Fishermen-geeks of all countries, unite

The 3D simulator of winter fishing competitions ProPilkki has been known on the Web for a very long time, since 1999. At first it was simple, with several fixed locations, without playing over the Internet, but it was original - there were no other games dedicated to winter use. No wonder he immediately became popular. Then gradually there were additional cards, multiplayer, and dozens of servers in the world, on which there are always fans to shake the winter rod in the home heat.



But Finnish developers created the program (and continue) very slowly, completely free of charge for players, carefully testing the game before publishing. Update intervals are measured in semesters and years. Well, in the current millennium, new mobile devices, which are always in your pocket, allow you to make games for which there are no borders, neither geographic nor technological. In short, there was a desire to get a similar game, but ...

• not limited to a set of fixed locations
• not limited to a set of servers that need to be maintained in working order, but which limit the number of players
• with prizes based on the results of the tournament, not only in the form of rankings, and the top three
• socially useful, where colleagues on the hobby can not only play, compete, but also benefit from the periodic use of the game
• and in general - a more realistic simulator of the process of winter fishing, not 3D-pictures, but the process itself.

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There are many programs on fishing for the Android operating system, at the end of 2013 there were only 3-4 on the topic of winter fishing, but for the most part completely “toy” ones. But now, at the end of 2014, there are already a significant number of such games, and almost all of them have a beautiful 3D appearance, “live” ice, ...
But still, in the incomplete 2014, the author’s efforts (and with the help of a couple of freelance designers and a school tester, a fishing enthusiast) managed to create an application for Android devices, which is a multiplayer online winter fishing simulator, for the above purposes with some useful features. Of course, being inspired all this time by the original Finnish game.

The name for some reason wanted to do, clinging to the glory of the original, therefore, despite the Finnish linguistics, only one last letter was replaced in the name of the application.



In January 2014, a technical project was created with a description of the idea of ​​a winter fishing rod, controlled by an accelerometer, as in reality, with a “game” of a mormyshka; database structure and text description of the process of winter fishing point by point.
Then there was an epic with the search for designers, as many as four were eliminated, and most of them for some reason for medical reasons. Icons, of course, did not create a pro.





But the fishing rod turned out (from another freelancer, a 3D designer) is not bad, in my opinion, bending and playing with a nod is quite realistic.



After that, the very first test prototype of the application was created, where the frames of the bending rod were able to turn into animation, which at first had some doubts. But still, the test proved that a game with a nod in Android is possible:



Further, continuous search for photos on the Web and ineptly editing graphics for the game - I repeat that the goal was to create a realistic fishing process, not a laborious, but beautiful 3D image.




Ichthyological sites and a database of fish on the Internet were studied, and 16 species of the most common species of fish, all of which are in Mother Volga, were selected to start. For them was compiled a database that is used in the application.



The minimum and maximum feeding temperatures, the minimum allowable catch length, the maximum fish weight ever recorded, food preferences, and a subjective assessment of the nature of the fish when resisting vyvazhivaniyu. Some of these parameters are not yet used in the application, but the work continues.

According to the practical statistics of the caught fish, a formula was derived for calculating the weight of the fish from its given length, so that everything here is as realistic as possible in calculating the results of fishing.



And you can easily check the weight of your actually caught fish using the application menu, knowing the length of the fish.

Since we have a network game, we need to make the most of the informational uses of civilization, therefore online data services were involved:

• cloud user storage service (data is encrypted for privacy and a modest attempt to prevent cheating)
• maps, real maps of the home planet - to fish wherever you want
• weather - anywhere you can immediately find out the weather, and accordingly, choose the type of fishing: yes, summer fishing is also planned!
• The reverse geocoding service is used to bring the data of users from all over the world to the same type, where the address of the player’s location is calculated by geographic coordinates
• with hands occupied with fishing rods, it is possible to communicate with the players with a voice, the voice-to-text service has long been a reality.

In the future, it will be possible to add GPS navigation (voice, for example), since the blessing of developments on the subject has been around for a long time and the game will become even more useful.

Well, and finishing “the rest of the owl”, after some 11 months of “torment” in the process of “digitizing” your favorite hobby, we get what happened: a multiplayer winter fishing simulator with a realistic (I hope) process, with realistic fish behavior , with world tournaments, with a rating of catches, but so far without real prizes; with the function of searching for travel companions for fishing in your city; with public chat with text and voice input of messages.

Although I would still like to do a lot for greater realism (a lot has not yet been implemented in TK), but there is not enough community of “geeks” who are passionate about not only IT, but also fishing.