How to play Harpoon a Fish
Follow the tutorial arrow, click to fire at the fish the game marks, then hold the reel timing until the catch lands. Press Space to surface, eat at the Mukbang table to gain weight, and only then do you sink into the next depth band.
Your first dive sets the tone for the whole save. Harpoon a Fish starts you on a small island, hands you a harpoon, and then spends an hour quietly teaching you that depth, weight and bag space matter more than aim.
The tutorial dive, step by step
The tutorial is a follow-the-arrow sequence and it is worth finishing before you wander off.
- Follow the arrow. It walks you to the water and puts you in the dive view.
- Click to fire. The game marks the fish it wants you to hit; the harpoon fires where you aim.
- Time the reel. Pulling the fish in is a timed input, not a hold. Miss the window and the catch escapes.
- Press Space to surface. The HUD spells it out - PRESS SPACE TO RETURN - and it is also how you bail out of a bad dive.
- Equip what you were given. The tutorial hands over starting gear, including a second tool to carry.
The first catches are shrimp and small fish. They are worth almost nothing, and that is the point: the tutorial is teaching the reel, not farming.
Firing, reeling, and the part nobody warns you about
Once the training wheels come off, three things decide whether a shot pays.
- Aim before the fish turns. Fish move in schools; a shot into the middle of the group is far more reliable than chasing one.
- The reel timing window is short and consistent. Treat it as a rhythm, not a reaction test.
- A hooked fish is not a caught fish. Another player can harpoon the fish on your line and take the trophy. You will see this in your first hour, and the steal page explains the timing that wins those fights.
Eat to gain weight, gain weight to sink
This is the mechanic the game's own description leads with: get fat and sink deeper. The island's dining table - the Mukbang table - is where that happens.
- You buy the table, sit, and eat fish you have caught.
- Eating raises your level and your weight, and weight is what lets your diver sink past the shallow bands.
- The table itself has upgrade levels, so an early purchase keeps paying off.
Put another way: if your dives keep stopping in the same shallow water, the answer is almost never a new harpoon. It is dinner. Read depth layers for the band-by-band explanation.
Bait, and the recipe that tells you what you are missing
Bait is crafted at the island's crafting bench, not bought. The recipe panel lists the fish each bait still needs you to catch, which makes it the most honest shopping list in the game - it tells you exactly what to go and harpoon.
The bait most players meet first is a recipe that wants three octopuses. Octopuses sprint and change direction, so this is where the reel timing you learned in the tutorial gets tested properly.
Crates, keys and your first real harpoon
Two crate types sit on the island: Wood and Stone. Both are opened with keys you collect, and both drop gear, resources and supplies. Streamers running the 16 October 2026 build pulled a harpoon - the Lava Harpoon - out of a crate, so crates are not just a resource faucet.
Keys come from the same places as the rest of your rewards: codes, playtime reward claims, and whatever the game hands out for progress. The Ruby Keys page tracks those sources.
Equip slots: how you get stronger without changing your aim
Your damage scales with how many harpoons you can carry at once, not with how many you own. The HUD shows an active count such as 3/5 Active plus an upgrade button like +1 EQUIP [$500], and there is an Equip Best button that picks your strongest set for you. Early on, that upgrade is one of the best things you can buy.
Your first session, in order
- Finish the tutorial dive and the arrow quests.
- Claim the playtime reward the HUD offers you - it pays XP and potions.
- Enter the live code in Settings (see codes).
- Buy the Mukbang table before any other purchase.
- Craft your first bait once you have the fish it wants.
- Spend your first savings on an extra equip slot, then on the aquarium.
Do those six things and you will be diving a band deeper than most players who spend their first hour chasing rare fish in shallow water.
