The How to Fish devlog: 370 days from first post to launch
Contents
How to Fish launched on 20 August 2026 and gathered 43,902 reviews in eleven days. It began with a single social post — one year and five days before release.
We assembled the public devlog of Dazed Games into a timeline.
What was shown, and when
| date | what was shown |
|---|---|
| 15/08/2025 | First post about the fishing game |
| 16/08/2025 | Explains the art approach: lowpoly plus shaders. Confirms the engine is Unity |
| 25/08/2025 | Sharks |
| 26/08/2025 | Seahorse |
| 25/09/2025 | The casino |
| 29/09/2025 | Grilling fish |
| 08/10/2025 | Melee combat |
| 28/10/2025 | Seagulls |
| 04/11/2025 | MAC-11 |
| 17/11/2025 | The knife |
| 27/11/2025 | New gameplay trailer |
The key arithmetic
| Interval | Length |
|---|---|
| From the previous game’s launch to the first fishing post | 57 days |
| From the first post to release | 370 days |
| From the gameplay trailer to release | 266 days |
The studio’s previous game, Out of Hand: Deluxe, launched on 19 June 2025 — after two years of work, by the developers’ own description. Under two months later the first fishing post appeared.
The order the mechanics arrived in
The timeline shows a sequence that is hard to guess from the finished game:
- First the fish and the setting — sharks, a seahorse.
- Then the casino (late September) and grilling (four days after the casino).
- And only in October-November, the weapons: melee first, then the MAC-11, then the knife.
So the game started as a fishing game and the combat layer was added on top later.
That matches how players tag it today: Fishing (228 votes) and Shooter (206) sit
side by side in the tag list.
Who built it
The studio is two co-founders: Melvin Olsson and Carl-Vilhelm Johansson. The X profile lists Skövde, Sweden, an account created in April 2024, with 53 posts and 320 followers.
They were blunt about the art. From the devlog: “we are just two programmers with limited skill when it comes to art” — which is precisely why the style is lowpoly plus shaders.
What we are not claiming
This is the public devlog, not a full development plan. There are month-long gaps between posts, and we do not know what happened inside them.
We also do not know why the timeline holds no public post between late November 2025 and the August 2026 release — there are none in the set we collected. That could mean a pause in posting, or that it continued somewhere else.
The mechanic dates are dates of showing, not of implementation. A feature may have been built earlier and shown later.
Frequently asked questions
When did How to Fish development start?
The first public post about the fishing game is dated 15 August 2025 — 370 days before the 20 August 2026 release.
What engine is the game built on?
Unity. The developers confirmed it in the devlog on 16 August 2025 while explaining the lowpoly-plus-shaders style.
Who develops How to Fish?
Two Dazed Games co-founders, Melvin Olsson and Carl-Vilhelm Johansson. The studio's X profile lists Skövde, Sweden.
What did the studio make before this?
Out of Hand: Deluxe, released 19 June 2025 after two years of work. The first fishing post came 57 days later.