT ability, which makes a random item free whenever you refresh the shop! This can let you do some nonsense like fil…
- Patch notes 5/9/2025: Full Controller Support!! - 9 May 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! FISH FEAR ME Friday brings with it a bounteous tide this week: the controller support update is now live!! Let's dive into it! Patch Notes Added controller navigation support to the entire game! All UI elements can now be interacted with via controller. You can play the entire game without once touching the keyboard or mouse! Similarly, beefed up support for mouse and keyboard players. You can finally use the scroll wheel to select bait, or use the keyboard to navigate UI menus! Updated the key binding menu backend to support a much more robust interaction system. The result of this is that more control rebinding options are available. Try it out! Huge shoutouts to visiting programmer Noé Charron for pinch hitting this update. Seriously, this would NOT have been possible without them. Everyone say "Thank you Noé!" This update involved a LOT of backend changes, so P…
- Controller Support Beta Patch #1 - 2 May 2025
Patch notes: Fixed a bug where selecting one item in the shop with the controller and clicking another item with the mouse would buy the first item for the price of the second one, allowing you to buy an infinite number of each item and breaking the game. Fixed a bug where pausing while selling fish would result in nothing being selected Added a selection delay to the death screen so you can't double-tap A and accidentally skip the run summary screen Thank you to everyone who's been playing the controller support beta and letting us know their thoughts! As always, your feedback is our top priority. To check out the controller support beta yourself, follow the instructions on this post! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3000120/view/523089487392145902?l=english Happy fishing, Heather Flowers
- The Controller Support Beta is now live! - 2 May 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Welcome to FISH FEAR ME Friday! I, your humble captain of the post-apocalyptic waves, come to you with a new public beta! THE CONTROLLER SUPPORT BETA Over the past several weeks, visiting programmer Noé Charron has been working hard on getting full controller support for the game up and running. I'm excited to report that this project is now complete and ready for beta testing! We want to make sure it's good and solid before pushing it to main, so that everyone has the best experience with the game possible. BETA CHANGE NOTES Added controller navigation support to the entire game! All UI elements can now be interacted with via controller. You can play the entire game without once touching the keyboard or mouse! Similarly, beefed up support for mouse and keyboard players. You can finally use the scroll wheel to select bait, or use the keyboard to navigate UI menus!…
- FISH FEAR ME Friday 4/18/2025 - Controller Progress Update! - 18 April 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! The fish are chasing me, and they're humming a new tune. It's FISH FEAR ME Friday! This week: Progress updates on the controller support update and the free WOMEN WANT ME expansion! Controller Progress Update I'm excited to report that the controller support update is nearly complete!! Visiting programmer Noé Charron and I have been working together today to start putting together the finishing touches and hammer out the last couple bugs. Look! Controller button prompts and everything!! This has taken a fair bit of work because a certain someone (me) didn't listen when a certain someone else (literally everybody I talked to) told me to build out this UI with controllers in mind in the first place. Retrofitting it is a lot more work than just doing it right the first time, it turns out!! Lesson learned!!! Anyways, the controller update should be ready for beta testi…
- FISH FEAR ME Friday 4/11/2025 - Catching the Leviathan - 11 April 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Tides rise, the moon falls, and FISH FEAR ME Friday returns gently once more. Today, I wanted to talk about everyone's favorite eldritch monstrosity, the Leviathan! Making a satisfying ending to a roguelike presents interesting challenges for design, programming, and narrative, so let's dive right in! Spoilers abound for the end of the game, so beware!! Designing the Leviathan From very early on, I wanted FISH FEAR ME to have a strong finish to its "main storyline." The obvious comparison point is the Reaper from Vampire Survivors: you've reached the time limit, which means it's time to die! Overcoming this barrier (and meeting the actual endpoint of the run) is the final challenge of the main campaign, so it's important that it shines. The design for the Reaper is interesting to me for a few reasons. First is the fact that it can be done in any run once you reach…
- FISH FEAR ME is 20% off this week! - 7 April 2025
That's right: 20% off! Two dollars off! $7.99! The normal price but smaller! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell a stranger on the street! Whisper it in the ear of a lover! Watch that lover whisper it to a fish! Throw the fish back to sea as a warning! Let them warn the other fish of the tide of death to come! The tide of fishermen rising from the waters below! The moon pushes and pulls, as does the price of this video game! We are at a HIGH TIDE OF SAVINGS! Happy fishing, Heather Flowers
- FISH FEAR ME Friday 4/4/2025 - Discounts and Viscounts - 4 April 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! The tides rise, the tides fall, and FISH FEAR ME Friday returns to us once more. Discounts! Two exciting pieces of news: First, FISH FEAR ME is now in a bundle with Genome Guardian! For those not aware, Genome Guardian is a roguelite turret shooter where you fight off cells while mutating your weaponry with DNA. It's a very cool game -- check it out! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/45393/_Genome_Guardian_x_FISH_FEAR_ME__Roguelike_Duo/ Second, FISH FEAR ME will be going on sale on April 7th! This will be the game's first post-launch sale, at 20% off. Tell your friends if you think they'd like it! (Or your enemies, if you think they wouldn't????) Viscounts! This past week, we got Dloot (the lead singer on the FISH FEAR ME title track) back in the studio to record lyrics for the new song in the upcoming free WOMEN WANT ME content expansion! The new song is an ex…
- Patch notes 3/28/2025 - 28 March 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! We have sailed once again to FISH FEAR ME Friday! Just a quick patch notes this week -- there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work going into the upcoming free content expansion, so that's where the majority of our dev time is currently pointed. As always, changes marked with ⚓ are community suggestions! Patch Notes Misc ⚓ Added the ability to pause during the Leviathan fight Controller Navigation In exciting news, controller navigation has made huge steps forward in the past couple weeks! Every screen requires a bespoke UI solution, so it'll still be a while before this update is ready to make public, but it's VERY cool to see in progress. Here's several menu screens, all being navigated entirely with the controller!! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Noé, our visiting programmer, is a genius. Women Want Me The upcoming free content expansion, WOMEN WANT ME,…
- Patch notes 3/21/2025 - 21 March 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! We have once again made it to FISH FEAR ME Friday! First, patch notes! As always, patch notes marked with ⚓ are community suggestions. Patch Notes Game Balance ⚓ Significantly buffed money-making weapons: Party Cannon: $1/shot -> $5/shot Ritual of Pain: Changed money gained per ritual from $5 to $10 (LVL 1-2), from $5 to $25 (LVL 3), and from $10 to $50 (LVL 4-6) Metal Detector: Changed like so: LVL 1: $1 per overheal, max $25 -> $1 per overheal, max $50 LVL 2: $1 per overheal, max $50 -> $2 per overheal, max $75 LVL 3: $1 per overheal, max $100 -> $2 per overheal, max $100 LVL 4: $2 per overheal, max $200 -> $4 per overheal, max $200 LVL 5: $3 per overheal, max $500 -> $6 per overheal, max $500 LVL 6: $3 per overheal, no max -> $10 per overheal, no max Money-making weapons were broadly underpowered as a category, given their high opportunity cost and low reward. T…
- FISH FEAR ME Friday - 3/14/2025 - 14 March 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Welcome to yet another FISH FEAR ME Friday! No patch notes today! We're currently working on some longer-term goals, so it might be a bit before they're ready to push. Still, I'm here to tell you all about all the news in the cosmic sea! Optimization and Usability As you might know, recently I brought on visiting programmer Noé Charron to work on performance optimization with fantastic results. They've also started working on controller UI navigation! Much like optimization, this is a long process with a lot of fiddly bits, so it may be a bit before it's complete. I'm very much looking forward to it, though -- with a little time and a lot of work, soon the entire game will be playable with a controller! Women Want Me Preproduction for the free WOMEN WANT ME expansion is still going well! This stage involves creating a lot of .txt files I call wishlists -- what the…
- Patch notes 3/7/2025 - 7 March 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! It is once again FISH FEAR ME Friday! Let's jump right in with the patch notes. As always, notes tagged with ⚓ are community suggestions! PATCH NOTES Balance changes ⚓ Buffed Cursed Crown: now, instead of the curse being that you're stuck at 1hp forever, it's that you can no longer heal. This is still a very significant downside, but it should hopefully provide build niche opportunities outside of Ghost Ship runs. ⚓ Added triple invincibility duration on expending a Stitched Heart Accidentally nerfed and then partially buffed Chum. So it turns out that Chum was actually getting called twice per fish summon initialization, which meant that it was significantly stronger than intended when combined with Ichthyomancy, Dragon Tooth, or Tamed Shark. I fixed the double call to rein in the balance more towards what I'd intended... and then gave it a more intentional buff s…
- Patch notes 2/28/2025 - 28 February 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! Happy FISH FEAR ME Friday!! It's been one week since launch and I'm slowly starting to exist on this planet again. Today, I've got a patch for y'all and a couple announcements! First off, the patch notes! As always, patches marked with an ⚓ are community suggestions. PATCH NOTES New content ⚓ Added an alternate version of the fishing minigame which allows you to spawn more fish by just continuously holding the FISH button. To activate it, look in the Options menu! Bugfixes/misc ⚓ Fixed a bug where swapping bait partway through the fishing minigame would cause the wrong type of bait to be expended ⚓ Fixed a bug where sacrificing fish to an altar would cause Ichthyomancy to become dormant until you earned back all the fish you lost Fixed a major performance hitch when succeeding at the fishing minigame Fixed a bug where every boat's destruction animation briefly turn…
- Post-Launch Development Roadmap - 24 February 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for a tremendously successful launch. These past few days have been an absolute whirlwind of excitement -- did you know we've been on the New and Trending list for three entire days? I'm still barely on this planet. To every single person who played the game, or wishlisted it, or posted their thoughts on it: thank you, thank you, thank you. So, with that in mind, let's talk about the future! I'm not planning on resting on my laurels here. Y'all have shown that there's a genuine desire for this game, and so I want to continue making it the best that it can be. This boils down to three things: optimization, usability, and content. OPTIMIZATION I've heard the reports that the game doesn't run as well as it could -- I'll fully admit I'm not the best programmer when it comes to optimization, which is why I'm bringi…
- Patch notes 2/23/2025 - 23 February 2025
Ahoy, cosmic debtors! It's time for another quick post-launch patch, focusing primarily on stability and usability. Changes marked with ⚓ are community suggestions! BALANCE CHANGES - Changed the Argo's base health from 1 to 15 MISC CHANGES - ⚓ Added a cursor lock option to the controls menu, so you can lock the mouse to the boundaries of the game screen - ⚓ Added a sell speed slider to the pause menu. Now you can set your default sell speed to be much faster, or much slower if you want that for some reason! The fast sell button still serves a purpose: at the highest speed level, it'll instantly sell all your fish once clicked. - Changed the wording on certain altars to more accurately reflect their ritual requirements BUGFIXES - ⚓ Changed the Ichthyomancy/Dragon Tooth/Crossbones logic to play nicely with Summoning Ritual - ⚓ Fixed the summon AI so it won't go chasing after distant fish…
- Patch notes 2/22/2025 - 22 February 2025
Hi, cosmic debtors! First off, I wanted to thank you all for a successful launch! I'm extremely happy that the game has resonated so well with people, and I can't wait to continue working on it with y'all. PATCH NOTES Fixed a garbage collection issue that would cause game saving to fail in rare circumstances Fixed an issue where pressing "Fast Sell" on the first available frame would trap you in slow sell mode I'll be posting a development roadmap sometime soon detailing my next plans for this game! For now, I'm focusing on squashing as many launch bugs as possible. Thank you to everyone who's been reporting their findings! Happy fishing! -- Heather Flowers
- Launch day bugfix patch! - 21 February 2025
Quick one to get us started: gave the game the ability to detect/handle corrupted saves! If the game fails when loading your save for whatever reason, it'll copy your corrupted save file to a backup, create a new save file, and notify you. Happy fishing! -- Heather Flowers
