Devlog 3 - All that I did after

Welcome Back!

Thanks for following along in this game design adventure. Here's what I worked on recently:

Probability Curves

I explored RStudio and Desmos to visualize a probability curve for how long a player waits before a fish is hooked. This was based on a mechanic inspired by WEBFISHING, where casting triggers a series of randomized checks:

1. A cast_value is randomized between 0.0 and 1.0.
2. A seconds_to_wait value is randomized between 2.5 and 4.0, then a countdown coroutine starts.
3. After the wait, a hook_check value is randomized from 0.0 to 0.1.
   • If hook_check <= cast_value, the fish is hooked.
   • If not, the process repeats: seconds_to_wait is randomized again, and cast_value increases by 1.50.

All this just for the waiting time before the actual "hook"! I went deep into back-and-forths with ChatGPT, trying different formulas to balance the feature — just this one mechanic took a lot of time.

This took a long time and it made me realize something.

A Hard Realization

I started to see the problem:
I was spending too much time fine-tuning a small feature — for a prototype. This wasn’t the MVP yet.

Balancing should happen later, when the systems are more defined. So I made a decision:

“Ship the prototype first. Balance later.”

Continuing On

See you in the next devlog — where I’ll share what I did after that.

Thanks for reading!