Video Game / A Girl Adrift

The adventure begins...

The survival of a girl who drifts around in a world that was submerged in water!

— Game Tagline

An Idle Game from Team Tapas where players take on the role of a girl trying to survive a flooded earth with only a raft and a fishing rod. From a tiny outcropping of rock in the Pacific, the unnamed drifter sets sail to explore the oceans, befriend other survivors, and search for answers about what caused the end of the world.

Gameplay revolves around catching fish and collecting resources to upgrade fishing equipment. Players travel between their home base, fishing areas where rare creatures can be caught, and Harbors run by the few survivors of the rising waters. Harbors allow players to sell any treasure they find, purchase skins to upgrade their abilities, and receive quests that expand the world map and push the story along.

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A Girl Adrift Provides Examples Of:

• Action Survivor: The player character fishes for and fights HUGE sea monsters with nothing but a fishing pole and a harpoon at first. She later adds a bit more firepower to her arsenal (including a machine gun and a magic crystal that can shoot lasers), but every day is a battle for survival against increasingly powerful fish.
• Ad Reward: There are frequently ads available to watch for a potion, and every so often it'll be a potion plus twenty minutes of +50% experience and fishcakes. Additionally, after defeating a Legendary fish, players can watch an ad to double their loot.
• After the End: The world has been overtaken by a cataclysmic flood, with tiny bits of land dotted with the Ruins of the Modern Age poking out of the sea scattered hundreds of miles apart. Survivors are few and far between.
• Alice Allusion: The March time-limited skin event, "Alice's Tea Time Event," is based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It includes:
  • a Dress Skin of a blue dress with white apron
  • a Hat Skin of a top hat decorated with heart-suite playing card
    I remember that I received it from a Mad Hatter, but I can not remember who that was.

    Item description, "Tea Time Hat"
  • a Hair Skin of blonde pigtails, also decorated with a heart and a spade hair ties
  • a Fishing Rod Skin that turns the fishing pole into a magical rod topped with a tea pot
  • a Boat Skin that transforms the raft into a tea cart complete with rose bushes, glowing mushrooms, playing cards, and a clock face bearing the outline of a rabbit's head and ears
  • a Cat Skin that transforms the feline companion into a Cheshire Cat
    A cat that is happy when the owner is happy, and happy when the owner is sad.

    Item description, "Cheshire Cat"
  • a Lantern Skin shaped like a giant glowing mushroom
  • a Storage Chest skin shaped like a tea tower and sandwich platter
    A set of tea that does not shrink you even if you take a bite. Prepare for an eternal teatime.

    Item description, "Afternoon Tea Set"
  • and Weapon Skins that turn the harpoon, turret, machine gun, and crystal into tea pots
• April Fools' Plot: The April Fools' Day holiday event includes a special quest from Busan, who gifts players with a Dress, Wig, and Hat skin that are copies of her outfit and sends them off to make the Cat Witch laugh. The Cat Witch then sends players off the Sydney, where Wallaby sends players off to Lusaka, where Hugo sends players Norway, where Reindeer sends players to New York, who finally sends players back to Busan to report on the status of her prank.
• Battle Theme Music: Trying to catch a fish plays battle music while you reel it in:
  • Normal fish get a simple little repetitive drum loop.
  • Rare fish get a faster and more frantic but still simple drum loop.
  • Boss fish play a drum loop with added synths for more tension.
  • The Legendary siren Margarglés'um sings an enchanting lullaby while you struggle with it for amber.
  • The upgraded Legendary catch, Und'avalena, plays an electric guitar theme while you fight it.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: The shop allows you to spend real money on diamonds, daily bonus tickets, and several one-time packages of pearls, potions, and mastery points.
• Button Mashing: The fishing rod is used by tapping the screen rapidly. To avoid putting too much strain on players' fingers, this is capped at 7 taps per second.
• Cartography Sidequest: Locations only appear on the world map after an NPC gives players a quest at that location. After filling in the world map, new quadrants can appear beside the Pacific Ocean. Players can travel seamlessly into an "otherworldly sea" with locations like the "Imphomus Harbor" and "Lonely Pier".
• Chainsaw Good: The "Bitter Sweet Valentine" monthly event for February offers a hot pink, heart-bedazzled chainsaw re-skin of the fishing rod called the "Chocolate Chainsaws" [sic].
  The obstacles that block love will be cut with chainsaws. ☆

  Item description, "Chocolate Chainsaws"
• Civilized Animal: Most of the animal NPCs appear to walk on two legs and have human-like features:
  • The Cat Witch from the Alchemy area has human-like hair, walks on two legs, and wears a full witchy getup.
  • Wallaby in Sydney Harbor wears a shirt and plays the guitar.
  • The Reindeer in Norway Harbor wears a hat and a belt.
  • The Junk Man in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a chinchilla who wears a hat and glasses.
  • Kathy the Cat in New York City Harbor walks on two legs, wears a hat and a scarf, and carries a briefcase.
  • The Octopus at Imphomus Harbor wears a maid dress and has a distinctly humanoid facial expressions, despite her tentacle arms and legs.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: The help file for Auto Voyage claims you can't select multiple targets at once. This is completely incorrect; you can select as many as you want out of what you've unlocked, and the game will even prioritize them appropriately.

• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The player character's proper name is never given, and the NPCs just call her "drifter".
• Experience Booster: The Altar of Growth grants a permanent increase to EXP gains, which increases the more you level it up with amber.
• Fishing for Sole: Parodied. Players can catch a Rare fish called "Old Boots" — a fish that resembles a beat-up old shoe.
• Fog of War: Map view is limited to areas that have been unlocked. At the beginning of the game, only the player's little base in the Pacific Ocean and a few cities in East Asia will be visible, while the rest of the world is an unfilled map.
• Foreshadowing: The last area unlocked before extending the map is R'lyeh, hinting that players are about to leave real-world inspired areas and get into Cthulhu-inspired content.
• Freemium: The game is free to play, supported by ads and microtransactions, and if you have ever spent any real money on the game, ads will no longer play outside of optional rewards. There was formerly also a VIP reward of 30 potions every two weeks for anyone who spent $10 or more in total, but this was discontinued in 2022.
• Funny Animal: While most of the animal NPCs are Civilized Animals, Hugo the Panther from Lusaka Harbor is just a talking panther who wears a bit of jewelry.
• Gameplay Automation:
  • Auto-Fish will automatically catch hooked fish it if players have already caught that species at a higher level. Upgrades to the Auto-Fish skill will give warnings when hooking a fish (or junk) players need to manually catch, catching higher rarities of fish, and eventually automatically starting the manual fight when players can't autocatch (instead of the fish getting away).
  • Auto-Voyage will automatically sail to the nearest area where players can catch a rare fish. Upgrading it allows players to change these criteria, from sailing to the rarest fish to keeping up with the various minigames that award mastery points.
  • Auto Skill Casting will automatically recast designated magic spells if players have spare mana when the spell expires, as well as automatically extending the spell's duration if players are about to hit the mana cap.
• Heroic Mute: The player character never speaks to the other survivors.
• Holiday Mode: Every month features a different time-limited event where players can purchase seasonal skins with currency gained while fishing. The events re-run every year, and the skins from the events appear randomly in the game's diamond shop.
  • January: New Year's Event
  • February: Bitter Sweet Valentine's Event
  • March: Alice's Tea Time Event
  • April:
    • Cherry Blossom on the Railroads Event
    • Busan's April Fools' Day Quest (this event only runs once per account)
  • May: Outlaws of the West Sea Event
  • June: Colorful Cotton Candy Event
  • July: Frenzy BBQ Party Event
  • August: Underwater Coral Palace Event
  • September: Cat Café Event
  • October: Halloween Event
  • November: Star Seas Event
  • December: "Merry X-Mas" Christmas Event
• Hitler Cam: When you've hooked a boss fish, the camera pulls back, slides down, and angles up, putting emphasis on the majesty and size of the boss.
• Hometown Nickname: Busan is named after the town in Korea where she makes her home.
• Idle Game: At first players will need to actively search out fish and fight the fish they hook by tapping rapidly on their screen, but reaching higher levels and purchasing upgrades allows the game to run while the player is away.
• Is It Something You Eat?: At rank 36, you start hearing whispers that the altars might be capable of restoring the world. Busan's only response to this is "Is that a fish? No? So why the hell are you talking about that?"
• Kangaroos Represent Australia: A Wallaby, actually, but for narrative purposes wallabies are just fun-sized kangaroos. Wally is the Civilized Animal NPC who runs the Sydney Harbor trading area.
• Level-Map Display: How players navigate. Opening the map and clicking on a fishing area, harbor, or other in-game landmark will set the player's raft in motion towards that endpoint.
• Lost at Sea: The game's aesthetic.
• Medium Blending: The backgrounds, water, raft, and turrets are all 3D/CGI, but the avatar, fish, and NPCs are 2D.
• Message in a Bottle: A mysterious message in a bottle is what first clues the player in to the fact that there are other survivors out there.
  "A bottle with a letter came out from the stomach of the fish. It says Busan in a messy handwriting and there's some kind of coordinates inscribed on it."
• Money Multiplier: The Altar of Abundance grants a permanent increase to fishcake gains, which increases the more you level it up with amber.
• Money Spider: Defeating a boss fish grants players a small amount of Mastery Point or Pearls (alongside the Shop Fodder or Organ Drops players can collect).
• Monumental Damage: Harbors and fishing areas are largely based in the ruins of large cities. The famous landmarks from those cities appear in the background as dilapidated ruins.
  • Hokkaido: A torii gate half-sunken into the waters.
  • Seoul: The CN tower lies in ruins, with only the distinctive top of the building visible.
  • Athens: Columns poking up out of the waters are the only remnants of the historical Grecian sites.
  • Paris: The top of the Eiffel Tower lies in a twisted heap atop several square-ish, low-poly buildings.
  • New York City: The Statue of Liberty has fallen apart. The head and torch-bearing arm decorate the Harbor area.
  • Boston: The Massachusetts State House is sinking into the waves.
  • San Francisco: The broken remnants of the Golden Gate Bridge jut out of the sea.
  • Rio De Janeiro: The "Christ the Redeemer" statue is weatherworn and beginning to tilt to one side.
• Music Is Eighth Notes: When fighting the siren Margarglés'um, she occasionally unleashes a swarm of flying eighth notes.
• National Animal Stereotypes:
  • Wallaby for Australia
  • Reindeer for Norway
  • Lusaka (and by extension the rest of Africa) has a Black Panther
• Non-Malicious Monster: According to the alchemist, legendary fish don't want to hurt you — they're just ordinary fish who've been mutated by amber and can't control themselves.
• Organ Drops: Downplayed — defeating a Rare and Boss fish causes them to drop items that can be sold at the Harbors for Mastery Points or Pearls. One of the items that drops is scales, which makes sense for a fish. Others drops include driftwood, coral, crystals, and tiaras.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: A recurring Boss called Margarglés’um can be found in the moving "Thunderstorm" area. She appears as a massive mermaid with hair like seaweed, playing a golden harp.
• Play Every Day: Every day, the shop contains a free daily reward of 5 potions, 20 diamonds, and 1 hour of +50% experience and fishcake gain. There's also a sequence of "cumulative attendance rewards", which you'll get after collecting a number of daily rewards.
• Premium Currency: Diamonds are the sole currency in the special shop, which contains a rotating selection of costume parts, including the event costumes you might otherwise be waiting nearly a year to get normally. They can also be traded for potions, or spent on eight hours of +50% experience and fishcake gains. They normally come in very slowly through daily rewards, but can also be purchased for real money. They can also just be ignored entirely, because they're never necessary for normal progression.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: The only bits of land left above the waves show the ruins of famous cities and landmarks.
• Sexy Santa Dress: The art style for the avatar is decidedly chibi, but the outfit skin players can get during the "Merry X-Mas" time-limited event is a short, strapless red dress trimmed with white fluff.
• Shop Fodder: Defeated rare and boss fish will drop an item. Most of those items aren't used in construction or crafting, but they can be sold at Harbors to get Mastery Points and Pearls.
• Warp Whistle:
  • Once you unlock the farm at rank 16, you can warp there immediately (with a lengthy cooldown) with the Return Stone on the map screen.
  • At rank 18, you unlock the teleportation skill, letting you warp to any point of interest on the map with a corresponding cost in mana.
  • When you start unlocking altars at rank 22, you can warp between them (and the farm) for free whenever you want.
• World Tour: Every unlockable fishing area is based on a real-world city, country, or national landmark... at least until the players get to the edge of the map and unlock the eldritch sea beyond.

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