Game Description (detailed)

Introduction

You smell the salt and your whole body is soaking wet. You slowly wake up and survey your surroundings, nothing but water, sand, and some palms. The weather feels pleasant, like somewhere tropical. There is no memory of what happened, or how you ended up there. The fact is that you are probably stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Nothing but water in every direction. So, like every normal person, younaturally start thinking about how to survive.

Following a rollercoaster of emotions, some crying, and some thinking, you remember your grandpa. “Yes, he was an excellent fisher, maybe there is some of that in my blood after all”. After finding a solid stick and savaging some material, voilà, you have a fishing rod.

A nice rock, the wind on your face and the warm sun, could be worse. You start fishing and the waters seem to be overpopulated with fish, it is one after another, food will not be a problem. If it keeps going like this, you will likely need a bucket or somethingto store them soon.

After a while, a pelican appears in the sky. He seems to be surprised and starts to slowly approach you. He lands close to you and starts talking! “A Human! I thought they had gone extinct. I only heard stories about such a species.”. Also noticing your surprise, he started to explain that this island is populated by intelligent pelicans and other animals. He looks at the pile of fish next to you and offers to exchange the fish you just caught for a couple “Jingles”. The bird explains that “Jingles” is a seashell that pelicans use to exchange for goods and services. With them, you can do many things, upgrade your fishing rod, buy materials, and improve your situation on the island.

You accept the deal, trading some fish and keeping others for dinner. Although you feel excited about the idea of talking pelicans and the new world where you find yourself,there are still many questions. How did you end up there? What happened to the other humans? How did pelicans get so smart? And more importantly, can you survive and progress?

This is the universe of Carp’e Diem, the Fishing game.

Background

What the players still do not know and will find out during the game is that they are on the same Earth as us, just many years forward. As humans were not able to address the problems of climate change, sea levels rose. Most of the continents are underwater, with just a few mountains remaining, which now exist as islands.

The player is one of the last remaining humans who were in boats during the rising ofthe sea levels, but they have no memory of that. Over the game they find the reasons for that and learn how to not repeat the same mistakes as humanity, with the goal of creating a new community which is more sustainable and greener.

From time to time, they will find artifacts that tell of a long-lost world, like messages in bottles, old TVs with pieces of film tape and others. Occasionally a piece of ancient information will unlock new paths when fishing and allow the player to, for instance,open up a cave and move inside the mountain.

Now finding themselves on a tropical island, the player must fish in order to survive and evolve, dealing with smart pelicans and racoons. Once you progress further into the game you can start to improve the island you live on by building an aquarium, workshop, housing, shipyard, exchange market, algae garden, black market and more. Improving the structures will give you more options and additional mini-games to play.

Keeping your algae garden in check and healthy will give you a boost in profit. Upgrading the shipyard will allow you to build more fishing boats and increase your passive fish income.

At all times though, the core of the game consists of fishing for all kinds of fish.