Joyquarium

This is a real review (albeit with little gametime for now but it's still a thumbs up), those other reviews appear are giving me bot vibes. I've been on steam over 2 decades. what a blatant rip off of a better game in literally every way, chillquarium. If you're looking for an aquarium fish raising game get that one. If you finish everything in that game and still want more, get Time is Honey, if you finish BOTH of those games and still want more and have like $4-5 to spend, then get this one. It's got some rough translations, the entire steam discussion board is not english, the graphics are worse in everyway compared to chillquarium, but its still the same addicting gameplay loop, buy fish packs, open packs, feed to raise fish to adult, sell rinse repeat, buy some cosmetic items, new tanks for new fish species/rarities etc, its literally all the same... I'm part of that userbase that's done with CQ and TiH, and I want more so here I am, still playing.

So after 100%ing this I do want to address the elephant in the room: This is definitely a copy of Chillquarium, which you should absolutely buy and play first. You may also like Time Is Honey, as it's a similar game with bees. With that out of the way, I do like Joyquarium a lot! It has some small things I didn't like much (small glitches, some QOL stuff missing) but generally it's a well-done Chillquarium clone. I appreciate the larger options for aquarium decorating and available tanks. I do wish the fish had more breed-specific behaiviors, such as bottom feeders being closer to the bottom (loaches) and schooling fishes schooling together. I also with the King fish were easier to spot in a list of fish when mass-selling them! Thanks for the game, I hope the Chillquarium creator is cool with this. I'm happy to have more of these types of games around. :3

[b]Tl;dr:[/b] Joyquarium's gameplay is rather bland, and it does not provide the charm of fishkeeping at all. [b]The gameplay is too basic and repetitive.[/b] There is a huge progression speed difference between playing the game actively and passively. I got to get all the achievements in about 11 hours of playing actively while rewatching movies on the side, but not a single new interaction was presented to me during my gameplay after the first ten minutes or so. The biggest problem I have with Joyquarium is that while it is marketed as an immersive, relaxing idle aquarium game, [b]it creates more frustration rather than relaxation due to the progression[/b] in the game. It is not even close to the charm of real-life fishkeeping. Fish are just soulless objects you get and sell more and more rather than enjoying their companionship. I like the addition of effects that elevate your currency generation speed, but they are too bland. This could evolve into a fun addition to the progression for such a game, but it did not add anything to my experience at all. [b]There is a great variety of fish, but many of them are made up.[/b] This isn't a bad problem by itself, but it feels like all those fish were added to the game for the sake of making it last longer. They are just colored reskins of the existing fish with no additional mechanics behind them. Overall, [b]I don't suggest getting Joyquarium[/b] since it is neither satisfying regarding the charm of fishkeeping nor incremental gameplay. It is an adequate game at best.