Overview
Overview
Embedded Files
Sip Fisher is a cozy incremental fishing game about sipping up a lake through a straw. It was developed over the Summer of 2025, inspired by the popular Game About Digging a Hole.
The team’s primary goal for the project was profitability by targeting a wide audience. My primary responsibility was market and user research.
Prototype Stage
Prototype Stage
At the beginning of development, our team built a simple prototype focused on the game’s primary mechanic: sipping water up through a straw. I conducted a series of 1-on-1 playtests to identify major pain points in this earliest version of the mechanic. Through rigorous qualitative analysis, we discovered that players were struggling with the constant need to move toward the water, which prompted us to reconsider how mobility should function in the game.
The team was exploring movement solutions that wouldn’t force players to repeatedly reposition themselves toward the water or create a long-term resource sink. We were also looking for opportunities to give players a meaningful creative space, some way to shape or affect the game world around them. From this intersection of needs, I proposed allowing players to spend the money earned from sipping to purchase dock pieces they could build out over the lake. This approach addressed our mobility concerns while giving players a flexible, creative system that deepened engagement with the game world.
Playtesting and Design Methodology
Playtesting and Design Methodology
Over the course of three months, I ran four comprehensive playtests which aimed to have 3 or 4 participants at a time complete the game, in the state it was in, from start to finish. Occasionally this was done over multiple sittings. This fed well into the team's Lean UX approach to design where we would build a minimum viable product which could be used to test our assumptions and then refine the design from the feedback we received.
By integrating continuous feedback loops into our workflow, we ensured that design decisions were grounded in referenceable player behavior. These recurring playtests enabled us to embrace change and adapt quickly to pain points. The process kept the team aligned, reduced development risk, and allowed the game’s systems to evolve organically in response to player needs.
Research Iteration
Research Iteration
As with any design, I had to put effort into iterating on my playtest report design. Initially, my reports were longer, many-page documents describing all of my goals, methods, observations, and recommendations. The issue is that the team was small and time was limited; parsing long playtest documents wasn't feasible for the team. To adapt to the needs of the stakeholders, I broke the information into distinct sections, allowing the team to choose the level of detail they wanted to engage with, and I condensed the findings into a more digestible cover page.
Shown below are the reports I gave to the team over time, showing how my style adapted to the needs of the stakeholders.
Reflection
Reflection
Our initial goal for Sip Fisher was to generate $1,000 in revenue in the first month of release. At this point, months after release, we have sold 20k copies and have over $84,000 in revenue.
This success was strong evidence that the work I did in User Research was effective for our goals. This project taught me how to adapt my skills better to the stakeholders and how to effectively playtest a longer game.
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