Review Fix chats with the Team at Kestrel Games, S Teo, C Teo and T Kawabe, who let us know what makes the mobile hit, “Rule With an Iron Fish†a worthy addition to your Steam library.
About the Game:
Having won CNET’s Best Mobile Games and Snappzilla’s Games of the Year awards, Rule with an Iron Fish’s Steam debut presents the game in a format fit for PCs, with a perfected UI. This release includes new exclusive fishy content for Steam that introduces new fish, a cat bobber, and more. Grow your farm at home, dredge up pirate spit to upgrade your boat, and fend off attacking Vikings! Fish your way to glory!
Review Fix: How was this game born?
S Teo: Wiser people than us have said — Do something worthwhile with your life. Create something useful. Change humanity. So we made a fishing game about a bunch of layabout, good-for-nothing pirates.
We wanted to make a game with soul.
Review Fix: What was development like?
C Teo: We’re an agile team of three with great team dynamics. Weirdly we’ve never had an argument and we have a good laugh! We’re all determined to make our products as good as they can be, without being precious about features or ideas that don’t make the cut.
The biggest challenge was working around an 8 hour time zone difference, but as with all things, it’s just a matter of motivation.
Review Fix: What makes this game special?

T Kawabe: In a world that is increasingly hectic and insane, we’d like to bring our players brief moments of respite from their day-to-day life. We grew up with classic games that didn’t have buckets of money and fancy 3D graphics, but brought a sense of charm and panache to the worlds they created.
You could say Rule with an Iron Fish has a sense of place.
Review Fix: What games influenced this one the most?
C Teo: Secret of Monkey Island (this one is pretty obvious!), Breath of Fire III’s fishing minigame, a couple hundred fishing games or so that the team has cumulatively played.
Review Fix: As an indie studio, what do you think you guys do differently than the big studios?
S Teo: We worked at triple-A studios for the big three, so we have a good idea of exactly what we do differently. As a small team we have full creative control over what we do and we have the latitude to play with mad ideas. We also don’t have employees (yet) to worry about, which lets us take more risks and hopefully come up with stuff that’s unique and odd.
Also—no office politics! We get to focus all our energies on making games we like to play.

Review Fix: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?
Kawabe: Wearing pajamas for 7 days solid while scripting quests and having to go buy groceries just to make human contact with the clerk.
We also had a mysterious bug for a week where pets started slowly levitating until they’d float off into the sky. Development really means sitting down in a chair at your computer for far too long!
Review Fix: How does this game disrupt the video game landscape?
C Teo: By being a small bastion of calm in the midst of a stormy sea of shooters. Not sure about disrupt so much as ‘live peacefully alongside’—we’re aiming to provide something for the fishing gamer niche on Steam.
Review Fix: Who will enjoy this game the most?
Kawabe: Fishing game fans, casual game fans and anyone else who wants to take a gander at relaxing fishing gameplay in a fantastical world with a bunch of floating cubes! Also, fishing in outer space. And volcanoes.
Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?
S Teo: Fondly!
Review Fix: What are your goals for the game?
Kawabe: To keep us going so we can keep creating games that are quirky and entertain people.
Review Fix: What’s next?
C Teo: We’re really obsessed with ‘small worlds’ and ‘living worlds’ and ‘growth’ and biomes and… We’re making an expedition game where you travel to little isometric worlds and mess around with the plants there and fight monsters and so on. The idea is that the world is always growing around you and that you have input on the environments that you’re in. Keeping it a little vague for now!
For more details, sign up to our mailing list on our website at www.kestrelgames.com and we’ll (infrequently) email you about our upcoming projects!
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
S Teo: As a small fish in a pond that’s expanding exponentially, it’s really hard to reach an audience. Having people like you put time and energy into looking at our games can make all the difference between a studio being able to continue or give up and go bust. So, thank you for your interest and support.
For More on the Game, Click Here.
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