Review: Pet Fishy

Score:
33%

Author: Selvarine

Version Reviewed: 1.0.0.0

Buy Link | Download / Information Link

Here's how Pet Fishy plays out. You head to the shops, buy some fish eggs, pop them in the tank, and watch as the baby fish hatch. Feed them, keep the tank clean, and when they grow up you can sell them for a profit back to the store.

If you don't want to buy the fish eggs, then you can breed two of your existing fish and pick up some 'free' eggs. The breeding system is the way to generate more fish and thus more income, but it does require that you keep breeding pairs in your tank at all times, and the initial investment in these fish will slow down your earning capability to start with. With your newfound income, you can fill up the tank with more fish, you can build up savings for some really special eggs, or you can buy decorations and trinkets to brighten up the tank.

Perhaps the only real nod to game mechanics is the ability to level up. As you perform tasks you gain experience, and as you gain experience you advance through different levels. This has a direct relationship with which goods are available for you to buy in the shop. As you play the game, you'll realise that there's no grand goal here, just simple advancement of levels and a sense of satisfaction.

At least there should be. Any virtual pet game has to minimise the disruption when you want to interact with your pets. You need to go in, do the task, and get out again. That's not the case here.

Pet Fishy is not quick to load, and it will put a splash screen between the launching of the app and actually getting to your fish tank.

The controls are very sluggish and unforgiving. You are going to need to be very accurate with your taps while playing. Coupled with this is the notable delay when you choose an action - long enough to make me think that perhaps the touch event hadn't been recognised, trying it again, and again, and then realise it's just a slow application.

But the biggest failing in Pet Fishy is the empty live tile. Pin it to your start screen and... it just sits there. In a game that puts so much emphasis on tending to your fish when they need it, when ignoring their plight can lead to an untimely death and a loss of income, I would have expected some sort of 'alerting' system in a real time game, and the live tile is perfectly suited to this.

Nope, nothing there, just the game icon, looking jaunty.

That sums up my experience with Pet Fishy. It should work, but it doesn't. There's a great idea for a game in here, one that could be built on and bring in some decent long term player revenue to developers Selvarine. But by going for a paid download model.. and advertising... and freemium mechanics, they've over egged the revenue pudding and created a frustrating 'what-if' for Windows Phone users.

If I had the mythical memory span of a goldfish, perhaps I could see past all this, but I can't. So my only recommendation is to ask Selvarine to head back to the drawing board and try again, this time with the Pet Fishy blueprint of what not do with a virtual pet game.

Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 14:36 UTC, October 15th 2012