Fish Tycoon
by Matt Fox
April 8, 2009
Overview
Grow, breed, and sell different species of fish in this real-time virtual aquarium that is Fish Tycoon. With over 400 species of fish to discover, this game provides you with hours of gameplay and entertainment. As mentioned, this is a real-time virtual simulation game that keeps running even when you close down the application. Come back to the game hours later to find your fish fully grown and ready to breed and/or sell. Think The Sims, only with fish instead of people and a pet store instead of a house...that's basically Fish Tycoon in a nut shell...or in this case, an aquarium (side note: I am aware of how bad that joke is...and I don't care).Features
The main feature that this game includes has got to be the real-time simulation. Your fish continue to grow and flourish even when you have the app closed down, which is a really cool feature to be honest. Although this is a great element to the game, it does have its drawbacks as well (this is discussed further in the BAD section of the review).
Aside from the ability to have the game continue when closed, Fish Tycoon comes with a supplies page that allows you to purchase a multitude of different things. These range from fish eggs, plants, and one of those little scuba diver guys too. There's also a fun feature that allows you to beef up the advertising of your store to help draw in more customers because surprise, surprise...without money, you're pretty much just watching a bunch of fish swimming around in a tank. And I ask you, where's the fun in that?
Breakdown
The Good:
The amount of fish species to choose from is easily the game's top feature. You will breed a different type of fish almost every time, which is great because it keeps the game feeling new each time you open up the app. The game also appeals to just about everyone. If you're interested in the genetic side of things, it really is a complex and challenging game to play. If that's not your thing and you just want to mess around and grow and sell fish casually, the game is built for that too. In short, if a virtual fish game is what you like to play, Fish Tycoon should absolutely be on your IPhone/IPod Touch.
For only $1.99 this game is well worth that price. For everything that this game comes with you'd expect to pay at least twice that much (especially when compared to other pricey games that don't have half of what Fish Tycoon is loaded with). The sounds and music aren't anything to write home about, but they do what they need to and fit the game just fine. Graphics look decent enough as well (the best being the actual fish tanks themselves). There's almost a large amount of supplies and such that you can purchase to spice up your tanks. They've also included different types of food, fish eggs, and research material to help you to really manage and develop your fish correctly.
Back to the breeding portion of the game, Fish Tycoon also includes a fun little mini game as well. When breeding the fish, you have to discover the seven "magic" fish that are hidden throughout the game. These "magic" fish appear randomly as you continue to breed different species of fish. Once found, they are displayed on a Trophies page and help to complete the genetic puzzle game.
The Bad:
Again, with me it's the waiting...there is so much waiting involved in this game. Hours upon hours of waiting before you can actually get anything done. All these screen shots shown here are after I played the game for three and a half hours. I only accumulated a little under three hundred dollars which isn't really enough to do much. Since the game relies mostly on money, that's a really big flaw in my book. Even when you turn on the 2x time accelerator in the options it doesn't really speed things up that much. I recommend setting the time to 2x immediately because it takes forever for your first set of fish to turn into adults (the age they turn into an adult is 20 by the way). Okay, this is suppose to be a set up, leave alone, and come back type of game. You get things where you need them to be and then come back a few hours later. So in essence, you don't play the game, you leave it alone. Does that sound fun to anyone? Because it's not to me. Why do I want a game I can't really play? And I know this is supposed to be a real-life simulator game, but then just go buy some fish. If anything, take some liberties and let things progress a little faster. Give us a "speed up time" option that actually speeds up the time. Because fair warning: It takes close to TWO HOURS before you can do anything with your first set of fish. So be prepared to sit around for a few hours when first playing this game, or turn it off and not play it for those two hours.
The lack of things to do when you are waiting is also a terrible feature in this game. Again, without money there isn't much you can do except feed your fish and watch them grow for two hours. Give us the ability to customize our store, maybe change the layout of where things in the store are? How about the ability to change the tanks, i.e. the color of the rocks, the background image, etc. This lack of options really hurts the game and again, once you have spent all of your cash and are waiting for your fish to grow older, there isn't anything to do but wait. I feel like I've said wait a million times...I think you get my point.
