Dovetail Games Euro Fishing

Carp fishing and Xbox: granted, they’re two words you’ve probably not heard together before but permit us, if you will, to explain further. You see, on paper, it’s a simple equation: take Dovetail (a game creator with some serious pedigree), Korda’s Tom Dove as Content Associate, some extreme detailing and the result is almost ‘real’ carp fishing from the comfort of your front room.

The big questions

Hang on, you’re telling me there’s a carp fishing game for Xbox?
We sure are! The game, Euro Fishing, isn’t actually new – it’s been available on PC for over a year now and has racked up over 60,000 downloads, but this month sees it become available for the Xbox One.

That’s awesome. So how does it work?
Each player tackles (excuse the bad pun) every step of the fishing experience, from selection of the equipment to picking your rigs based on the type of lakebed you’re angling over.

You said ‘each player’ so can I challenge my mates?
That’s right. You can fish by yourself or compete against friends and opponents in single player or hosted multiplayer tournaments, tracking and comparing catches in real time. In fact, we’re thinking of starting up a CARPology Championships so if you’re on-line at lunchtime give us a nudge…

Definitely! So how realistic is it?
Very. When mapping out one of the venues, the famous St John’s on the Linear complex, Dovetail took over 1,200 images of the lake from all different angles so what you see on your TV screen is exactly what you’d see if you were sat in the famous ‘Point’ swim for argument’s sake! Using advanced AI and customisable environment effects, the fish do respond to water temperature, time of day, weather conditions and baits as they do in real life. You’ll see and hear fish roll and head and shoulder; you can clip-up; there’s a chance of a double take; you can fish on gravel bars or in silt patches; and of course you can up sticks and move at any point during the session. It’s the nearest thing you’ll get to fishing whilst vegging on that oversized sofa of yours.

Talking of the session, how does the time work – could I sit there all day for a blank?!
Haha! You can set it to work on a minute equals a minute – so in essence you could do a proper 24hr session! But for all normal, sane people, you can adjust it so one minute can equal whatever length of time you wise – five, ten, twenty minutes – whatever.

What are the graphics like?
Outstanding. Using the latest Unreal Engine 4 graphics technology, Euro Fishing looks and feels as close to the real thing as possible. And now that it’s available on Xbox One, everyone’s on the same playfield and there’s zero quality lost, like screen lag which you can get on PCs.

So explain to me exactly how it works then…
Okay. So your first job is to pick your venue – there’s currently five unique European venues, including real venues such as St John’s and Digger Lakes in Devon, all recreated in magnificent detail. You can set weather conditions to reflect real world settings or create your own preferences to affect how fish behave, and you can select your own gear, including products from Korda, Delkin, SONIK and Mainline. When it comes to selecting a swim, that all comes down to watercraft: reading the water and its features – the better you do that, the better your results will be! There’s two levels of cast control: Basic and Total and a pressure gauge system for when you’re playing one.

It sounds brilliant, but how do I get it?
It’s available now as a download (from the Xbox Store) and is priced at just £14.99. Once you’re up and running, look out for us, CARPology, we’ll be up for that comp we mentioned earlier…