À Deriva

The cycle

Day and night

At night the good fish show up more: rare +20%, epic +40%, legendary +60% at the deepest hour of the night (the effect fades in and out with the transition). The Midnight Rod only works in that window — and the Blood Moon happens only there.

Rarity and bait

Bait is the most important decision in the game: it changes everything at once — the chance of a good fish and the chance of losing it. Better bait misses less.

Every map sells its own bait, with different names but the same five tiers. This is the chance that a fish which bit actually reaches the boat. Your rod and your pets still move it, in both directions.

Good bait pays for itself. Besides landing more, each tier carries a bonus of its own — speed on the uncommon, sale value on the top three. The exception is the legendary: it costs more than it returns. It is not bait for making money — it is the one that pulls the celestial hardest among the baits you can buy, and without a celestial no collection is complete.

The price climbs from map to map. The same legendary bait costs 10,000 on the Araguaia and 32,000 at Noronha — roughly triple from the first map to the last.

The bait chest

At the top of the Bait tab there is a chest, and it costs half the price of the legendary bait pack for that map — 5,000 on the Araguaia, 16,000 at Noronha. Opening it draws one bait from the map, in the amount of a normal purchase.

The celestial is the only bait with no price: it only comes out of the chest. And it is the only one good at everything at once — more rare fish, bigger fish, faster and worth more. Every map has its own: the Muçum de Ouro on the Araguaia, the Tucunaré de Prata on the Rio Negro, the Camarão Gigante Dourado at Furnas, the Corrico de Cristal on the Coast, and the Isca Abissal at Noronha.

Weather events

Every 1 min the game rolls; the chance of an event starting is 5% (the first one only after 30 s of play) — on average, one event every 20 min. It warns you 10 s ahead and lasts 5 to 7 min, rolled on the spot. Every event has one guaranteed bite — somewhere between 20% and 80% of the way through, a fish of that rarity arrives, no roll needed.

Weight is how much the event counts in the draw, not a percentage: Rain alone accounts for more than half of all draws. Map events only enter the draw while you are there — the Pororoca, for example, only happens on the two rivers.

Rods

They all cost 700 as a base, but every rod bought makes the next one 50% more expensive. Only one is equipped at a time.

Boats and boxes

The boat sets how many fish fit before fishing stops. Every boat bought makes the next one 15% dearer. The last two require a trophy, on top of the money.

The boxes multiply the boat's capacity and stack — each one requires the previous: Styrofoam ×1.5 (25,000), Cooler ×2 (80,000), Hold ×2.5 (250,000 + 1 trophy), Cold Room ×3 (600,000 + 2 trophies).

A trophy is a map's complete collection — see Maps and trophies.

Pets

Every map has an animal. It shows up on its own, at 0.1% chance per fish caught. You will fish a long while before seeing your first. You can keep 3 active at once, and the bonuses stack.

Maps and trophies

You start on the Araguaia. Each new map opens by paying — or free, if you hold the previous one's trophy. The trophy comes from completing the collection of that place: all 12 fish, at least one of each.

The Celestial column is how often that map's celestial fish appears, compared with the Araguaia: there it comes at the full chance; at Noronha, at a tenth of it. Since the collection includes the celestial, that is where each map's trophy usually gets stuck.

Length, weight and stars

Every fish that reaches the boat has a length and a weight, and both show up on the catch card: “Dourado · 75.3 cm · 8.1 kg”. The biggest of each species is kept as a record, and that is what the Collection shows.

Weight comes from length

Weight is not rolled separately: it follows length, as in a real fish. Each species' ranges follow Brazilian sport-fishing measurements, with the ceiling at an exceptional specimen — not at the world record.

What makes a fish bigger

Big fish are rare. Three choices push the size up — and bait pushes hardest:

The celestial pushes even harder than the legendary: the three centimetres between the last two rows are its alone. The rod does not change size, and neither does time with the game open.

The four stars

In the Collection, every fish shows the record and a star — the band your biggest specimen fell into. It is the star of the record, not of the last fish.

Each catch earns gold 6.6% of the time with no gear at all, 13.8% with legendary bait, a clean click and at night, and 16.5% swapping the legendary for the celestial. Platinum walks the same path: from 0.9% to 2.5%.

Centimetre or inch

The choice lives in Settings, between metric (cm and kg) and imperial (in and lb).

The Collector

A boat that comes by once an hour, empties your hold and pays a share of the value. You only have one at a time, and buying a better one replaces the old. It is what makes the game actually earn on its own — at a toll.

None of them pays as well as selling by hand. You trade money for not having to be there — and sometimes that is worth it.

What goes by on screen

Apart from the fish, the strip has a life of its own: animals crossing, the sky changing, and a thing or two we would rather not tell. None of it is clickable or changes any number — it is scenery, and what shows up in each place is yours to discover.

Do not confuse these with pets: those you unlock, activate, and they give bonuses. See the Pets section.

Where the game lives

It runs two ways, and the switch is in the menu (▲ button) under Settings. Switching mode restarts the game, and the choice is remembered.

In wallpaper mode the HUD bar moves to the bottom right (the icons live on the left), and panels open in a little window of their own — close with Esc, by clicking outside, or through the fish icon in the system tray, next to the clock.

The strip has an Always on top. Switched on, the strip sits above everything, the taskbar included; switched off, it disappears behind any window — the taskbar included. It is the difference between having the game always in sight and having it only when the desktop is clear.

Also under Settings: with more than one monitor you can choose which screen the game lives on (switching also restarts), and there is a Start with Windows, which makes the game open by itself when the computer turns on.

The sound

The game has music, effects and weather — and all three turn on and off separately, each with its own volume, under Settings › Sound.

Three things that speed everything up

Hats

The fisherman starts with the straw hat. The others drop while you fish, and they are real items in your Steam inventory: you can wear them, trade them and sell them on the Market.

How a hat drops

At most 2 a day, with at least 6 hours between one stork and the next. If you are away from the computer when a stork goes by, you lose nothing: the fishing time stays banked and it comes back later.

What there is, and what each one does

Every hat has its own bonus: it helps your fishing and counts toward your collection. The rarer the hat, the bigger the push — from 1% on a common to 5% on a legendary, and the pristine condition adds another half point.

The chance is that of a stork bringing that hat, adding up all three conditions. The straw hat does not drop because everyone already has it; the celestials only come from the championship.

	Hat	Rarity	Effect	Chance
	Straw Hat	Common	+1% chance of a good fish	—
	Ball Cap	Common	+1% value	11.3%
	Tyrolean Hat	Common	lands 1% more of what bites	11.3%
	Pirate Bandana	Common	+1% speed	11.3%
	Rain Hat	Common	lands 1% more of what bites	11.3%
	Sheriff's Hat	Uncommon	+2% value	7.3%
	Captain's Cap	Uncommon	+2% speed	7.3%
	Miner's Helmet	Uncommon	+2% chance of a good fish	7.3%
	Aviator Helmet	Uncommon	+2% chance of a good fish	7.3%
	Santa Hat	Uncommon	+2% value	7.3%
	Pirate Tricorne	Rare	+3% speed	2.7%
	Top Hat	Rare	+3% value	3.0%
	Wizard Hat	Rare	+3% chance of a good fish	3.0%
	Bamboo Hat	Rare	+3% chance of a good fish	3.0%
	Starving Fish	Epic	+4% speed	1.00%
	Pecking Seagull	Epic	+4% chance of a good fish	1.00%
	Viking Helm	Epic	lands 4% more of what bites	1.00%
	Bear Hood	Epic	lands 4% more of what bites	1.00%
	Shark Head	Epic	+4% speed	1.00%
	Imperial Crown	Legendary	+5% value	0.33%
	Musketeer Hat	Legendary	+5% speed	0.33%
	Halo	Legendary	+5% chance of a good fish	0.33%
	Laurel Crown	Legendary	lands 5% more of what bites	0.33%
	Boi-bumbá	Celestial	1% to 3% chance of hooking two	championship only
	Jester's Hat	Celestial	1% to 3% chance the bait is not used up	championship only

Three conditions of the same hat

Every hat drops in one of three conditions, and it shifts the bonus by half a point either way. The worn one is the value in the table above; the battered one takes half a point off, the pristine one adds half.

The three conditions. The chance is the weight in the stork's draw, and the drawing changes with it. The pirate tricorne is the exception: its pristine condition never comes from the stork, only from the Pirate's Pack.

	Condition	On the bonus	Chance
	Battered	-0.5 pp	55%
	Worn	—	35%
	Pristine	+0.5 pp	10%

They are three different items on Steam. Each condition has its own number in the inventory, so they are bought and sold separately on the Market — and since the pristine one is the rarest of the three, it is the one worth most.

On the two celestial hats the condition weighs more, because their effect is not a bar but an event — the bait that is not spent, the fish that comes in pairs. There the ladder is 1%, 2% and 3%.

The straw hat is the only one left out: everybody starts with it, so it only has the usual version.

The championship

The celestials — the Boi-bumbá and the Jester's Hat — never come from the stork. They are the prize of the monthly championship, and the podium takes the same hat in three conditions:

Each edition is worth one of the celestials. The first one is worth the Jester's Hat. The prize is an item like any other hat: you can wear it, trade it and sell it.

The Wardrobe

It is the screen where the hats live — through the menu (▲ button). It shows what is missing and lets you wear what you have.

Every hat is a row, and the three conditions are three columns with how many of each you have. Clicking a cell puts that hat on; clicking the one already on your head takes it off. A slot you never had shows a dash; one you had and sold shows a zero.

What you have not seen yet shows up as ???, with only the rarity.