Starlight Re:Volver Dev Blog 1: fishing for friends... and fish.
First dev blog! Exciting.
👋 Hi Substack, we are kicking off our Pahdo Labs dev blogs for Starlight Re:Volver with an exciting first minigame deep dive!
Omg. New game, who dis?
We are a young game studio currently developing ✨ Starlight Re:Volver ✨, a multiplayer anime-inspired game!
The Best of Both Worlds
In Starlight Re:Volver, players take on the role of magical Divers, celebrated heroes of a lively city who possess a rare ability to enter dreamworlds and explore fantastical biomes.
Nishi Island Metropolis (NIM, left) — where players can relax, play mini games, and socialized in between runs! Customize your outfits, fill up your codex with discoveries, and unlock entry into exclusive spaces as you rise to fame as the best Diver around!
So Mi (right)— dreamlike realms accessible only to Divers. Teamwork and skilled combat enable you to venture through a variety of mystical and futuristic realms. Here, you can experiment with powerful synergies and enhancements that allow your team to return home with treasures and secrets.
👉 First demo of our game in March 2025! If you want to snag a Steam key in time… join our Discord :)
We’re reviving this Substack as a dev blog platform so our updates aren’t gatekept to an email newsletter in people’s inboxes!
You can look forward to 1-2 long-form write ups per month from us. We will be going deep into showcasing gameplay features, design decisions, art updates, and fun studio activities in a way that honestly social media doesn’t provide the us the avenue to do so as easily.
Before we dive in …
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Wishlist Starlight Re:Volver on Steam!
First Game Feature Highlight: Fishing!
So we’ve put out a few trailers that have some beautiful VFX-filled team combat scenes. What we haven’t shown, because we’ve been building it, are some chill between-intense-gameplay activities.
Fishing is a beloved mini game mechanic in games spanning a large variety of genres. As a studio, we are exceptionally fond of Webfishing and Animal Crossing.
All gameplay shown are part of our current early development build!
How do you attract fish and/or friends?
A core value we have here at Pahdo Labs: everything is better with friends.
I found out a few days ago that this is actually the name of a Steam award after stalking the HellDivers 2 Steam page. So that’s pretty awesome that we’re on a track of some kind!
We internally evaluate our game design decisions against this belief because we’re trying to build a place where people can spend some quality time with their best friends, and of course, make new ones.
Let me lure you in.
Players can cast lures in fishing areas to boost chances of attracting more fish in general. Special lures increases chances of rarer fish to show up. This sounds pretty standard right?
But in Starlight Re:Volver, when you use a lure of any kind, it helps everyone at the same fishing area. Good lure will bring in good fish and also new friends who are equally opportunistic about their fishing grind.
To craft the most basic types of fishing lure, you can just use some fish you’ve already caught. In order to craft the really good stuff, you’re going to have to boost your normal lure with the magical goodies you accrued from your dreamworld battle drops.
One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish… all in your Codex!
Your codex is pretty straightforward. It keeps track of all the fish you’ve discovered, stats such as weight, rarity, and how many times you’ve caught it before. It will also give you hints as to how and where to catch the fish you haven’t discovered yet.
We did a super secret and small friends and family playtest last week and also invited some truly early supporters who found us at AnimeNYC last year. And of course, as gamers do, someone filled out their entire codex before the playtest was even over.
Feedback taken. We’re pumping out more fish to be fishable. This is at the absolute top of our game production priority list. How’s 42 fishies to start?
Environmental impact (on fish).
So far, we have two large fishing areas, two weather conditions, and four distinct times of the day in the bustling city of Nishi Island Metropolis (NIM). And yes, these conditions all affect the type of fish you might be able to catch. I bet you want to know how! Join Discord to hear about it.
Fishing areas:
Farsky Docks (pictured)
Crescent Lake (WIP)
Weather conditions:
Sun
Rain
Times of day
Dawn
Day
Dusk
Night (broke alliteration here)
There will also be some small freshwater ponds around NIM that you could decide to just start fishing out of. We have a fountain. I wonder what you might catch there! On top of the 42 available fishies, you will be able to catch rare crafting materials, so that’s a possibility…
How do you show off your fine fishermanship?
We’ve decided against letting other players click through your personal codex… so how are you supposed to nonchalantly tell absolutely everyone that you’ve spent all of your free waking hours fishing in NIM?
Don’t fret. Crafting is here.
Imagine that you caught a Sacred Tuna (legendary, difficult) then crafted an Angelic Halo (rare) cosmetic which cannot be acquired in any other manner than via possession of a Sacred Tuna. There’s also some discussion around a localized leaderboard of NIM’s top daily fishermen.
But what do you guys think? Join our Discord to confront us directly.
The good ol’ days of fishing gossip and misinformation.
Then and now…
Back in the 90s, there were no online wikis or in-game hints akin to the wonderful fishing Codex in Starlight Re:Volver. The kinds of fish you could potentially catch was completely spread by word of mouth at school. Gossip among your peers.
Alijah, our Creative Director, fell victim to this. He spent hours of afterschool time attempting to catch a rumored shark in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Legends of Fake Fish: Thief of Time.
But hey, now he’s taken that experience into producing a Codex for you, dear gamer, so it’s not all for naught.
Ashleigh, our Art Director, reminisced on how social singleplayer games used to be IRL. Friends would gather over your shoulder to give tips or take turns trying difficult in-game mechanics. Apparently having a babysitter who gamed was the ultimate life hack. I think this one still holds true…
Social gameplay is the core of what we want to bring to our players in Starlight Re:Volver. Ashleigh’s parents will call up their grandkids on Saturday mornings to go fishing together in Animal Crossing while living across the country. Games have the capability of bringing together three generations.
Meanwhile, Alijah has been enjoying the online chatroom functions that Webfishing has recently brought back. New encounters and fun conversations can happen over a shared idle activity.
We imagine Starlight Re:Volver being a platform that strengthens existing relationships and fosters new ones! As a studio of… gamers, we have seen first hand how meaningful lifelong friendships can be forged from hours of idle and active gameplay.
Fishing just might be the one game mechanic that connects everybody.
If you enjoyed this read, join our Discord community to let us know :)
Until next time!
Pahdo Labs
Time to fill out the gen 1 fishdex
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼
Looking forward to catching my first legendary fish 🤩🐟