Forget Skipping Stones, It's Time To Skip These Fish Out Of Water

Fish Out Of Water! ($0.99) by Halfbrick Studios is one fishy game that will prove to be quite addictive. This game is brought to you by the same people behind classics like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, so it’s already off to a great start.

I was quite excited about this game when I first heard about it, so I was eager for this to hit the App Store. And it finally did, and it’s just as good as all of the previews made it out to be.

The visuals in this game are just delightful. Halfbrick provides a colorful and lush beach environment with dynamic weather conditions (they change every hour). All of the characters models appear in a 3-D fashion against the background, and have smooth and fluid animations. You will fall in love with the quirky capabilities of the fish, as well as the crabs that judge you (well, just a maybe for the crabs). The soundtrack in this game is charming, and a nice layer of icing on the cake.

So how do you play? Just like their other games, Fish Out of Water is incredibly easy to learn, but difficult to master. Each game will consist of three throws, and at the end, the crab will judge you, giving you a final score. To throw, you just tap-and-hold on a fish, drag it out of the water, and then flick it as hard as you can. It’s best to try to aim it straight for the most effectiveness. Some of the crabs will care about specific things, like the number of skips or the total distance your fish traveled, and then some are just hard to please overall. You can tap on each individual crab to learn more about what they look for.

There are six fish to choose from, and each of them are unique in their own way. Rocket (the red fish) seems to skip on the water a lot, so use him if you want to acquire a lot of total skips. Errol and Micro are puffy and big, so they are good for throwing for distance, not so much for skipping. Olympus seems to be pretty balanced, able to get good distance and skips. Finlay is able to go underwater instead of skipping on the surface, so he’s good at getting a lot of distance. And finally, The Brothers will split up into four fish once he bounces off the water, so you an get a lot of skips with him as well, but not so much distance.

Along the way, you will find yellow orbs that look like suns. Collecting these will refill your Boost bar at the top. The boost can be activated by tapping the screen during any throw to give your fish a little — you guessed it — boost to propel them forward just a bit further. But watch how much you use, because once it is depleted, it’s really difficult to fill it back up, and you most likely won’t be able to get more than one or two more boosties to fill it up with. So be careful with that booster, and use it wisely.

Just like Jetpack Joyride, there are also goal to achieve in this game as well. You will get three objectives at a time, and once you complete one, the game will let you know and you get a checkmark for it. Acquiring three checkmarks will earn you a level up, meaning you get to pick a treasure chest filled with a random assortment of shiny crystals.

These crystals can be combined (one big piece and one small) during a game to give you boosts, and different color combinations mean different effects. For example, a green crystal will give you +0.01 to your score, and a purple one will give you an addition 50 meters and 15 skips to your total. However, there are many more combinations to discover, and it’s your job to find them all as you play and collect crystals. I really like this element of the game, because you don’t know what you will end up with (part of the fun).

When you gain levels, you also unlock a new picture in the photo album that you can access in the bottom left corner, where all of the fish are. If you are low on crystals and want more, you can buy more via in-app purchases. There is also a nifty in-app purchase to change the color of your name, which may randomly appear in the top left corner of the screen on other player’s games (good scores from all over the world are shown here).

The coolest thing about Fish Out of Water is the fact that the game is always changing due to weather conditions. The weather is an important factor to consider for each round, and you can see the current weather in the top right corner. Some fish will perform better than others in certain weather conditions, so make sure to keep an eye out on that!

Fish Out of Water comes with full Game Center support for leaderboards and achievements, so if the game itself isn’t full of replay value for you, then this will certainly do it! You can also join a league to compete with other leagues daily for the top high score.

I highly recommend you check out Fish Out of Water if you haven’t already done so. The only negative about the game is probably the fact that you will lose hours of productivity due to it.

You can get Fish Out of Water in the App Store as a universal download today for $0.99.