Your player character is named Plume. She's a cat furry. But, more accurately and very clearly a puppet, or some kindnof suit. Think home-made craft aesthetic.

The area you wake up in is an old home in a rural area, devoid of fish. The nearest town is small, inbetween area.

The townspeople have never met Plume, but the house has long been empty and she's free to stay. The townspeople are persistent characters whose interactions net Plume Experiences, as shes empty

Plume can see spirits in the form of fishes (once important creatures in this area), and using thread from her body, is able to reel them in.

Because corporeal bait doesn't work, she attracts them by attaching her Life Experiences to the line. Different spirit fish are actually the souls of people and creatures long gone (restless, unheard voices)

The different Experiences can be changed at any time, even when a fish is being reeled in in order to make an action fishing game system where the fish are unique characters who respond/react in real time

Fish can be reeled in at a (realistically) minimum of two different ways, each method giving expanded lore on the previous people whose souls they resided in. Optional world building.

Reeling in fish brings the soul into the real world and fish begin to return to the environment (is this technically collecting?).

Story progression is divided into finding Experiences that allow you to reel in certain fish, which eventually summon a boss fish who is a culmination of this division of the story

The story is about the history of the town and the unheard voices through its development. The town is its own character, as is the reason for Plume's being

The townspeople you interact with come and go depending on what section the story is at, but they congregate at a local bait shop/convenience store

One of the characters is a loon with a guitar. Everyone's a furry. Sometimes there are animals that are not furry, but just animals. I guess this makes it Animal Crossing-like????

Plume as a character is brazen and despite her fresh-to-the-world attitude, will say and genuinely believe in extremely naive things, said with an undeserved over-confidence

I just woke up and am in a daze but I wanted to catalogue all this here at the moment. I have other plans too but I don't want to clog this up with minor details. this is the overlal blueprint

this game draws from some childhood rural feelings. japanese rural towns and canadian wilderness specifically. what a combination. some light japanese animism