Vlambeer designer Jan Willem ("JW") Nijman developed the idea based on a television show about tuna fishermen that led him to consider an intersection between catching big fish, slow-motion photography, and Duck Hunt 's game mechanics. The game was designed with a feedback loop, where performance in one minigame led to a more rewarding experience in the next minigame. It was built to take "everything good" from habit-forming browser games without artificially extending its length just to hook players. Vlambeer developed Radical Fishing, an Adobe Flash-based game where a fisherman sits in a boat and casts his line into the water, pulls up fish into the air, and shoots them with a gun. There is also a Fish-o-pedia in Billy's smartphone that gives gameplay hints and tracks stats such as fish caught, which is the progress for unlocking new levels. Earnings can be spent in a store towards persistent upgrades such as longer fishing line length, invulnerable drills, frivolous hats, bigger guns, chainsaw lures, a hair dryer and toaster (to zap inadvertent catches), fuel for the chainsaw, and a necktie for greater income. There are four stages, each with its own visual and audio theme and rare fish, and an endless mode where players can work towards the highest score. Shooting jellyfish detracts from the total income. The fish differ in characteristics including swim pattern and the number of shots required. Above water, the fish are launched into the air, and the player taps the screen to shoot the fish out of the sky to earn money before they fall into the water. Upon hooking a fish, the hook ascends and the player tilts the device to catch as many fish as possible en route to the surface. The player casts the line and tilts the device to avoid the fish as the hook sinks. The game mechanics consist of three minigames: casting the fishing line, catching fish, and shooting the fish in the air. The player fishes in pursuit of fame as a fisherman named Billy. A 3D remaster of the game developed by KO_OP, titled Ridiculous Fishing EX, was released on Apple Arcade in July 2023, 3 years after Vlambeer went defunct. Reviewers noted Vlambeer's struggle against the copy of their game and praised the game's balance and both visual and game design. It won an Apple's 2013 Design Award and was their iPhone game of the year. Ridiculous Fishing received "near-universal perfect scores" at launch -what review score aggregator Metacritic describes as "universal acclaim". Artist Greg Wohlwend moved in with iOS developer Zach Gage to work 14-hour days on the game. The team worked on other games and spoke publicly about the situation to a standing ovation at the 2012 Game Developers Conference before resolving to scrap the majority of their work and finish the game. A year after Vlambeer began their iOS development, Gamenauts released Ninja Fishing, a clone of the game. The game was first released as a Flash game Radical Fishing with the same basic mechanics. Players then touch the screen to shoot fish out of the sky for money that can be spent on upgrades. Players cast a fishing line into the ocean and use motion controls to avoid fish as the hook sinks and to catch as many fish as possible as the reel retracts. The game was released for iOS on March 13, 2013, then later that year for Android. In the game, players use motion and touch controls to catch fish and subsequently shoot them out of the sky for cash.
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