Desktop Fishes

https://youtu.be/vqnjdekXELs?si=GiG3c13PKjFrkFaS

This game is priced like a finished product, but it feels like a half-finished Early Access title. It costs about the same as Tiny Aquarium, yet it offers far less content and polish. The last update was on November 15, 2025, and there are still major issues. Performance is poorly optimized for an idle game. Even when it's running normally, it uses far more system resources than a game of this type should. I also ran into bugs, including the shop displaying nonexistent items. Some design choices are frustrating. Hidden fish aren't actually removed, they just become invisible and still overlap with visible fish. Removing fish means poisoning them instead of selling, donating, or moving them to another tank. I collected every fish species and still couldn't complete the skill tree. I can't tell if that's a bug, poor balancing, or some hidden mechanic, but it doesn't feel right. The snails are supposed to automate harvesting, but they sleep so often that harvesting manually is faster. The achievements also make no sense. After about 20 hours I had unlocked everything and bought every item in the shop, yet there are achievements for spending 100,000 coins and playing 1,000 hours with n…

an achievement for having it open for 500 and then 1000 hours is not so prime to me. if it wasn't for the humble bundle i wouldn't have gotten this, as it costs a bit much for what you get

If you're looking for a low-key sandbox to brighten up your screen, [i] Desktop Fishes [/i] is an okay little diversion. It’s a minimalist idle sim where you learn the ropes through trial and error rather than dense tutorials. It heavily lacks polish, keeping it from being a true gem, but it’s a harmless, low-stress way to keep some pixelated company on your desktop.

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