Introducing Bright Waters: your steps can now sail a fishing boat

The Games tab has a new place to spend your steps. Say hello to Bright Waters, a fishing game where every walk takes your little boat a bit further.

You start in a rowboat on a quiet duck pond. From there the water leads on: down rivers and waterfalls, out to sandy coves and coral reefs, across the open sea and all the way to a lagoon that glows under the moon.

How it works

Steps move your boat. Sailing between the spots on a fishing ground’s map costs steps, and sailing on to a new ground costs more. Casting is always free, and your very first sail out to a spot costs nothing.

Tap a fish shadow to cast, then tap when the marker is in the zone to reel it in. Every catch goes into your boat’s hold, and packing it is a little puzzle: some fish change the price of the fish they touch. A Showy fish makes its neighbors worth more, a Prickly one makes them worth less.

When you’re ready, sail back to the dock and sell your catch for shells. Shells and steps buy bigger boats, better rods and new compartments for your hold.

The game keeps its own clock: morning, day, evening and night pass as you sail, and the weather changes from day to day. Some fish only bite at night, others only in their kind of weather.

Your steps come from the same step wallet as Sunny Acres. Go for a walk, open the Games tab, tap Bank, and the steps you’ve walked today are ready to spend in any game.

Games unlock at level 2.

What’s waiting on the water

• 10 fishing grounds, from Duck Pond and Willow River to Coral Shallows, the Kelp Forest, Frost Lake and the Moonlit Lagoon. The further you sail, the more open up. Some need a bigger boat, and there are 3 bigger boats and 4 better rods to work up to.
• 90 kinds of fish for your Fish Log, nine at every ground, including a rare fish, a night fish and a weather fish.
• 10 legendary fish, one per ground, like Old Whiskers, Big Blue and the Moon Whale. A legend can only appear once you’ve logged the five common fish where it lives.
• A story told one fish at a time. Every fish in your log adds a line to the tale of Pip, a little lost whale trying to find the way home.
• Your own aquarium. Fit a Live Well in your hold and the biggest fish of each kind you keep in it goes to your aquarium instead of being sold, if it beats the one already there. Decorate it however you like.
• The Harbor Board, where the town posts requests that pay in shells, bait and more.
• A reward for every ground you complete: log all nine of its fish and you earn an outfit or a decoration.

36 new badges

Bright Waters comes with 36 achievements of its own, from First Catch and Set Sail to Living Legend and Old Salt. You’ll find them in the Games tab of your achievements, next to your other game badges.

A little extra for subscribers

As in Sunny Acres, subscribers’ steps bank automatically. Bright Waters adds the Captain’s Barometer, which shows the next three days’ weather at every fishing ground you’ve opened and lets you set today’s weather where you are, once a day. Every fish can be caught without it.