I had a fantastic time playing Reel Robot Fishing (Solo Version) by Sandro AD for Prismatic Wasteland’s Covert Critic Secret Santa 2024. What follows is a transcript of my play session! I hope you enjoy fishing with Peregrine Nova and The Goblin as much as I did!

Download Reel Robot Fishing on itch.

Character Creation

REEL Robot Fishing

Cast 1

My REEL flies deep into the inky abyss. I’m warm in my MEC, despite the temperature outside hovering around 8°C. Nothing is biting. I drift into memory. The last time I visited the stormy waters of Yorin Gamma I’d just graduated from MEC academy. Leigh and I had cut each other’s hair that night. I’d forgotten what we caught, or if we even caught anything, but the impromptu haircut I remembered in perfect detail.

Cast 2

Not much in the water this morning. But plenty in my head apparently. I remember swimming in the warm waters of the Betyllion Sea. I was 8 and it was the first time I had ever been on a vacation. The tour guide on the cruise explained that scientists had used brain scanners to determine that the seaweed here was sentient, but had never figured out how to communicate with it. The dappled light was mesmerizing. I never wanted come up. I could see why the seaweed didn’t care to have a conversation. Eventually my parents reeled me back in with the safety line on my kids diving suit because it was time for lunch.

Cast 3

I guess there’s a reason Yorin Gamma isn’t a popular fishing destination. As the black waves crash over the side of the small ship I chartered it occurs to me that I feel relaxed. At peace. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone, but I’m scared almost all the time. Is it what makes me a good MEC pilot? I hope not. I try not to think about it too much and focus on the fact that for a rare moment, out on this stormy sea alone, the fear is gone.

Cast 4

The bobber jiggles, but no bite. My HUD shows something investigating the lure at the end of my REEL, but it doesn’t bite. I set my MEC’s arms to autopilot temporarily and retract my arms from the control sleeves. Like most MECs, The Goblin can carry out basic tasks by itself, but obviously that would be missing the point. But I take advantage of the the capability so that I can unwrap a MostMost brand Bourbon Bean Cake. Ubiquitous on the rim, but hard to find in Union space. I think about the furthest out I’d ever been. In my dossier the planet had just been identified by a 16 digit ID code, and my mouth didn’t have the right parts to say the name the locals called it. This was well past the part of the rim where you could find MostMost’s intoxicating snack cakes. I’ve never been able to put into words what it was about that place that stole my heart, but I’m pretty sure if I made a top 10 list of my favorite places I’d ever been, they’d be in order of how far out they were.

Cast 5

The line snaps taught and I shove the bean cake into my mouth and slam my arms back into The Goblin’s control sleeves. The synthetic bourbon makes my eyes water. I may regret my choice of snack tomorrow.

Whatever has bit is a fast moving mess of tentacles. It pulls hard and my gyroscopic auto-thrusters activate to keep me upright. Then as quick as it pulled it reverses and charges the ship.

The catch leaps out of the water, flying a good 3 meters over The Goblin’s cockpit. The creature is a ball of hundreds of scintillating purple tentacles, almost as big as my MEC. As it flies overhead, force vectors stream directly into my neural link and and I hit the emergency disconnect on my REEL before it hits the end of the line and yanks me into the water.

I can’t help but laugh. Maybe it’s the synthetic alcohol, but th idea of reeling in that majestic and monstrous creature makes me laugh until I feel tears streaming down my face.

The AI systems in our MECs are designed not to exhibit any form of personality, but I know they used to and it ended up being a logistical nightmare for the Union. Even so, I feel myself wondering what sort of vacation The Goblin would enjoy. I should probably keep that thought to myself during the post-vacation debrief. I’ve only got one more tour on this contract, then I’m back to being a free agent again. I’ve heard rumors of freelancers unlocking the AI cores on their MECs, but always in the form of cautionary tales. I eat another Bourbon Bean Cake, accepting the hangover, and set a course back to shore.

A quick review

Did this game turn me into a fan of journaling games, mechs and fishing all at once? Maybe it’s the bean cake talking, but I think it might have. The dexterity game portion where you throw the d4 onto the board to see what’s biting was harder than I expected, and that ended up working fantastically to reinforce the “fishing is really about sitting and thinking” theme. I was glad to have so few bites and so much time to explore my character! The structure of the game made me feel supported in conjuring up a universe and a character that I want to spend more time with, and that’s everything I want from a game! Thanks to Sandro AD for making such a delightful game, and thanks to Prismatic Wasteland for organizing the Covert Critic event that let me discover such a lovely game!