Throughout history, humanity has devised countless ways to catch fish, whether by spear, rod, or net. After millennia of these time-tested techniques, an innovative group of DigiPen students calling themselves Syphon Software have developed a revolutionary new tool for snaring the sea’s bounty: a straw. The result, the “cozy incremental fishing game” Sip Fisher, has reeled in 20,000 sales on Steam and landed the team a real whopper in the process — a nomination for Best Student Game at the 2026 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards.
Unlike typical DigiPen student games, Sip Fisher spawned outside of class over one very busy summer. “This project came together after I was inspired by the success of A Game About Digging A Hole,” says BA in Game Design junior, project lead, and UI/UX designer Oliver Beebe. Developed over just 14 days, A Game About Digging a Hole is, as the title suggests, a simple game about digging a hole that sold over a million copies on Steam just six months after its February 2025 release. “That game had a very tight scope but was very successful, so I asked some friends if they would be interested in working on something like it over the summer,” Beebe says. “We really liked the mechanical simplicity and focus of the game, so we brainstormed a couple of ideas for simple actions.”
One of those simple actions, “sipping water,” ended up hooking the team as a potential core mechanic for a fishing game, a genre whose relaxed vibes and simple gameplay and controls matched the low-pressure, gradually evolving nature of incremental design. Planning out the game over the last few weeks of the Spring 2025 semester, Beebe and a crew of seven fellow DigiPen students formed Syphon Software and dove into development during finals week, planning to collaborate on the project throughout summer break.
Armed with a giant straw and a bucket, Syphon Software’s game has players take control of the eponymous Sip Fisher and set out for adventure on an expansive lake. Players fish by heading to the end of their dock, sticking their straw in the lake, and sucking up fish, gradually lowering the water level in the process and revealing more of the lakebed to fish and explore.
Players have to time their sips in order to stagger and eventually stun fish caught in their straw, gradually slurping them into submission and storing them in their bucket to sell back to the shopkeeper on shore. With their hard-earned cash, players can either buy upgrades for a range of sip fishing abilities, or randomized “dock packs” that allow them to expand their dock farther into the lake, piece by piece.
“Everything stemmed from the system for sipping up the lake, having to walk farther and farther in order to reach new lower water levels,” says BA in Game Design student and systems designer Cole Jowaisas. Even though fishing minigame mainstays from titles like Stardew Valley and Sea of Thieves informed Sip Fisher, the main inspiration for the game’s fishing “combat” was anything but cozy — the grimdark soulslike Elden Ring. “I wanted to take the emotions of your opponent being immobilized through hit stun and then fully staggering after you hit them a bunch and translate that into a tug of war between you and the fish,” Jowaisas says of the cues he took from the game’s infamously brutal combat.
Syphon Software extended the incremental game ethos to not just the gameplay, but the level design of the lake as well. “Progressing through a level by slowly revealing layer after layer is a bit unorthodox, there’s not a whole lot of reference material for a game like this,” says BA in Game Design student and level designer Fern Halma. “That challenge is also what made it so rewarding to me.” Designing a game space based around verticality and gradual reveals rather than horizontal sprawl gave Halma lots of opportunities to tease and pull players along, adding visual hints suggesting hidden areas or treasure just out of reach. “I love setting up the environment in a way where if the player looks out into the water, they might see some structure poking out and wonder what’s beneath the waves,” Halma says. “I think that natural curiosity can be really motivating.”
Environment artist and BFA in Digital Art and Animation junior Maya Kirby had to find creative ways to make the lake visually interesting while keeping its dynamic nature in mind. “There were certain assets, such as tall lake weeds, that we could not implement as it would look unnatural as the water level went down,” Kirby says. Similarly, populating the surrounding play area with typical fishing props like pole racks, crab traps, or boats presented challenges, as they might suggest unlockable mechanics that didn’t exist in Sip Fisher. The solution was leaning into the game’s inherent silliness. “A fun workaround we discovered for the initial idea of a fishing pole rack was to simply replace all the poles with straws!” Kirby says. “I loved working on our cozy Washington-inspired environment and all its wacky details.”
If Kirby gave the lake its sense of place, it was up to BFA in Digital Art and Animation junior and general/character artist Emi Han to fill it with life. Han was lured to join the team by the promise of getting to stock the lake with fish of her own design. “Creating the fish truly was my favorite part of this project,” Han says. She set to work finding reference images for the many real-world species she would spend the summer replicating in the vibrantly colored, cozy 3D style she established for the project. “I tried to study the silhouettes of the fish more so than detailed anatomy,” Han says. “This process helped me create fish shapes that are easily discernable from each other. I started to exaggerate some features to be angular to fit the low poly aesthetic.”
Complimenting the game’s aquatic visuals is an ambient, down-tempo soundtrack by BA in Music and Sound Design junior Aidan Guthrie. “We specifically went through the soundtracks of games Machinarium and Samorost 3 by composer Tomáš Dvořák,” Guthrie says, referencing adventure games by Czech studio Amanita Design. “I was immediately inspired by Tomáš’s use of experimental textures and ambient electronic production.” Combining those tones with the laid-back percussion and guitar from the Sonic Frontiers track “Fishing Vibes,” Guthrie developed the game’s distinct, cozy sound, one that also pulled inspiration from another track he had on heavy rotation during development — producer Funk Fiction’s remix of one of the most iconic water level themes of all time, “Aquatic Ambience” from Donkey Kong Country.
The mechanics of A Game About Digging a Hole weren’t the only thing the team was inspired by — so was the game’s financial success. “Monetization was definitely a goal from the start,” Beebe says. “We specifically set the goal of commercial success, which we initially defined as netting at least $1,000 a month after release.” BA in Game Design student Midas Hill was brought on not only to lend his narrative design talents to the game’s story (notably writing almost all the game’s dialogue in one sitting), but also his user research experience in helping devise a marketing plan for the game.
“When I was brought on to the project, one of the first things that I did was to scour public response toward A Game About Digging a Hole for room where we could improve,” Hill says. “That’s actually a major reason we decided to add a narrative to the game, and it’s why we balanced the game to take around four to six hours to beat.” As fate would have it, marketing the game didn’t prove too much of a challenge, as Sip Fisher picked up lots of natural online attention from a demo that appeared in Steam’s Next Fest and some very enthusiastic fan-made YouTube content that followed.
“It was really wild to have coworkers and other people I knew in my life tell me about YouTubers and streamers they liked to watch who had played Sip Fisher,” Halma says of the game’s post-release reception, including YouTube Let’s Plays of the game that have racked up over 200,000 views. Beebe felt a strong sense of pride watching both the YouTube views and the sales numbers climb after putting the game out in August of 2025. “To know that thousands of people have played the game, understood how to play through everything, and actually wanted to play through the hours of content we made? It’s really awesome,” Beebe says. “It’s super cool to already be making money from games as a student!”
The team is currently gearing up for their biggest fishing trip together yet — heading to the IGF Awards at the 2026 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Freshman BS in Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation student Carson Lakefish joined Syphon Software the summer before starting DigiPen after meeting Beebe through DigiPen’s pre-college WANIC program. The team programmer and designer took it upon himself to submit the game to the IGF Awards. “Honestly, it was a huge shock to me,” Lakefish says of receiving the news that Sip Fisher had been nominated for Best Student Game. “Everyone on the team did amazing work and sunk an unreal amount of time into the project, so it’s a wonderful thing to see.”
And yes, Lakefish admits his last name and his participation on the award-nominated Sip Fisher feel a little like destiny. “My dog’s name is actually Fisher, which just adds to it,” he says.