Fish Tycoon

A review from a close friend in my steam family: For a game made in 2005, it's held up [i]incredibly[/i] well. I didn't think I'd get as hooked on Fish Tycoon as I am now; I played the demo of it when I was maybe 6-7, and I thought it was just one of those games that you have a lot of nostalgia for, but ultimately set down after half an hour. ...Yeah, uh, that's not happening here. The gameplay loop is simple, but that's what makes it so addicting. Feed your fish, care for them, breed them to get new fish, sell 'em in your store, and if you hit the perfect fish combo you get one of the seven Magic Fish (the in-game McGuffin). There's a bit of resource management in there too - via keeping an eye on your money as you buy stuff for your fish, level up your knowledge on their environment and food, etc - but 90% of Fish Tycoon revolves around the breeding aspect. And let me tell you, it's got me [i]hooked[/i]. Fish Tycoon's an idle game, meaning everything generally progresses in real time; the game even says "staring at your fish won't make them grow up faster" at the beginning. I've been opening the game like, five times a day, just to check on the little guys and see what new and unusual fish I've gotten this time. (Learn from me: if you're going to be away from the game for a while, make sure you set the in-game time in the Options to "Stop Time" until you can log back in. Trust me on this.) I've found three of the Magic Fish, and I think I'm almost at the right combo for another. Now, this game [i]is[/i] made in 2005, and there might be a few technical bugs here and there. For one thing, I've had 0 luck with the Full-Screen option; it gets stretched out and gross on one of my monitors, and it completely borks the colors on another. It's a game that's meant to be played on the Windowed option in the background, anyway, so that's not exactly the end of the world. If you have nostalgia for this game, or just looking for a casual idle game about breeding fish, this is a really nice time-waster. Last Day of Work does offer the full version of this game for free on their official website, but honestly it's worth the money to support them. I got my copy via Steam Family, but frankly I'm considering buying a copy myself just to support the devs. Pick this up on sale (or don't; it's ten bucks offsale, and frankly I think that's a really good price for something this in-depth).