Misty's Idle Fishing

Introduction

Misty's Idle Fishing is a small, quiet game about a character named Misty, fishing her way across ten locations, researching the species she catches, and using the proceeds to upgrade her gear and customise her boat and appearance. It sits, by design, in a corner of the screen rather than taking over it — the whole pitch is that it should be genuinely possible to leave it running while doing something else entirely. Developed and self-published by the small studio Midware Games, it released 13 June 2025, and it has a review record this library rarely gets to report: all 16 reviews it has ever received, across every language, are positive. This review reads every one of them, given how small and complete a sample it is, while being upfront that a verdict built on 16 reviews carries real statistical uncertainty a hundred-review sample doesn't.

What reviewers actually praise

The praise here is specific rather than generic, and it converges on the same handful of points across nearly every review. The core "catch and sell" loop is repeatedly described as satisfying — "makes the dopamine go brrr when selling the fishes," one reviewer puts it — and the sound design and animation draw consistent, unprompted compliments: "the sound effects and animations are really well done, and it makes clicking about on the game super satisfying." The design goal of staying genuinely out of the way gets its own repeated praise, worth quoting at length because several reviewers land on almost the same words independently: it "doesn't take up space on your screen preventing you from clicking there," "sits nicely in the corner while you do other tasks," "requires less constant attention than other idle games which makes it perfect for playing in the background." That's not a coincidence — it's the game's stated design intent, and its reviewers confirm it actually delivers on that promise in practice, which is worth taking seriously given how often this library has found idle and desktop-companion games falling short of exactly that claim.

Small, honest wishes even from happy players

What makes this small sample feel more trustworthy than a simple 100% score might suggest is that even the positive reviews raise real, specific wants rather than reading as uncritical praise. Multiple reviewers, independently, ask for a way to track which fish species they've caught — "please add a fishipedia so I can track all the fishes I have caught," reads one; "there is no fish index so I don't know if I've caught all fish from a area," reads another, more cautiously, promising "a better review once I have played more." A separate, more technical note: one reviewer reports the game's screen-snapping feature failing on a second monitor, requiring a manual switch to borderless windowed mode as a workaround. None of these complaints changed anyone's overall recommendation, but they're worth passing on plainly, because a small developer with an otherwise spotless review record deserves to have its remaining rough edges named specifically rather than glossed over.

A real update, then quiet

Midware Games didn't leave the game untouched after launch. A "Major Update" on 25 July 2025 added new pet types (dogs, cats, and a brand-new chicken option), boat decorations, flags and hairstyles — directly answering the kind of cosmetic-variety requests reviewers were already making. Since a sale announcement in September 2025, though, the news feed has gone quiet, and no achievements exist for this game at all. That's worth flagging honestly for anyone hoping for continued content, even though nothing in this small review sample suggests the base game itself has degraded or broken in that time.

Value and monetisation

At NZ$8.99, with no DLC and no in-app purchases of any kind, there's nothing to criticise on the monetisation side, and multiple reviewers specifically call it good value for what it delivers.

Final Verdict

Misty's Idle Fishing is a small, quietly well-made desktop companion that has, so far, pleased everyone who's taken the time to review it — a genuinely rare record, even accounting for how small the sample is. Its charm is specific and consistent rather than vague: real sound and animation craft, a design that actually respects the promise of running unobtrusively in the background, and small, honest wish-list items from its own fans rather than serious complaints. The update trail going quiet for the better part of a year is a fair thing to know going in, and the tiny sample size means this score should be read with real humility about how representative it is. At this price, though, the downside of trying it for yourself is small, and everyone who has seems glad they did.