Abyss Catcher is a quiet bit of fishing.
Drop the hook and watch it sink, band by band. The light goes, the water cools, and out on
the surface there is only you and your boat. When you reach the depth you want, tap the
screen and open a net — or hold on a moment longer and see whether what is below is worth
waiting for.
Deeper is better, but the line has a limit.
■ Two charts, fifteen seas
The first is water: from the turquoise shoals of the Sunlit Coast down to the Iceberg Sea
and the Lost Abyss, where the sunlight never arrives. The second is space: out from the
Starport, past Mars, the Jovian Belt, the Ringed World and the Event Horizon, to the
Silence. Fifteen seas, each with its own water, fish and seabed.
■ The Mars duel
The red cabrio does not come quietly. It dodges on its thrusters, swerves, drifts, pulls
wheelies, spins like a top and somersaults right over your head — and even hooked, it may
burn free. The seconds while its engine overheats are your chance. Beat it once and you can
call a rematch from the Mars harbour, each one quicker than the last. The spacesuited
driver has something to say when you reel him in.
■ Stop and look
Every harbour has its own underwater world, and your fisherman a life in port: sunbathing,
strumming a ukulele, feeding penguins, chasing a drifting rod on a spacewalk. Turn the
phone sideways and the controls shrink to a slim strip, leaving the whole harbour to look
at. The codex is alive too: open a file and the creature swims in its tank; tap it and it
swims a lap.
■ Ninety-five species and salvage, ninety-five files
The research station writes a file on everything you bring up: a scientific name, an
observation note, and a closing line. There are emergency-room records, an intern's diary,
a tool-room inventory. Someone logged a sawshark as "one chainsaw".
■ The artificial singularity
Past the Starport you pick up something unreasonable: a tiny black hole. Press the net
button, tap where you want it, and it flies out, opens, and spirals everything around it
in — however big. It reaches the whole sea, with no line limit. Upgrade it for reach and
haul; at max level it keeps everything it pulls in.
■ One cast, more than one fish
The net is the big move, once a round. Landing fish charges it, and a streak charges it
faster. When it is full, cast it: while it sinks, tap the screen at any moment and the net
opens at that depth and hauls everything inside up at once.
■ Gear that actually changes the feel
Twelve boats decide how far you can go, the line how deep and how heavy, the hook what
will take the bait. The weight limit is all three added together — a heavy hook is heavy,
and if the line is not strong enough, the big one still gets away.
■ No sign-in required
No account, nothing to connect. The game is whole as it is. The Game Center
leaderboard is there if you want to compare a single trip's takings, and nowhere else.
■ About purchases
Pearls buy only time and looks: bait, a pearl-to-coin exchange, hull liveries. Every boat,
line, hook, sea and species can be earned by fishing. This is a single-player game; there
is no PvP.
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