Video games have a tendency to be very impatient in a way that I think often makes for a worse experience. Constant rewards of many flavours push us to chase after the next challenge, there’s not nearly enough games that ask us to slow down. That’s why I love a fishing minigame. It is a test of patience that you cannot win by brute forcing anything, the fish must come to you, and you must wait for the right time. About Fishing, the next release from Arctic Eggs developer The Water Museum, does ask for your patience… as well as for your willingness to embark into strange, murky waters.

Quickly into the game’s demo (or playtest, as it’s listed as on Steam), you are shown how to fish in a tutorial that perhaps needs a smidge more of a nudge in the right direction, but I did work it out in the end. Like in any Animal Crossing, the fish you’re trying to nab will prod your bait, inviting your twitching finger to pull the trigger. The main difference is that the camera follows your hook into the water, and if you successfully fool a fish into taking the bait, you must reel it in, moving your mouse or WASD keys as you do so to point the fish towards your corporeal form for a successful catch.

This is a game about fishing, not a game with fishing in it, so it’s much more involved than a minigame, and appropriately tactile. After catching your prey, you bring it back to a man who I think is your grandpa, who is also kind of a weird asshole. There are curly fries to be hand, it is raining, yet according to him you must fill the tacklebox.

So, you do your best to do so, catching everything you can until your maybe grandpa teaches you a new trick: attaching a fish you caught to your hook lets you puppeteer its dead body. And you do that too, going deep into a hole, where you find a Laura Palmer-esque dead body… and a mermaid.

This is simply the opening section to About Fishing, the first chapter of a larger game that takes its cues from both Sega Bass fishing and Shenmue, a delightful combination. There is clearly a mystery to be solved, fish to be caught, and based on the game’s trailer and Steam page, townspeople to meet.

Arctic Eggs was equally as odd and concentrated in the thing it was trying to be, and About Fishing is seemingly no different in the tiny bit of time I’ve spent with it. You’ve caught me hook, line and sinker, The Water Museum. I’ll be keeping an eye out on the full release, but for now you can join me in wishlisting it on Steam right here.