My main goal with progression throughout the game was that players would build out and expand their dock encountering new and more difficult fish. Players would then purchase upgrades to make the once difficult fish now easier encouraging them to expand more and find new harder but more valuable fish. 

Initially all of the fish spawning zones where laid out horizontally which ended up with different testing getting wildly different experiences while playing the game. To correct this I shifted the spawning zones to form a diagonal pattern forcing players to sip up a guaranteed amount of water before progressing to more difficult fish.

Fish Spawning Boxes

Originally the goal was to make it so that as you progressed it became easier and easier to do you main action and get a larger reward. But upon testing it seemed clear that more depth and complexity of the fishing in order to keep the game fresh was more valuable. This is where the last 3 upgrades come into play.

SpeedUp the first of these upgrades is actually the most complex introducing a new button to sipping and allowing the player to press spacebar to speed up their Sipping Region that can stun and stagger fish.

SpeedUp is also one of the major areas that I would look to for improvement if I returned to this project. I think it fulfilled a good purpose but there is a lot about it that I wish I could have improved. 

• The fact that it introduces a new button part of the way through your play through and that never happens again is a little odd. 

• Additionally it could have had UI to support it showing that you had it as an ability and when its activated. 

The Zones upgrade added an additional Sipping Region to the players bar. Allowing them to stun extra fish as well as do extra Stagger Damage to the same fish. This upgrade was the biggest success with testers out of these 3. It works really well because the benefits are almost automatic the player doesn't need to doing anything extra for it to exist but it gives players more ways to express their skill within the fishing.  

The Stagger Upgrade increases your stagger damage when clicking with your stamina completely refilled. Upon revisiting all I would really want to do is dial up its UX more. I think that it provides a nice passive buff to players who want to play casually and for players who care about optimizing it creates a good dynamic where now patience is rewarded. Patience is especially rewarded in regards to SpeedUp I found that there is a much more intricate dynamic with when you want to speed up when you have the stagger upgrade.