Paddle-crane is an arcade fishing game inspired by claw machines. Play as a disgraced engineer-slash-fisherman by capturing invasive fish scattered around the waters of the region!

  • Travel to different locations and catch as many invasive fish as you can before time runs out!
  • Determine the best moment to deploy your crane to avoid debris and aggressive fish!
  • Get your performance rated in every level and earn gold!
  • Buy Crane Coins with gold to increase your boat's lifespan!
  • Go to the shop and buy boat upgrades and other items to help you get the highest possible rating!

  • 15 different fish!
  • 5 levels!
  • 10 possible crane upgrades!
  • Lovingly hand-pixelled graphics!

A game by Chloe Apacible (CalicoMakes)

Be sure to leave feedback, a like, or follow me on X / Twitter for any new projects or future plans!

Also, check out another game I helped make: I Confess.

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(2 total ratings)
AuthorCalicoMakes
GenreStrategy
Made withUnity
Tags2D, Arcade, Casual, Fishing, Pixel Art, Retro, Singleplayer

Download

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

paddle-crane-mac.app.zip 52 MB
paddle-crane-windows.zip 40 MB
paddle-crane-windows64.zip 43 MB

Development log

Comments

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Hi Chlo!

Thank you for the game, I had fun completing it. I mostly loved the music choice and variety for the levels.

Here are my destructive testing notes:

1. Alert icon lingers in some cases (likely either when using a pheromone power-up while it's animating or catching a fish before it alerts and follows your sinker)

2. Callback for the item panel isn't disabled for level select screen after a game is finished so you can still click it and lose items while gameplay isn't happening.

3. The armor 2nd upgrade is cheaper than the 1st upgrade.

4. One of the text of the upgrades overflows the label (I think the level 3 armor one - pretty sure it's that or the grease)

5. The level timer still runs if level is complete -> Might be the cause of text box overlapping on the timer label once level is complete.

6. For the end credits, if you wait it out the BGM doesn't loop and the boat just also goes out of sight. Maybe automate the text progression at certain points?

7. Item carries over in new game playthroughs (except upgrades). 

8. But the most crucial bug would be if you play again after completing the game, you'll just be sent back to the end credits after the initial calls. 

9. Noticed a fish was moving backward (probably some interaction with something it was gonna bump into). No specific repro for this though.

For general game design choices:

1. Pheromone stuff was a bit confusing, they could probably just be combined into 1 item which handles most of the fish related trickeries.

2. Coins and Fish Wrangler are OP in general. Either bump up their cost or limit them to specific amounts of usage per game. 

3. Fish Wrangler usage is not communicated clearly for sure. 

4. Can't catch fishes at the edge even if your boat is at max edge too. (noticed this at the first level)

Hi! Thanks so much for playing through to the end and leaving feedback! There were definitely some bugs you caught that I wasn't able to see or even notice while making the game -- thanks for laying it all out!

I'm currently working on an update to make the wrangler usage clearer and make it an active item + making some adjustments to how invasive fish got spawned (other players mentioned how you can get unlucky and have a bunch of the fish at the bottom 😭). Your comment came at a great time so that I can add balancing coins/wranglers and the bugs you found into the update!

Again, thank you so much 🥹 I'm glad you played it to completion despite finding numerous bugs!

Great game! It was fun to play.

However, I didn't get the fish wrangler to work. I clicked it but nothing happened. Or maybe I just didn't understand how to use it.

Thank you so much for playing!! 

For the fish wrangler, I think that was my bad, I should have been clearer in the item description that it gets used automatically at the end of the level. In the right side of the level screen, the native fish would kinda shrink away and you'll hear a little bounce sound effect.