Fishing Vacation is a pixel art horror game created by Teebowah Games. The original game was released in 2020 as part of a Fishing Horror Jam. In 2022, an updated version titled Fishing Vacation: Deluxe was released, and in 2023 this version was ported to the Nintendo Switch.
In the game, your friend has invited you to go on a fishing vacation at their uncle's lakeside cabin. Having not been away with your friend for some time, you accept the invitation and the two of you head off to the cabin for the weekend. Upon arriving, however, there's no sign of your friend's uncle, the cabin looks near-abandoned, and there are strange things lurking in and around the lake. It looks like there's something fishy going on here...
Fishing Vacation can be downloaded here
or here.
Fishing Vacation contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- In the story about Sedna, Sedna's father forces her to marry a stranger who turns out to be a birdlike monster. The father rescues his daughter but when the monster calls upon a sea spirit to retrieve his bride, the father throws Sedna overboard to prevent the kayak from being capsized and thus save himself. When Sedna clings to the edge of the kayak, her father chops her fingers off with an axe and she sinks into the depths, becoming a sea goddess.
- It's revealed that the uncle drowned his young daughter in the lake as an offering to Sedna.
- Ambiguous Ending:
- Ending B sees the player returning to the cabin to find out what's going on there. It's not revealed what happens next, although it's implied they may end up suffering the same fate they do in Ending D, or the fate of their friend in Ending C.
- Ending C. The player and their friend both get away, but your friend is deeply affected by something that happened to them while they were fishing alone at night. It's implied that they may end up returning to the lake due to Sedna's influence.
- Awful Truth: In some ending routes, you begin to piece together what actually happened to the uncle and his family. The first big clue is when you fish up a child-sized shoe with a rotting foot inside (and a cellar key attached), horrifying your friend as they realize it's likely the remains of their cousin. If you get into the cellar, you find notes confirming the uncle murdered his family.
- Big Bad: Sedna is the entity who stalks the protagonist and his friend in the uncle's cabin and sends the uncle to capture them as sacrifices.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ending A. You and your friend escape with your lives and sanity intact, although the uncle escapes and is currently on the run, while the police find nothing in the lake but unusually large trout. Sedna is also still out there.
- Body Horror: After becoming Sedna's follower, your friend's uncle seems to have undergone a horrific change as Ending E reveals, becoming disfigured, his eyes glowing in the dark and his grunts have a deep, inhuman tone to them.
- Creepy Basement: You can explore the cabin's cellar if you find all three keys. It has a creepy, crude statue of Sedna made of mud and fish bones, the start of a long dark tunnel dug into the wall, and bottles filled with notes revealing the grisly fate of your friend's aunt and cousin.
- Creepy Crows: They ominously inhabit the backyard and become more and more common with the passing of days.
- Cute Monster Girl: Horribly subverted with Sedna, who looks more like a Wicked Witch with her messy hair, noseless face, wide wrinkled Slasher Smile, thin clawed fingers and sunken, glowing eyes. Makes one wonder if your friend's uncle really fell in love with her to begin with, or if she put him under a spell.
- Deadly Road Trip: The player character and their friend decide to go on a road trip to a remote cabin owned by the friend's uncle, intending to spend three days relaxing and fishing. The trip ends up being anything but relaxing thanks to the friend's crazy uncle and an ocean goddess, though there is plenty of fishing. There's only one ending where the player character, at the very least, is confirmed to die, while in the other endings the protagonists narrowly escape (though not completely unaffected in some routes).
- Descent into Darkness Song: The song that can be played on the cabin's record player starts out as a jaunty, relaxing 8-bit tune, but as the days pass the music becomes slower and more distorted-sounding.
- Divine Date: Reading the uncle's notes in the cellar reveals he became infatuated with the goddess Sedna after glimpsing her just once and proceeded to go to extreme lengths to earn her favor so they could be together.
- Downer Ending:
- Ending D. You are caught by the uncle and sacrificed to Sedna. It's unclear what happened to your friend; they may have been able to escape but they could also have been captured too.
- Ending E: If you get all 3 keys and explore the cellar, you have the option to explore the tunnel that seems to lead outside. The deeper you go, Sedna's whispers and uncle's grunting become louder, until he finally emerges and catches you.
- Evil Uncle: It's revealed your friend's uncle murdered his wife and young daughter, seeing them as obstacles to his relationship with Sedna, and he's willing to kill other people as offerings to her too; it's strongly implied he let the two friends come to the cabin in order to sacrifice them and in at least one ending he succeeds.
- Folk Horror: The game is set in a remote lakeside cabin in the mountains and features a book telling the story of Sedna, the Inuit ocean goddess which turns out to be highly relevant to the strange goings-on at the lake.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- The player character informs you right off the bat that the fishing vacation ended up going horribly wrong, to the point they wish they'd never agreed to it. Things start out peacefully enough, but you know that sooner or later things take a turn for the creepy.
- The player can only read a few pages of the Inuit mythology book each day and the last few pages concluding the story have been torn out and can be found in the basement. However, if the player is already familiar with the story of Sedna, they will know how it ends and they'll possibly be able to figure out the game's central mystery too.
- Foreshadowing:
- As the days pass, you can catch some increasingly large or otherwise unusual aquatic creatures, most of which usually live in the ocean and are highly unlikely to be found in a freshwater mountain lake. You can even catch a great white shark. This is because of the powers of the ocean goddess Sedna, who can bless fishermen with a bountiful catch.
- There are fewer fish heads in the fridge each passing day suggesting there's someone else living nearby who can get into the cabin.
- On the first day, you fish up a shoe from the lake. It's mentioned the shoe is six inches long. Six inches would indicate a child's shoe and there's no sign of your friend's little cousin...
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Done a few times for horror effect, contrasting with the cutesy artstyle of the game.
- Upon checking the statue of Sedna in the cellar, the game actually shows a close-up of it. Despite being described as crude and made up of mud and bones, it matches her gruesome appearance just fine.
- In Ending C, the protagonists make it out of the cabin alive, but the friend is traumatized and likely possessed by Sedna in some way. The protagonist gets one last good look at him and notices he has dead fish-like eyes, which are shown in detail to the player.
- Hell Is That Noise: Throughout the game, there will be several instances where you can hear Sedna's creepy whispering, indicating that she is nearby:
- The first time is when your friend recounts his dream to you, which turns out to have not been a dream at all.
- The second time is when you spot Sedna running through the forest on the other side of the lake on Day 2.
- The third time is when you go night fishing, and the whispers become louder and louder as Sedna swims closer to your location before going underwater when you look at her.
- Human Sacrifice: In endings A and D, it's revealed the uncle killed his wife and daughter to be sacrifices to Sedna. It's implied he lured the player character and their friend to the cabin to also be sacrificed, though he only succeeds in sacrificing the player in Ending D.
- Lord of the Ocean: In the cabin you can read a book telling one version of the Inuit myth of Sedna, goddess of the ocean. It's revealed that she's the one responsible for the strange happenings at the lake, due to the uncle's fanatical worship.
- Mini-Game: There's a mini-game that can be played once per day where you dig up and catch worms to use as bait. The more worms you catch the more chances you have to catch things. You can also dig up what looks to be human bones.
- Multiple Endings: There are five available endings, which are dependant upon choices the player makes in certain sections and whether you find all the keys that unlock the padlocks on the cellar door.
- Ending A: If you collect all the keys to the cellar, you discover that the uncle sacrificed his wife and daughter to the goddess Sedna. You and your friend decide the leave the cabin immediately, with you narrowly escaping the uncle. You and your friend alert the police and they seal off and comb the area, but find no trace of the uncle. A cutscene in the Deluxe version indicates that your friend's uncle still lurks at the lake.
- Ending B: If you don't get all the cellar keys you never find out what happened to your friend's family. Your friend is happy never to return to the cabin because of how creeped out they are, but the curiosity eats away at you and you decide to return to the cabin alone for answers. As you open the cabin door in the Deluxe version, Sedna's whispering can be heard.
- Ending C: If you choose not to go night fishing with your friend on the last night when you wake up the next day your friend has locked themselves in their room and talks strangely to you, saying they don't feel well. You both eventually head home without incident, though your friend seems confused and distant. As they drive away after dropping you home, you see your friend has "the eyes of a dead fish"; clearly they saw something at the lake that night that traumatized them, though they refuse to discuss it.
- Ending D: If you explore the cellar but get caught by the uncle as you're trying to escape, you are knocked unconscious and wake up hours later at the lake. Sedna drags you under the surface as a sacrifice.
- Ending E (added with an update): If you explore the tunnel in the cellar, uncle will emerge from hiding and catch you.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: The uncle murdered his wife and apparently buried her body in the woods surrounding the cabin so that he could be with Sedna, with whom he had fallen obsessively in love.
- Nameless Narrative: None of the characters are named and are only referred to by their relationships to each other with the exception of Sedna and the uncle, who's name is revealed to be Gil in the E Ending.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The cabin remains unlocked the whole time for days while it's clear that someone or something is lurking about, but the only time the protagonist is attacked is at the very end after learning the truth behind the incident.
- Retraux: The game's layout, graphics and music are intentionally designed to resemble an old-school Gameboy title; the game screen's border even resembles a Gameboy.
- The Stinger: Two of the endings feature these:
- Ending A: After the police are done combing through the lake and surrounding forest, the cutscene plays from uncle's perspective as he looks at the lake and breathes heavily.
- Ending B (Deluxe version): Upon returning to the lake on their own, the protagonist approaches the cabin, as the door suddenly opens and Sedna's whispering can be heard.
- Taking the Kids: At the start of the game, the player character's friend mentions that the last time they spoke to their uncle, he was going through a divorce from his then-wife. Upon arriving at the cabin - where no one seems to have lived in a while - you can find a note on the wall indicating the uncle's wife left him and took their daughter with her. The truth is far worse, as the wife and daughter never got the chance to leave.
- That Was Not a Dream: On the second morning, the player's friend tells you about a strange nightmare or possibly a case of sleep paralysis they had the previous night, where they heard weird noises and saw something moving outside their window. The friend laughs it off and is amused at having spooked you, though given the increasingly strange and creepy events that occur, it's strongly suggested they weren't dreaming.
- Video Game Remake: The original game was made for a fishing-themed horror jam in 2020. Two years later the creator released a slightly updated version; the Deluxe version doesn't differ much in terms of story and gameplay, although it features extra cutscenes, new animations and sound effects, and updated controller support. The original version is free while the Deluxe version costs USD$1.99.
