Fishdom, according to the game, is “a place where dream aquariums come true.” In this game, you match tiles together to earn money, which you use to create and maintain a virtual aquarium. The simple gameplay and colorful graphics make Fishdom an easy sell. Plus, who doesn’t like fish?

The Match-3 gameplay is nothing new. Players of other games like Zen Fashion may already be familiar with special moves such as clearing out gold tiles to finish a stage, or unlocking “locked” tiles by matching them more than once. To spice things up, Fishdom throws in “explosive” tiles like dynamite or firecrackers, earned whenever you make combos. Since later stages have more challenging layouts, you’ll need these explosive tiles to reach difficult spots. There is plenty of time allotted for you to figure out your strategy, but the faster you finish, the more money you win at the end of the stage.

And really, the point of this game is to earn lots of money for your aquarium. You start out with an empty tank and very little cash, so you’ll need to keep playing the Match-3 stages to earn enough to buy fish, ornaments, and supplies. Fish range from simple clownfish to blowfish, angelfish, and even seahorses. Ornaments like water plants and coral fill up your tank’s “Beauty” meter, while supplies like air pumps, heaters, and light fill up your “Comfort” meter. If you’ve bought enough fish and maxed out all your meters, you unlock a new tank – and with it, more expensive fish and items.

This isn’t really a simulation game, as setting up your aquarium is easy and hardly needs management. Most of the time, you can just sit back and watch the fish enjoy their new home. You can even set your aquariums to be your computer’s screensaver, which is a pretty cool and rewarding feature.

With no additional frills or game modes, Fishdom is all about the fun of owning an aquarium, and it recreates it pretty well. So if you can’t have the real thing, you may as well buy yourself some virtual fish!

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(5 votes, average: 4.2 out of 5)

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