Fishlets

EDIT: Since writing this review, the Adventure Mode goals have been tweaked to be less severe. The mode is still a bit repetitive, but the "grind" I talked about below is much less extreme now than it was at release. It's great to see the devs taking feedback into account and I feel more comfortable recommending the game now - I've left the rest of my review unchanged for the sake of preservation, however.

Fishlets is a fun indie game about fish with a great pixel art style. It has two modes - Adventure, and a more idle "My Tanks" mode that ticks while you're away.

Unfortunately, if the game was just Adventure mode it would be very hard to recommend. For those who've played "Insaniquarium", it's very reminiscent of that, and while it's exciting to finally see an arcade-style fish game in the same vein as the over-two-decade-old PopCap title, it's just not as fun. There isn't much meaningful variation between levels - you get three tiers of "fish" that all behave in functionally the same way but with different costs and income levels - and every subsequent tank is just reskins of those fish. There are some small differences in other elements of the gameplay - the invaders, for example - but it's a very repetitive and grind-heavy mode, and one which regrettably gates a lot of the game content behind it, too. Even if it just played a bit faster, it would be a lot more bearable, but the lack of variety throughout the twenty-one levels the game claims is very hard to look past. Insaniquarium still holds up today and if you want THAT experience, you should just play that game.

However, where Fishlets really starts to shine is in the more idle mode simply called "My Tanks". It ticks away when you're not playing or when your computer is off, and so you get to come back and see how much you've earned. It's part Insaniquarium's "Virtual Tank" screensaver, part "Fish Tycoon", and partly something completely its own, or at least different to any other aquarium sims I've tried. There's a big roster of fish to acquire and each has a whole slew of cosmetic variants with different rarities to be found. The individual species are all inspired by real fish and it's clear there's either been a lot of research or love put into all the little details, more so than one might expect from a game with such simple presentation (your Betta fish might build a bubble nest when they're happy, for example). The game has a great roster of fish, included some hidden and secret unlockables, and you can play this mode like a pokedex where you're trying to find all the variations (again, very "Fish Tycoon" reminiscent, though the breeding is less complex here) or you can just design and populate some really aesthetically pleasing tanks.

At the time of this review, Fishlets has only just released, and I'd love to see it refined as it goes on. The idle mode is genuinely great, and with a bit of balancing and/or tweaking I think the Adventure could become much more enjoyable, as the core experience of it isn't awful so much as the amount of time it demands. If you don't mind a bit of a (relaxing) grind, are content to avoid it and just play to the more fun idle mode, or you're a big aquarium enthusiast who misses the prolific abundance of desktop fish sims from the 2000s, you'll probably enjoy Fishlets a lot, and if you're on the fence I'd definitely recommend picking it up to support the devs - I bought the game on a sale, but even the full asking price is very reasonable for what you're getting. There's hours of fun content in Fishlets - I just wish there was a bit more diversity in what those hours were spent doing.

Video gameplay/overview: https://youtu.be/_ua1CTl3bwY

I've been enjoying Fishlets. 2 hours in at this point and I have a few more tanks to unlock, but I've played enough to feel fairly confident that this is a rather fantastic game that will give you several hours of chill zen. The gameplay loop of the adventure mode isn't too complex, and I guess you could say it's a bit repetitive. It goes pretty quickly though, so I don't think it'll be a problem for most. Occasionally you'll get some evil critters that come into your aquarium that you'll need to kill through clicking minigame of sorts. Pretty low threat overall, but it does give you some incentive to pay attention outside of feeding your fish.

You'll place tiny fish, large fish, and big fish in your tank. That might not be the way they are called in the game, but that's what happens. Each fish drops a scale after fed which is your currency. It costs a scale to drop some food.

You can upgrade your food 3 times to lessen how often you need to feed them, and you can also purchase some critters that will help distract the things that come in to wreak havoc.

There's also an offline fishtank mode which I think is probably the main selling point for the game. As you complete adventure mode you'll unlock tanks, decorations, and fish. You then purchase those to put in your fishtank where they'll earn cash while you are away doing other things. Use that cash to buy more fish. More tanks. More money. Create the aquarium of your dream and chill with the mellow music.

I prefer this to real fish tanks.

Probably still needs a little work, and I'd love to see mods for other fish and accessories. Some of the enemies are difficult and gimmicky, especially the bacteria in lvl 2, the only level I saw the "all your fish are dead" screen. A lot of issues I have can be mitigated with an autoclicker running at like 100 clicks/s. With this, you can kill enemies before their gimmicks become impossible. It also saves your finger from the constant clicking on the scales that drop. Also food becomes spoiled the very instant it hits the ground, and you can't remove it until then. This leading to unfortunate timing where a fish eats the food the very instant it hits the ground, dying, with no time to remove it. The fish are also incredibly slow, and starve EXTREMELY fast, even at maxed food quality; fish literally die of starvation in the time it takes them to traverse the screen. "Wow, thats a lot of gripes my guy, why you still recommend?" I hear you saying. This game is adorable and somehow keeps you glued to it for a while. I really hope that this game gets enough of a following for mods, and perhaps more customization featured from the devs. Everything I complained about above is small potatoes. Little gripes coming from an actual fish keeper. None of it stopped me from enjoying the campaign and making my own tanks. I will say, though, that the frequency at which the game wants you to feed, and the amount of fish youre allowed to have in a tank promotes and perpetuates poor fish-keeping habits. Every species has it's own tank requirements and incompatibilities with other species. Make sure to give your (real) fish plenty of room, and adequate filtering.