Fish Tycoon: A Review and Tutorial All in One

A while ago I took notice of a site called Meez. I went there and played around with the funny animated avatars and ran out of coinz. I found that playing games gives you more coinz there for premium things, so I went to see what games they had. Lo and behold they have Fish Tycoon!

I had played this a while ago, but the trial was an hour and not long enough to go through the tutorial and see your baby fish grow to adulthood (age 20.) So, I played it hoping that this version was longer, and it was!

After a few days I was addicted. I was breeding and cross breeding fishies left and right and selling the duplicate babies for a profit.

You first start off with some eggs, food and growth hormone (which speeds up the babies' growth a bit.) If you don't have a lot of time or patience, go into the options menu and set the game speed to fast!

Here's a shot of the fish in my first game. There's the big adult fish and the little white ones are newborns. at age six you can start to see their colors, but you cannot tell the breed until age 20. However, there's a bit of a glitch on the Meez version that allows you to sell fish that are younger than 20 (you aren't supposed to be able to do that and the one at fish Tycoon's Site will not allow you to sell the young fish) in doing so you learn the breeds.

Magical Fish, Trophy Room and Game Play.

The game plays in real time - even if you are not playing it or if your PC is off, so it doesn't take much time to really play it. Then a few days ago Meez did some upgrades and my game was lost! I had found one of the seven magical fish, too!

So, I started over and I've found that fish again, but my tank is only a level one environment and the tank I had before was a level THREE! :( Oh well. I'll just keep breeding and selling to get there again.

The magical fish trail sparkles behind them as they swim. Each one does something different for your tank.

Sick Fish

The fish can get sick with two ailments. Ick and fungus (just like real fish) Ick looks like salt on the fish and fungus is brownish on them.

One complaint, however is that the medicines cost $30 and $40, respectively, and last three treatments. Often times you will have a fish sick with the other ailment before you used up the three doses of the one medicine. When you go to purchase the other medicine, the one you had is replaced with the new one, so you cannot have both types on hand at all times. This gets pretty costly.

Breeding

Breeding fish is very easy and interesting to see what cross breeds you might come up with. These fish are gender neutral. You can drag one into the isolation tank and breed it with another fish by dragging another fish in there. Your fish is instantly pregnant. Now you can breed the pregnant fish to the fish that you just bred it with. So, all fish are both males and females in the game, lol.However, if you find that your babies die before reaching adulthood (age 20), you will need to upgrade your research environment to allow the more delicate fish to survive.

An alternative to breeding is buying fish eggs from the supply store. There are three types of eggs: Common, Unusual and Rare. To allow the unusual and rare eggs to survive requires a higher tank upgrade (research environment.) Eggs can produce from one to six babies, and you never can tell how many or what breeds you will wind up with when you buy them. The babies born from eggs grow the same as those that you produced by breeding.

Species Identification

As mentioned earlier, you cannot tell the breed until age 20. However, there's a bit of a glitch on the Meez version that allows you to sell fish that are younger than 20 (you aren't supposed to be able to do that and the one at fish Tycoon's Site will not allow you to sell the young fish) in doing so you learn the breeds prior to their adult stage.

When your fish reach adulthood you can grab them by clicking on them and holding down the mouse. The species will be listed on the bottom of the screen. Alternately, you can grab them and drag them to the isolation tank to determine the species. You can also click the species button to see a chart how you created that particular species. You can then cross breed those same two fish (assuming you did not sell them or they did not die) and get that same type of offspring.

Adjusting Prices

Each fish has a price listed when they are adults. This is based on the rarity of the fish breed, however you can adjust this price to meet your needs in the game. When the fish are in the isolation tank you are able to adjust the price that they will sell for. Careful about raising it too much, for they will not sell, or they will sellvery slowly. You can re-adjust the price if you find it's selling too slow for your liking.

Selling Your Fish

To make money for upgrades and clear out tank room you will need sell your fish. Selling them is as easy as moving them to the isolation tank, clicking the sale tank button on the top and dragging them into the tank.

When you are ready to sell your fish click the sell fish button. You will see your store in real time and see the customers shopping. When you sell a fish the fish's breed and photo will appear in the lower corner along with the price that it sold for. To stop selling your fish, click done. Your fish will only sell while you are viewing the store. You can sell up to 12 fish at a time.

Your Tanks

Each tank (you have a regular tank and a sale tank) can hold 12 fish at a time. If you are willing to buy the full version download of the game, you'll be able to buy a second tank to hold 12 more fish. You can switch between the tanks and view the fish in there by clicking the buttons at the top with the tank name on them.

A second tank isn't necessary, but it does allow you to cross breed more, as without it you can only hold 24 fish. The fish in the sale tank might sell, even if you are hoping to keep them. There's a little trick, though that allows you to save one fish in the sale tank from being bought. Click and drag the fish that you want not to be sold into the isolation tank and click Sell Fish. Your other fish will sell, but the one in the isolation tank will be safe and unsold!

Dead Fish

Dead fish are shown as gray shadows unmoving in your tank. Often no matter if I put the game on pause or slow, I'll have deaths from when I was sleeping (remember just because you stop playing doesn't mean the game is not still progressing while you sleep - it is.) the fish are very low on food by the time I wake up and get online and there's always a few deaths. If the dead fish was an adult, you can tell the species and re-breed them again. If it was a baby, there will be no way of identifying the species unless you are able to re-breed them once more. You can throw away all dead fish and clear up the tank and ready it for new fish. Just drag the fish to the garbage can and confirm that you want to throw it away.

In Closing

There seem to be no limitations on how long you can playthe Meez version. I've played it daily for the last several days andI'm not cut off from accessing my game, however there are restrictionson the game. You cannot purchase a second tank with the web version,and this poses an issue, forcing you to sell fish fairly often. so far this is the only thing I've found unavailable on the free web version. Also there's the ability to have two games going at once, but this, seem to be a premium feature on the full game only. There's talk in the forum about stopping time on the game, which also is not on the web version. I'd imagine some of the other things might be ubavailable, but I've yet to find them or buy the items in the supply shop, or, rather, try to buy them.

You don't have to buy the game to enjoy it, and that's a really refreshing thing for a game trial. I, however just might purchase the full version some day... but we will see about that. See for yourself how wonderful this game is. Here's the Meez page, and here's the official site's web version. You can even find some tips at their forum.