🎣 Deep Catch

A cozy little fishing trip — a single-file HTML5 canvas game. Cast your line into a dusk-lit sea, dive two screens deep, and fill your aquarium with 45 species across seven waters, guided by your grandpa's journal.

▶ Play: https://kosweet.github.io/deep-catch/ (GitHub Pages) · or open index.html locally

The game

• One-thumb fishing. On phone, drag on the water to steer the boat, then tap Cast to fish. On PC, click the water to aim and cast. Arrow keys aim; Space casts.
• Instant hauls. Your catch banks itself in gold — no sell-or-keep popups. Every new species swims straight into your aquarium.
• Seven waters, each its own world. Backyard Pond → Goldfish Garden → Kelp Forest → Open Sea → Frozen Fjord (with dancing aurora) → The Trench → The Hadal Garden — a pitch-black finale that's scary-deep and warm, lit by drifting embers, glowing jellies, and an ancient colossal anglerfish called The Old Lantern.
• 45 species, each drawn with its own silhouette — real sharks, a serpentine leviathan, a spiked pufferfish, fancy goldfish, an aurora-lit narwhal, glowing hadal jellies. Shy fish dart from a careless hook; predators notice, telegraph, and lunge to steal your catch — dodge or lose it.
• Grandpa's journal. A 32-note story chain paces your whole journey with goals and rewards, so progress feels like a story, not a savings account. After the last page, extra pages turn up in bottles and rare catches.
• Grandpa's thermos. Your first cast each calendar day triggers ~2 minutes of golden hour and a story beat — a gentle daily ritual.
• Species dex. Tap 📖 X/45 in the HUD for the full collection grid — chase badges, water filters, grandpa's notes.
• Legend skin perks visible in the Boathouse shop (gold line under each $25M legend).
• First-session tutorial — three beats: reel pulse after first cast, shop bounce after first gold, Room tab glow after first new species.
• Journal finale — completing grandpa's journal opens a boat-naming dedication; name appears on the hull and in the HUD.
• Full endgame credits — 45/45 species triggers celebration; credits expand if all extra pages found and boat is named.
• Golden hour. Every few minutes the water glitters for a little while — rare fish rise and every catch pays ×1.5. A 10-second warning warms the sky before it starts. Fill every slot in one cast for a full-net bonus, or hook a calm predator for a +50% premium (it can still get away with your catch if it lunges first).
• Messages in bottles. Torn journal pages drift along the surface now and then — park the boat over one and cast to read a page grandpa never numbered (and pocket a little gold). After the journal ends, bottles unlock extra story pages.
• The boat cat. Naps through the quiet, watches the line when you cast, bristles when a predator locks on, and celebrates a full net. Tap the aquarium glass to feed your fish, and spend late-game gold on tank decor — kelp, a bubble volcano, a sunken rowboat, a lantern string, a little lighthouse. Fish react to decor: they gather under lantern strings and startle when the volcano burbles.
• The Boathouse. Five hull paints and ten fisherman looks — four everyday sweater colours ($8k), plus six legend skins at $25M each (Ninja, Robot, Alien, Pirate, Wizard, Astronaut), each with its own silhouette and a small flavor perk (longer predator telegraph, sell bonus, bottle gold, golden-hour extension, curious-fish pull, out-of-reach glow).
• Chase fish. Each water hides one ultra-rare legend — spawn odds rise with pity, golden hour, and thermos; first thermos cast spawns a visible swim-by.
• Water unlock postcards. Buying a new pond shows a postcard with grandpa's quote for that water.
• Curious fish. Some species drift toward your hook (the shy ones still bolt).
• First-catch celebration. Slow-motion sparkle and fanfare when you land your very first fish.
• Collapsible shop — Gear, Waters, Aquarium, Boathouse, and Decor fold closed; your layout persists in save.
• Collection milestones — banners at 10 and 25 species discovered.
• Predator telegraph — red ! pops near the hook when a hunter notices your haul.
• Room tap hint — gentle 👆 tap a fish when viewing the aquarium with species to read.
• Thermos vs golden hour — HUD pill explains when thermos golden is active and random golden is paused.
• Reduced motion — respects prefers-reduced-motion (no aurora, dust, celebrate slow-mo, pulsing HUD).
• Low-end perf — caps DPR, fish count, embers, and bubble draw on weaker devices.
• Daily boot nudge — once per local day, a gentle "Today on the water" banner (thermos, journal hint, species milestone, extra pages, or boat naming).
• Engagement score — sendScore reports species × 1000 + journal pages (updates on new species and journal milestones).
• Save analytics — lightweight funnel counters (casts, shopBuys, thermos, stolen, chase, etc.) in save; inspect via __dc.stats() on localhost.
• Harbor gifts — repeatable gold sinks unlock when gear is maxed (cat treats, dock fund, fish food, harbor bell).
• ~30 hours of play to 100%, tuned by a greedy-player economy simulation (tools/econ-dc.js).
• Cozy, committed dusk look with per-water ambient music (Web Audio, no assets).

Tech

• Zero dependencies, zero build. One index.html — HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS canvas rendering, all inline.
• YouTube Playables ready. Integrates the Playables SDK: firstFrameReady/gameReady boot handshake, cloud saves via loadData/saveData, full pause/resume via onPause/onResume, YouTube mute via isAudioEnabled/onAudioEnabledChange, and sendScore reporting engagement (species × 1000 + journal pages, 0–45032).
• Saves to Playables cloud save inside YouTube, falling back to localStorage (deepcatch.v3) on the plain web, migrating older saves forward.
• Web Audio synthesizes every sound at runtime — no audio files.

Development

The game is authored as a single file. tools/ holds the economy simulator and QA runners:

node tools/econ-dc.js        # progression milestones (~32h to max gear/waters/tank)
node tools/playables-qa.js   # static pre-submit checks for YouTube Playables
node tools/smoke-test.js     # local HTTP smoke test (boot + assets)

Manual embed testing: docs/PLAYABLES-QA.md
Submission pack (URL, listing copy, icon): docs/SUBMIT.md

Credits

Built with Claude Code.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.