Fishing 1 Pixel-Perfect Plan — April 21, 2026

Goal

Get the fishing1 fgpilot scene visually identical to the original PC version of Johnny Castaway, covering every islandState-driven variation the scene supports (tide, raft stage, holiday, night, island position, etc.). This is Stage 1 of a larger effort to pixel-perfect every scene.

Working mode

One step at a time. For every step:

1. I build exactly one targeted change.
2. The build + DuckStation launch runs.
3. You look at the result and say whether it’s right, and if not, what’s off.
4. We iterate on that step, or move to the next one.

Verification is a visual check by eye, comparing against your memory of the PC version — no screenshot diffing, no automated perceptual compare, no reference image. If your eye says it’s right, it’s right.

Approach: Path A (bespoke, stay on ELSE branch)

We tried switching to the IF branch (full adsInitIsland) first — it produced multiple regressions (tree missing, Johnny pack mis-aligned, BACKGRND failing to re-load after ttmInitSlot zeroed our preload). Reverted.

Instead we stay on the current ELSE branch (known-good working state from commit 74bb0c24: waves animate, scene plays through, no ghosting) and add islandState-driven variations on top of it manually. We keep the memory layout we already tuned (preloaded BACKGRND in ttmBackgroundSlot, rect-based clean backup).

Important note: fgpilot mode does not run the original FISHING.ADS script or its TTMs. Johnny’s actions come from the pre-captured foreground pack (FISHING1.FG1) — pixel snapshots from the host build. Scene base drawing (island, trunk, raft, clouds, waves, holiday overlay) comes from island.c functions (islandInit, islandAnimate, islandInitHoliday). We call these directly with a controlled islandState in our ELSE-branch glue. Result is pixel- identical to calling adsInitIsland — same drawing code, just different glue.

Step list

Step 1 — Boot-override tokens for islandState

Without this we can’t reliably test each variation. The BOOTMODE.TXT parser already handles fgpilot <scene> — extend it to accept key=value tokens after the scene name:

fgpilot fishing1 day=N tide=low|high raft=N holiday=N night=0|1 \
                 islandx=N islandy=N

Most of these map to existing forced-variables (storyForcedCurrentDay, hostForcedLowTide, hostForcedRaftStage, hostForcedIslandX/Y). Some need new hooks (holiday, night). Parse in jc_reborn.c’s boot- override handling and apply to islandState at the top of fgPlayOceanRuntimeScene (after the current preload, before the ELSE branch draws).

You verify: setting fgpilot fishing1 tide=low visibly flips wave positions to the low-tide set; setting night=1 flips to NIGHT.SCR; etc. (If the ELSE branch doesn’t yet respond to a token, we just see no change — that’s fine, the step is “parser wired, overrides present, ready to drive subsequent steps”.)

Step 2 — Boot-override for islandState via BOOTMODE.TXT

Add parse tokens so we can pin variations for testing:

fgpilot fishing1 day=N tide=low|high raft=N holiday=N night=0|1 \
                 islandx=N islandy=N

Most of these already correspond to existing storyForced* / hostForced* variables — we just need the BOOTMODE parser to recognize the key=value tokens and feed them in. Without this we can’t reliably exercise variations one at a time.

You verify: each token actually changes the rendered scene as expected.

Step 3 — High-tide baseline

fgpilot fishing1 day=1 tide=high raft=1 holiday=0 night=0 islandx=0 islandy=0

You verify: looks like high-tide fishing1 on the PC.

Step 4 — Low-tide

fgpilot fishing1 day=1 tide=low raft=1 holiday=0 night=0 islandx=0 islandy=0

You verify.

Steps 5–9 — Raft stages

raft=1, raft=2, raft=3, raft=4, raft=5. One step per stage. You verify each.

Steps 10–13 — Holidays

• 10: holiday=1 — Halloween
• 11: holiday=2 — St. Patrick’s
• 12: holiday=3 — Christmas
• 13: holiday=4 — New Year

You verify each.

Step 14 — Night mode

fgpilot fishing1 day=1 tide=high raft=1 holiday=0 night=1 islandx=0 islandy=0

You verify.

Step 15 — Island position variations

A couple of sample (islandx, islandy) pairs from the VARPOS_OK ranges the original randomizer uses:

• islandx=-200 islandy=-20
• islandx=-60 islandy=-60
• islandx=-114 islandy=14

You verify each looks sane and matches how the PC places the island.

Step 16 — Anything else you spot

Whatever fishing1 variation or detail you notice is off that isn’t one of the above — coconuts state, seagulls, boat, banners, rain/weather, sparkles, special FX, etc. Handled one at a time.

Step 17 — Cleanup / handoff

Decide: keep the BOOTMODE override tokens as a permanent dev affordance (documented), or gate them behind a debug flag. Either way, commit a final “pixel-perfect fishing1” marker so we can return to it as the known-good baseline when we generalize to other scenes.

After this document is done

Stage 2 (future): apply the same process to fishing2 and onward; build the scene-specific dirty-rect table needed for the rect-based clean backup; generalize island-relative offset math so the rects move with islandState.xPos / LEFT_ISLAND.

Stage 3 (future): Johnny walk transitions between scenes, holiday toggles at the start-screen level, direct joystick control mode — per the larger master plan.