Casting by hand
With no rod you fish by hand: click the water to cast, and click again on the bite. It is slower than a rod, and it is how you afford the first one.
Basics
Cozy Coast is a small window that sits in a corner of your screen and keeps fishing while you work. There is nothing to lose and nothing that punishes you for leaving. Coins come in, you spend them, the coast gets a little better.
The rod does the work
Buy a rod and the coast fishes on its own, at the window or behind it. A catch lands every 3 seconds at base speed, and everything you own pulls that number down.
Fish pay on the catch
The coins arrive the moment a fish lands. There is no selling step for fish. What sits in your cooler is a collection and, later, ingredients for the kitchen.
Forage does sell
Shells, coral, pearls, junk and forged trinkets are all sellable, and the Haggler skill raises what they fetch.
Day and night
A full cycle runs 20 real minutes, so you will see dusk in any decent session. Some fish only bite in the dark.
Levels are skill points
Your level and your unspent skill points are the same number: levelling up hands you a point. XP comes from catches (more for rarer fish), forage, and gulls.
Where to spend first
Faster Reel and Sharper Hook are cheap and compound with everything else, so a few levels of each early pay for themselves quickly. The net starts collecting the beach for you. After that, save for the next rod: rods are the only thing that opens new water.
Fishing
The four waters
You pick which water to fish. The sea and the pond are open from the start; the two deep waters are unlocked by rods, and each one has its own catalog and its own exotic.
Sea
The default water. A broad spread from commons to one legendary, plus three night fish. Its exotic is the Sea Horse.
Pond
Calmer freshwater with its own catalog. Its night fish need the Moonlit Pond skill on top of nightfall. Its exotic is the Rosette.
Deep Pond
The smallest pool, weighted toward the rare end. Its exotic is the Betta.
Deep Sea
The richest water: two legendaries and four night species. Its exotic is the Christmas Tree Worm.
Rarity
Every cast draws from the pool of fish currently biting, weighted by rarity. The weights are steep on purpose: a legendary should be a moment, not a checkbox. Your rarity boost lifts the rarer tiers only, and it lifts them more the rarer they are.
| Rarity | Draw weight | Base value |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 100 | 2 |
| Uncommon | 18 | 8 |
| Rare | 3 | 25 |
| Epic | 0.12 | 120 |
| Legendary | 0.008 | 600 |
| Exotic | 0.0008 | 8,000 |
Night fish
Roughly a dozen species only bite after dark, and they are only ever caught live at the rod: offline progress never lands one. In the sea and the deep sea, nightfall is all it takes. In the pond and the deep pond you also need the Moonlit Pond skill, which is why an idle night there can look empty.
Exotic fish
Exotic is the tier above legendary: one species per water, worth 8,000 coins. They do not enter the pool at all until you own the right lure, sold once you have the Aurora Rod. The Abyssal Lure covers salt water, the Moonshine Lure fresh. Night rules stack on top, so three of the four exotics are night catches.
Shop
Rods
Rods are bought in order and each one replaces the last. They are the biggest single jump in power, and the only thing that opens new water. Costs climb hard, so each rod is a savings goal rather than an afternoon.
Cane Rod
100
The first rod, and the moment the coast starts fishing without you. Cheap enough to buy in the first few minutes by hand.
Fiberglass Rod
3,000
Opens the Deep Pond, a whole second freshwater catalog.
Carbon Rod
60,000
Opens the Deep Sea, the richest water in the game.
Aurora Rod
800,000
The last rod. Owning it is what puts the two special lures on the shop shelf.
Upgrades
Repeatable levels that stack onto whatever rod you hold. The price shown is the first level; each one after costs about twice the last, so the early ones are minutes apart and the last ones are real goals.
Faster Reel
40first level
The workhorse. Speed multiplies with everything else you own, so early levels pay for themselves in minutes.
Sharper Hook
60first level
Every fish is worth more, including the ones landed while you were away.
Shiny Lure
250first level
Nudges the draw toward the rarer tiers. It lifts a legendary more than an uncommon, but it never makes one common.
Bigger Cooler
400first level
Buys back the hours you are not at the desk. Worthless while you play, essential overnight.
Tools and lures
One-off purchases. The net is the cheapest quality-of-life buy in the game; the two lures are the endgame, sold only once the rod ladder is finished.
Net
150
Collects beach forage for you instead of you clicking every shell. Wide Mesh speeds it up, and Auto Net makes it run even if you never buy this.
Abyssal Lure
6,000,000
Lets the salt-water exotics bite: the Sea Horse in the sea and the Christmas Tree Worm in the deep sea.
Moonshine Lure
35,000,000
Opens the freshwater exotics, the Rosette and the Betta. The most expensive thing in the game.
Skills
One XP pool feeds one curve. Your level is the number of skill points you have earned, so every level-up is a point in hand. The head of the curve is cheap (the first point lands in the first minute) and the tail ramps hard, so filling all seven branches is a long chase rather than a weekend.
Nodes have ranks, and later ranks cost more points than the first. Some nodes are gated by level, some need an earlier node in the same branch, and one capstone per branch is gated behind a milestone you have to actually do.
Tideline
Sea angling: speed in salt water, rarity, and fish value.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Steady Hands | 5 | +12% sea catch speed per rank |
| Sharp Eye | 3 | +0.05 rarity boost per rank. Needs level 4 |
| Second Line | 2 | +25% catch speed in every water. After Steady Hands |
| Deep Lure | 3 | Better deep-water odds. Level 8, after Second Line |
| Trophy Hunter | 3 | +10% fish value per rank. After Sharp Eye |
| Big Game Reel | 1 | Giant fish (coming soon). Unlocks by catching a legendary |
Stillwater
Pond craft: freshwater speed, forage, and the key to pond nights.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Patient Float | 5 | +12% pond catch speed per rank |
| Ripple Reader | 1 | +10% pond catch speed. Needs level 3 |
| Lily Harvest | 2 | Forage appears more often. After Patient Float |
| Moonlit Pond | 1 | Pond night fish start biting after dark. Unlocks by catching a legendary pond fish |
Shorecraft
The net and the beach: hauling, shells, and turning junk into coin.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Wide Mesh | 5 | +20% net speed per rank |
| Auto Net | 1 | The net runs without owning the tool. After Wide Mesh |
| Beachcomber | 3 | Shells wash up more often. Needs level 5 |
| Sorter | 1 | Junk bycatch also pays coins. After Auto Net |
| Pearl Diver | 1 | +10% fish value. Unlocks by collecting 100 shells |
Dreamtide
Everything about being away: the cap, the rate, and the summary.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| While Away | 1 | Shows what you gained offline. Needs level 2 |
| Longer Leash | 4 | +2h offline cap per rank. After While Away |
| Tireless | 3 | +10% offline rate per rank. After Longer Leash |
| Idle Insight | 1 | Richer away summary, +5% XP. After While Away |
Salvage
Chests: how often they wash up, how full they are, and who opens them.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Treasure Sense | 3 | Chests appear more often. Needs level 6 |
| Fuller Chests | 4 | +30% chest loot per rank. After Treasure Sense |
| Auto Open | 1 | Chests open themselves. Level 12, after Treasure Sense |
| Lockpick | 2 | Chance of rich locked chests. After Fuller Chests |
| Kraken's Hoard | 1 | The rare kraken chest can wash up. Unlocks by opening 50 chests |
Skywatch
Seagulls: they land on the sand whether you want them or not.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Birdsong | 1 | Landed gulls pay coins when clicked. Needs level 3 |
| Lucky Feather | 3 | +40% gull reward per rank. After Birdsong |
| Scarecrow | 1 | Gulls shoo themselves and still pay. Needs level 9 |
| Flock Caller | 1 | Rare golden gulls appear. Unlocks by clicking 25 gulls |
Merchant
Economy and meta: coins, XP, and the two mastery capstones.
| Node | Ranks | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Haggler | 5 | +8% sell value per rank. Needs level 4 |
| Quick Study | 4 | +10% XP per rank. Needs level 6 |
| Collector | 1 | Bonus point per completed Almanac water. Level 8 |
| Coin Magnet | 3 | +1 idle coin per second per rank. After Haggler |
| Master Angler | 1 | +25% catch speed, value and XP. Unlocks by catching every rarity |
| Master Smith | 1 | Forge All: craft everything in one click. Level 25, forge 25 trinkets |
The beach
The sand is a second income. Things wash up, birds land, and chests drift in while the rod does its own thing.
Forage
Twenty kinds of shell, coral, weed and pearl wash up on the sand, four at a time at most. Click them, or let the net do it. They sell, and they dismantle into crafting materials. Beachcomber and Lily Harvest both raise how often they appear. A sample of the catalog:
Sea Weed2
2Starfish2
2Scallop2
2Oyster8
8Sand Dollar8
8Nautilus25
25Coral25
25Pearl120
120Bycatch
Four kinds of junk come up on the line instead of a fish. They are worth 1 coin raw, but each dismantles into 2 Scrap, and the Sorter skill makes them pay coins as well.
Seagulls
Gulls
8per click, before multipliers
A gull flies in, lands on a free patch of sand, pecks about, and leaves. With Birdsong learned, clicking one pays out. Lucky Feather raises that, Flock Caller adds a rare golden gull worth five times as much, and Scarecrow shoos them automatically while still paying you.
Chests
Chests wash up on their own timer, sit for half a minute, then drift out. Two can be on the beach at once. Treasure Sense makes them arrive more often, Fuller Chests makes each one richer, and Auto Open saves you the click. Every chest pays at least 5 coins, so an open is never a whiff.
Beach chest
The common one. Washes up roughly every two and a half minutes, waits 30 seconds, then drifts back out.
| Chance | Reward |
|---|---|
| 50% | 35 coins |
| 30% | 90 coins |
| 14% | 210 coins |
| 5% | 525 coins + a Pearl |
| 1% | Jackpot: 1,400 coins + Coral |
Locked chest
Rarer, and much richer. The Lockpick skill is what makes one show up at all.
| Chance | Reward |
|---|---|
| 32% | 280 coins |
| 30% | 560 coins |
| 22% | 1,120 coins + a Pearl |
| 12% | 2,250 coins + Coral |
| 4% | Jackpot: 5,250 coins + a Pearl |
Kraken's hoard
The rarest wash-up, about a 3% roll once Kraken's Hoard is learned.
| Chance | Reward |
|---|---|
| 50% | 7,000 coins + a Pearl |
| 35% | 14,000 coins + Coral |
| 15% | Kraken's hoard: 31,500 coins + Coral |
Crafting
Crafting is two steps: break forage down into materials, then forge materials into trinkets worth more than the parts.
Materials
Scrap
The base material. Junk bycatch and plain shells break down into it.
Shard
The rare one. Only uncommon shells and better yield any, and the good recipes want a lot of it.
Dismantling
Anything you forage can be broken down. The rarer the shell, the more it yields, and the rarest yield Shards instead of Scrap.
| Dismantle | Yields |
|---|---|
| Junk bycatch | 2 Scrap |
| Common shell | 1 Scrap |
| Uncommon shell | 2 Scrap + 1 Shard |
| Rare shell | 2 Shard |
| Pearl (epic) | 8 Shard |
Recipes
Every chain is worth more forged than sold raw, and beats a comparable catch. The price shown is what the finished trinket sells for.
Polished Charm
40sells for
The entry forge. Worth more than the six shells that went into it.
Carved Amulet
120sells for
The middle rung, and the first recipe that wants Shards.
Sea Relic
400sells for
Pure Shard. Outsells anything short of a legendary fish.
Forge 25 trinkets and reach level 25 and the Master Smith node opens, which adds a Forge All button that crafts everything you can afford in one click.
Idling and offline
The game keeps fishing when the window is behind your other work, and it keeps a slower kind of progress when the app is closed entirely. The two are not the same rate, on purpose.
Away earns half
Closed-app progress accrues at half the live rate to start with. The Tireless skill adds 10% per rank back on top, so being at the rod always beats leaving, but never by so much that closing the game feels like a mistake.
The cap
Time away only counts up to a cap: 8 hours out of the box. Bigger Cooler adds 2 hours per level up to eight levels, and the Longer Leash skill another 2 hours per rank up to four, which takes a fully invested cap past a full day.
No night fish, no exotics
Offline progress always runs as if it were daytime and as if you carried no lure, so night species and exotics never turn up in an away summary. They are rewards for being there.
Decay bands
Within the cap, efficiency drops the longer you stay away. Checking in daily beats vanishing for a week.
| Time away | Earns at |
|---|---|
| First 2 hours | Full offline rate |
| 2 to 8 hours | 60% |
| Past 8 hours | 30%, until the cap |
Learn While Away in the Dreamtide branch and you get a summary of everything that happened while you were gone, instead of just a bigger coin count.
Style
Your angler is a layered paper doll: a body, eyes, hair, a top, a bottom, shoes and accessories, each with color variants. Nothing cosmetic touches the numbers. It is money you spend because you want to.
| Slot | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Body | 8 free bases, picked when you make your angler |
| Eyes | Free, 14 colors |
| Makeup | Blush and lipstick, 3,000 each |
| Hair | 4 free cuts, 9 more from 5,000 to 75,000, all in 14 colors |
| Top | Shirts and full-length pieces. Dresses and robes hide the bottom slot |
| Bottom | Pants free, skirts and pant suits above |
| Shoes | 10,000 |
| Accessory | One beard, one pair of glasses, one hat and one mask at a time |
| Effect | Auras, never sold. Earned from achievements |
Priced in tiers
Basics run 3,000 to 10,000 so there is something to buy early. Mid pieces sit around 30,000 to 80,000, and the prestige items (suits, witch robes, ghosts) run 250,000 to a million.
Featured daily
Four items are featured each day, picked from what is in season by the calendar date. The pick is identical on every machine and needs no server, and rarer items surface less often.
Seasonal stock
Some pieces only sell in their window: florals in spring, sailor gear and sunglasses in summer, the whole spooky rack in September and October, and a Lucky Hat that appears only in March.
Earned, not sold
A couple of items are never in the shop. The Founder's Cap is granted for catching a fish during Early Access, and the Gold Aura for fishing 25 hours in that window.