Tap tap on the tank! (Fish Tycoon)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	Fish Tycoon
Date:	14/01/08 (557 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: ongoing gameplay

Disadvantages: can be challenging

I found Fish Tycoon via the same online game site where I bought Virtual Villagers from. I liked the style of game play enough from the villagers game, I wanted to find another similar game to keep my attention.

Fish Tycoon works on a few of the same principles. It's a game that time will continue to pass even when you aren't on the computer. This is something to remember when purchasing a game of this type, as if you are away from your computer for long periods of time, the game will end without you having any control over it.

What is the idea of Fish Tycoon?

The aim of Fish Tycoon is to buy and sell fish primarily. You need to make money by breeding fish and being able to sell them to potential customers in your shop within the game.

Sounds a simple game, but let me tell you it's actually more complex and there's a lot more to the game than first meets the eye.
There are apparently over 400 species of fish you have the option to be able to create by breeding different species of fish to create new ones. Fish breeds however range in rarity from being very common to extremely rare and magical.
To be able to win the game, you have to find seven magical breeds that will be shown within a trophy room.

Starting the game:

When you begin the game, you are given 300 iosla bucks, a pot of fish food, some fish eggs and a growth enhancer.
All of the above are just to get you started and anything else you need to buy to progress through the game has to be bought in the supplies shop.
There is a tutorial which I highly recommend you going with the first time you play as it provides valuable information on how to do things.
So you start by dropping your fish eggs into the tank, and watching them grow. By dropping the growth enhancer in, you will watch your fish grow to the age of seven straight away.

Progressing through the game:

Fish are babies until they reach 20 years old. Until this time you wont know what type of breed they are. Once fish reach adult stage they can be sold, you can breed from them and they can become ill.
If you choose to sell your fish, you need to drag them into your sale tank. You have three tanks available to you, tank one, two and the sale tank. You will have to purchase tank two later on in the game if you wish to hold more fish, as each tank can only hold 20 fish.
If you choose to breed from your fish, you have to make use of the isolation tank on the screen, and drag another fish into the tank to impregnate the fish.
All goes swimmingly unless one of your fish become ill. There are two forms of disease and you can tell as your fish gets a nasty coloured growth or specks on them. All diseases can be treated by buying medicines from the supplies shop.

The supplies shop:

This is a good aspect of the game as it sells anything from a snail to clean your tank, right through to a fertility plant to enhance more babies.
Within here there are also research items to be able to buy. If you want to feed your fish less often, you can research food, or your fish environment if you want to be able to breed rarer fish.

Selling your fish:

As soon as you choose to sell your fish, any adult fish located in the sale tank are automatically up for sale. You watch as all the little people come into your shop with thought bubbles above their head. If they like what they see they may buy your fish, increasing your money situation.
Sometimes fish are set at very low prices so they will sell very quickly, but if you price them too high they will stay in your shop for a long time.
Luckily fish in the game will never die of old age, so you can carry on breeding from them for ages to come.

Fish however will only be sold if you are in the shop screen within the game. Otherwise they will just carry on swimming around their little tanks until you go back to them.

Within the shop screen there are a lot of handy tips and hints to the game if you click on the breeds posters. You can also find out how many fish you have cured, how many times you have fed your fish etc. here.

Extras:

The game can be played on different speeds. I would recommend slowing the game right down at the end of the day or if you are away from your computer for a long period of time, as the first time I played it, all my fish died in the first night as I had the speed too high on game play.

Waiting for a fish to reach 20 can seem to take ages. In fact it will only take a couple of hours of game play (even when you're not playing it), and a fish will stay pregnant for maybe half an hour on the highest speeds.
As a result of this there isn't always a lot to do within the game so you may need to go away and do other things, but remember to pop back in from time to time.

Finding newer breeds can be difficult as every time I have found a rarer breed it has never made it to adult stage as I haven't researched my environment enough so the fish wont stay alive long enough. Saving up can take a while so you may need to find one good fish to breed and mass produce this breed if you know it sells, so you can make money quicker.

My opinion:

I love getting home and checking on my fish at the end of the day. It's great to pop back in and see what is happening and whether I can sell any more adult fish.

I have my difficulty settings to normal, and you have the option of difficult or easy. I am finding the game quite a challenge on normal, but I wouldn't want it to be too easy as I would get very bored easily.

So far after about a week of game play, I have only found one of the seven rare breeds. (You know they are rare as they are followed by glitter in the tank). I have a long way to go, but it's good to think about which fish you are mixing and remember which two fish made which breed etc. I think I may have to start writing them down so I know which two to mix when I have found a sell able breed for half decent money.

**UPDATE**

Completing this game took a long long time. I found a lot of trial and error breeding the right species to gain my rare breeds, and have to admit to very nearly using the various message boards available online as a form of "helping" me in my quest.

The one "cheat" I did use was the time travelling feature. I found that the game was not going to grasp my attention for long enough to be able to complete the game properly. I knew I would forget about my fish and come back to the tank and find them all dead. As the game is played in real time, I will admit to changing the time and date on my pc to speed things up a bit!

This game would be suitable for children to get into the whole caring for a virtual mammal game, but it takes a bit of dedication to be able to think about creating new breeds etc., so maybe younger children would lose interest quickly on that aspect.

Requirements and cost:

The game is available on an hour's free trial, but you wont be able to do anything on this game in an hour so if you like it you're going to have to buy it. It's going to cost around a tenner depending on where you get it from so look around.


Windows 98, 2000, Me, or XP
500 MHz or faster processor
96 MB RAM
16-bit graphics and sound card
DirectX 7.0 or better
40 MB disc space

Please note this review is also posted on Ciao where I am also a member

Summary: a virtual fish tank