I Made a Game That Cries at 3 AM — And It Taught Me How to Fish for Stillness

I didn’t design this game to make you rich.

I designed it because I couldn’t sleep.

Every night at 3 AM, I’d sit by my window in San Francisco, watching the waves roll like old memories—my mother’s voice whispering in Cantonese, my father’s code humming in Silicon Valley. The sea outside didn’t care about your RTP or RNG. But it cared about your silence.

So I made a game where catching fish isn’t about luck.

It’s about rhythm.

Each cast is a breath. Each reel is a pause.

I used Unity and WebGL not because they’re powerful—but because they feel alive. The fish don’t spawn from algorithms. They rise from stillness.

In one level, you set a budget—not to maximize wins, but to honor the space between thoughts. You don’t chase jackpots. You wait for the ripple that says: ‘Did you ever feel the world stop?’

And when it does—you catch something deeper than gold.

This isn’t gamification. It’s grief turned into grace.

I’ve watched players weep after their first real catch. They didn’t say ‘I won.’ They said: ‘Thank you—for letting me not be alone.’

We are not building tools for addicts. We are building temples for quiet minds.