There's something very soothing about a fish tank. At least, it has always seemed that way to me. Something about watching fish swim around in their tank just lazily drifting through the water just calms the soul. The only problem is that real fish tanks tend to be a lot of work to maintain. We had a fish tank in our house for a long time, and it seemed we either always had more snails than fish, or more algae than snails, or more fish than algae, or.. It was just complicated. Never could get it right so that the precious fish which my children always seemed to have an incredible attraction to would last more than a few months at a time. That is, until the game Fish Tycoon came along!! Now we have virtual fish, and while they still are a lot of work to maintain, if all the fish die, you can just start a new game, not have to head to the pet store and spend money replacing the poor “Bubbles” or (as is always the case in our house) “Momo”. (For those not parents who had a 2 year old when the moving “Finding Nemo” came out, “Momo” is how most 2 year olds pronounced “Nemo”, and the name has stuck.)Fish Tycoon is probably exactly what you're thinking it is. It is a virtual fish tank. But it is way more than just that. A virtual fish tank would have been enough for our family, but there really is a game involved as well, with real goals and reasons to play. It is important to note before I go too much further in this review that Fish Tycoon is a real-time virtual fish tank. This means that unless you purposely pause the game before quitting out, time will still pass for your little virtual fishes, and they will still have needs just as a real fish tank would. More so, in fact, when you are just starting the game, because you can't afford supplies that you'll be able to buy later on that will let your tank run longer without you needing to care for it. Now, as I said, you can pause the game. But if you do so, nothing will happen between times you log in. And as fun as the game is, it is still a fish tank sim, and time moves rather slowly for fish compared to the fast paced world of most video games. Keep in mind, however, that like a real fish tank can bring relaxation and peace to the soul, playing Fish Tycoon can slow down your day, help you relax, and enjoy just being a fish breeder. You can speed up time a little bit in order to see things happen faster game progress wise, but ultimately what is important to keep in mind is that this game is meant to be a “real time” simulation game. You aren't supposed to be playing it for hours and hours a day, but rather for short periods of time every day or so.
So what does one actually DO in Fish Tycoon, I hope you are asking right about now. Well, you breed fish. Your goal is to try to solve what is referred to as the “genetic puzzle” and breed the “7 Magic fish of Isola”. When the game starts, you will have a few fish to pick from, a bit of money, and a starting tank. You take those few fish, combine two of them in the little breeding tank, and wait. Fish in this game are genderless, so you can combine them in any combination so long as one of the fish you are trying to add to the breeder tank isn't already pregnant, and create some rather exotic breeds of fish. Adult fish are then either sold, or used to breed again, bringing in some strategy to the game. You need to sell some fish in order to have money for supplies, chemicals for the tank, and medicine for when your fish get sick. The more exotic the fish, the more they sell for. Money is also used to research better technology to improve your tank, and advertise so that your exotic fish sell for even more. The trick is to balance all this with remembering that you need these exotic fish in order to create your Magic Fish of Isola.
You have two tanks to manage plus a sale tank. The sale tank is set up in your virtual pet store where people can come in and buy your fish, and the regular tanks are used for waiting for fish to grow up. The pet store is also where you go to buy supplies for your fish, research for better products, better environments and better ways to advertise, and to get an idea of what the customers think of the fish you have to offer. That's where the tycoon part of the game comes in, and where you'll spend time if you are truly playing the game.
You can also see a genealogy chart on each of your fish going back three generations. I have to confess that this part of the game still puzzles me a bit. I'm still trying to figure out of following the breeding charts of each fish will let you figure out which traits are dominant and which are recessive in a particular breed pair and thus let you predict what sort of fish you are probably going to get. Right now my successes are pretty random, or seem to be to me, so I'm not sure that there is any sort of coded gene code for each fish you breed, but I am going to keep tracking and try to figure out, that's for sure. It is part of the fun of playing the game to try to isolate fish characteristics and create the ideal fish.
But the game is more than just a game where you are trying to breed the right fish. It becomes a learning tool for kids as well, and that's what I like about it as a parent. My kids are learning how hard it is to care for fish, what fish need, and that pets, even virtual ones, are a lot of responsibility. For the older two who are also trying to play the game itself, they are also learning to balance business skills and money so that they can have the things they need, and maybe some of what they want. Each fish tank can be customized with a number of different plants and decorations, but again, you have to be careful to not over spend or over fill your tank. A fish tank crammed full of plants and other pretty things may be something that you think looks nice, but it does not make for happy fish.
Fish Tycoon is one of those games that looks simple on the surface and makes you ask “Why?” when you think about whether to buy it or not. But the truth is that if you download the demo and start playing, you'll find that the answer to this “why” is because the game itself is just fun and addicting. Its a great diversion for short periods of time each day to just sit back and relax, there is challenge to it in trying to figure out the right combination to get you one of the Magic Fish, and to balance income versus expense. And it comes with a really cool screensaver that you can bring up your fish tank and watch when you aren't using your computer. The “real time” portion of it really is real, not just when you are logged in and playing the game sort of “real time”. Things happen to your fish when you aren't playing the game, and that's cool. Because of that you don't want to just go away for days or weeks and let time pass in your virtual fish tank any more than you would in your real fish tank. If you do, you'll return to an algae infested green mass of dead and decaying fish, and no money for clean-up costs. Trust me, it has happened to us. But seriously, download the game yourself, play the demo for a while. Let your kids play, let your family play. Let everyone play. You'll find that they all become as addicted to being fish tycoons as we are.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
