WEBFISHING

I think WEBFISHING lands to be as one of my top games for this year- just because it really proves something that people are yearning for.

With the success of WEBFISHING, you can tell that many people desperately crave digital hangout spaces that provide small, friendly spaces where one doesnt necessarily HAVE to talk due to the available activities. While speaking is nice in WEBFISHING, there is the silent understanding that you can just sit next to someone, and fish. Or you can be running around with a metal detector, or play some music. But despite being a social game, the game never demands that you verbally socialise. This is a contrast to games like VRchat and ponytown, which are also both social hub games. The latter two, however, offer little additional gameplay (unless user-generated), outside of directly talking to people. Which can be very intimidating!

A space where players can nonverbally socialise with eachother through cat-like mirroring is something the internet has been lacking greatly. To be able to quietly exist and observe an environment before verbally interacting is something that's difficult to find these days without people considering you an odd one out. But in WEBFISHING, its acceptable. You're just there to fish, and you want the quiet company of those around you.

One of the few games that I can think of that provide nonverbal socialising between players are the games made by ThatGameCompany, specifically their game JOURNEY and Sky: Children of the light, although the latter does allow you to eventually unlock chat features with trusted players. This would mirror the style of WEBFISHING's nonverbal socialising, where most players who aren't quite comfortable with talking will often start piping up after a little while.

In fact, one of my favourite types of nonverbal comunication is proxemics- the communication of distance. This pretty much refers to how you feel and your social standing with an individual based on how close you are to them. People you respect you will often keep at about an arms length when speaking to, while close friends are often right next to you. And you'd probably find it odd if your friends were to stand several feet away from you when talking to you normally, right? You'd think something is wrong!

You can really see proxemics at play in WEBFISHING, by seeing how players who are new to a lobby usually will gravitate towards the most populated area- but stick a distance away from the main group for a while. Maybe later as they've become a "standard" member of the lobby, they will move closer to the main group. You rarely see loners in this game, and when someone is alone another individual might decide to go accompany them anyway. A strange, but sweet welcoming gesture that requires no words. No matter where you are and who you are, someone will be happy to fish with you.

I think we should have more social games targeted towards older audiences that focus less on pure verbal communication, and more on nonverbal. But that requires social games to also have about the same amount of sandbox gameplay as WEBFISHING, which can be a hard ask of game devs. Especially just the whole issue of net code... Lamedeveloper, the creator of WEBFISHING, is incredibly impressive for pulling off such a fun online game. I hope that future updates will improve it greatly!