How to make How to Fish interactive on TikTok LIVE
Install a MelonLoader mod, paste in your dashboard API key, and map TikTok gifts to in-game actions. Viewers then fund your big catch or throw you off the boat in real time, and setup takes three steps.
What interactive How to Fish actually looks like
A viewer sends a gift and something happens on your boat a moment later. A Rose might patch you up, while a bigger gift launches you clean off the deck or blacks out every light on the water. Chat stops being a comment box and becomes part of the run.
How to Fish suits this well because the game already has a built-in mood. The sea is calm one minute and hostile the next. Gifts just let your audience decide which one you get.
What you need before you start
Keep the list short. Most of it you probably have already.
- How to Fish installed on your PC
- A TikTok account that can go LIVE (requirements such as follower minimums vary by region and account, so check TikTok's own LIVE settings)
- TikTok LIVE Studio or OBS to actually broadcast
- A TikPlays account and your dashboard API key
- A few minutes to install MelonLoader
No port forwarding is needed. The mod polls for what your viewers have just bought, so it works from a normal home connection.
Step-by-step setup
TikPlays is the tool that connects the game to your LIVE. How to Fish is a Unity game on the Mono backend, and the TikPlays mod is a MelonLoader mod. It calls the game's own code, so nothing is hooked at the OS level and no memory is poked.
- Install MelonLoader on How to Fish, then drop the TikPlays mod into the Mods folder.
- Launch the game once so the mod creates its config file, then paste your dashboard API key into UserData/TikPlaysHowToFish.cfg.
- On the TikPlays dashboard, map gifts to actions (see the next sections for how to split them up).
- Still on the dashboard, pick How to Fish when you Connect, then go LIVE from TikTok LIVE Studio or OBS.
- Send yourself a test gift or ask a friend to. Check that the action fires before you start the real stream.
If the action does not fire, check the mod's log first. It prints what it received and tells you plainly when something cannot apply.
The 20 actions your viewers can trigger
There are ten actions that help you and ten that make things worse. Every one of them runs through the game's own code, so they behave like normal game events.
Help: Big catch (cash), Calm waters, Hauled to shore, Eagle eye, Full belly, Life raft (invincible), Patched up, Second wind, Steady sea and Tail wind. Harm: Blackout, Butterfingers, Chum the water, Gut punch, Hooked, On fire, Overboard, The taxman, Tunnel vision and Whirlpool.
Map gifts so the stream stays fun
The mapping is where most of the design work is. A good rule is to put cheap gifts on small, funny effects and expensive gifts on the dramatic ones. Butterfingers or Tunnel vision suits a low-cost gift. Blackout or Whirlpool suits something bigger.
Keep the rescue actions within reach. If a viewer can wreck you with Gut punch, another viewer should be able to answer with Patched up or Second wind. That back-and-forth is what makes people keep gifting.
Look up what each gift costs in coins before you assign it. The free gift and earnings calculator helps with that, and TikTok can change gift values, so check the numbers right before you go LIVE.
Free gift & earnings calculator →
The host rule: who actually feels each effect
How to Fish is co-op, and some effects are server-authoritative. Heal, cash, poison, fire and resurrect bite for the player hosting the lobby. Playing solo counts as hosting.
If you join a friend's lobby as a guest, those effects will not land on you, and the mod says so in its own log. The camera, shove, weather and screen effects work for anyone.
So if you stream co-op, host the lobby yourself. Otherwise your viewers will send a Gut punch and nothing will happen, which looks like a broken stream.
Run the stream: overlays, pacing and extras
Tell viewers what each gift does. Put a short list on screen or in your LIVE title, and say it out loud every few minutes as new people arrive. Nobody gifts an action they have never heard of.
Pace yourself as well. If every gift causes chaos, the run becomes unwinnable and people leave. Leave gaps where you can actually fish, and react to what they send.
TikPlays also includes goal bars, top-gifter and chat overlays, sound alerts and a giveaway wheel. Overlays are links you paste into OBS or LIVE Studio as a browser source. A Windows desktop app can read gifts and chat aloud too.
Overlays, Spotify requests and giveaways →
Get people into the stream in the first place
An interactive game only works if someone is watching. A clear LIVE title that says viewers control the boat gives people a reason to stay. The free LIVE title and hashtag generator can give you starting points.
Announce a starting schedule too, so returning viewers know when the next run is.