Tech Log 02 · The World
World &Ecology
You can't reward players for reading nature unless nature is worth reading. So we didn't invent an ocean — we borrowed a real one, then taught its fish to keep real schedules and its market to keep real books.
01 · The chart
A seafloor borrowed
from the real ocean
The world of Anchor Point is a 64 × 64 kilometre stretch of Alaskan coast whose seafloor is cut from real GEBCO survey bathymetry — the same global depth dataset used by actual hydrographers. Underwater terrain isn't hand-sculpted for gameplay convenience; the shelves, channels and thousand-metre drop-offs are where the survey says they are.
On top of that seafloor we compute the fishing grounds the way a real chart would: ten zones defined by depth, distance from shore and channel detection — from the estuary at the river mouth, across the coastal shelf, down the deep slope and out to the ice edge. Zone borders follow the real coastline's shape. Nothing is a rectangle.
The result is a world where local knowledge is real knowledge. The channel that funnels current also funnels weather; the shelf break where the depth line crowds together is exactly where the halibut money lives. Learn the chart and you've learned something true.
02 · The fish
Fish that keep
their own schedules
The 26 species in Anchor Point are the real cast of the North Pacific — herring and salmon runs inshore, halibut on the deep shelf, sablefish down the slope, king crab out at the ice edge. Each species carries a real behavioural profile: the depth band it holds, the bottom it prefers across twelve ground types — sand, gravel, kelp, rock, cliff drop — and the seasons and methods it answers to.
Crucially, fish have weather moods. Every species reacts to the live sky: herring hate a storm and vanish from the water column, while chinook feed hard under rain. When the front rolls through, the ocean's cast rotates — and the captain who knows which species switches on is fishing while everyone else is guessing.
Biology adds a second layer of texture: 97 documented variants — Tyee-class chinook, roe-filled hauls, albinos and other genuine rarities — roll independently of quality grades, so no two holds read the same. It's a living rotation of runs, moods and rarities that follows the world's clock, not a loot table with a fish costume.
03 · The market
An economy that
behaves like weather
Every fish is sold by the kilogram through a full pricing pipeline: base × variant × quality × freshness × port × weather. Each factor is something you can play. Race the freshness clock or pack ice. Sail an extra hour to the port that pays a better rate. Hold your catch through a storm to sell into the premium — if your hold, and your nerve, can take it.
The books are kept honestly: fuel is bought by the litre and burned by the kilometre, permits for richer water cost real money on real timers, and boats and gear are priced so that the climb through five classes — skiff, troller, seiner, longliner, crabber — is a career, not a shopping list. We balance all of it with Monte Carlo simulation — thousands of simulated fishing careers — so every one of the 26 species stays profitable, and no strategy collapses into a single winning spreadsheet.
And it's all server-authoritative. Catch rolls, weather, prices and every transaction resolve on the server, never on your machine. In a shared, persistent sea where dozens of captains work the same market, that's what keeps the game honest — one world, one truth, one price board at the dock.
The chart is waiting.
Pre-register for first-wave playtest access — and a free premium equipment drop when Anchor Point launches.