They have a Kickstarter which went live today to — as I understand it — fund the first game (and indirectly) the game platform at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erlendsh/fish-folk

The results of the Kickstarter will remain open-source.

(I have no connection to the project, but have backed it)

Thank you!

Love the art style. This looks like a new take on Worms.

What are some key features that differentiate it from a game like Worms (besides the fact that it is open-source and written in Bevy/Rust)?

Otherwise, cool project!

The game is fast-paced and real-time, so more like a shooter version of Smash Bros. But it’s intentionally very arcade-like in that you can only shoot in one straight direction, so the controls are very simple. I’m a 30-something and I can keep up with the young guns by being a bit more tactical ;)

We’re also heavily focused on modding, having grown up in the Wc3 era.

I'm fairly positive this is a real-time melee brawler with almost no relationship to Worms beyond being played on a 2d side-scrolling map.

As others have said, Worms is turn based while this is real-time action. What it actually really reminds me of is Duck Game[0].

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/312530/Duck_Game/

The second sentence of the linked page says:

> For more information about our origin story (Duck Game et.al.) ...

I'd say it's more like Brawlhalla, where you move and fight on a classic platform arena, which in turn is similar to the very successful Super Smash Bros. So Fish Folk is now like these, but open source.

You got me excited for a Smash-like, but it reminded me more of Teeworlds, without the grappling hooks.

BTW, the demo appears to have controller support. I plugged in my Open-Frame1 in case it was like Smash or Rivals of Aether. Worked with no configuration.

After dying 20 times, I finally picked up the sword with C. But my hand cannot reliably press WASDC+Space.

I know that we think of Shift as a modifier key, but for games it's actually a more practical action key, along with E and Q.

Bevy looks really interesting. I’d love to experiment with gamedev using the framework.

I liked hitting F12 and being able to inspect all the things.

Ahh, I spent a week a couple months ago making a Bevy game too.

Great engine with great potential. Hope it gets more traction (and an editor) https://dublog.net/blog/rust-2/

I suggest to take the same approach as https://shatteredpixel.com/ and sell it on Steam et al. while still having it FOSS and available in a git repository.

> The game is currently under re-construction as it is being rewritten to use the Bevy game engine.

What did they use before?

Previously we used Macroquad. It worked great, but when we had a change of lead dev he was more comfortable with Bevy, plus it’s got a bigger community, hence the switch. More context here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/zlxyrh/fish_folk_jump...