Desktop Fishes

I got this game in a special sale bundle. I thought it looked cute from a glance. Installed and played over a couple of days. Overall, I enjoyed it for a little bit, but after the 20+ hours of on/off gameplay, it made my laptop start to run warm while having it on. A cute 'background' for visuals, but not something I would be running continuously for the cute aesthetics. Pros: +It is cute. +Multiple colors and designs for fish. +Fun to watch the fish swim on the screen. +Good for passing time. Cons: -No clear explanations or steps shown. You're just left to click around and figure it out on your own. -You quickly lose the ability to view separate fish as they just continue to multiple to get the new species. -The shop sometimes only charges 100 which is what is shown, other times it charges double to refresh the available items. -The shop offers only 3 things even if you don't want to buy poison/love food. -The seaweed is inconsistent on how it grows.

[h3] Cute aquarium like game with more bugs than fishes... [/h3] The game does have nice graphics and a cozy atmosphere to it... that only last a little bit. My biggest problem with it: you are required to play [b]1,000 hours[/b], on a game that does not provide nearly enough content for you to waste the time on it for that long. Well, unless you look at is as a live wallpaper application of sorts, then suuuure. Next, you are require to discover 100 fishes, but hey, did ya know? There ain't even a nice way to get ride of them with profit. So, in other words, you have a literal mess of a screen full of dupes and the like that you don't need! BUT HEY! WORRY NOT! Why not just make them invisible! That way they are no longer there! Surely, right???? (jokes aside, when you load the game, you still have to wait for those invisible fishes to load). On the other hand, you can just poison and kill your extra fishes.... like, why ☠️ It's also tedious to make "money", that you need for cosmetics, food and fishes. Far too grinding without a feel of fulfillment. Other than that, it's difficult to manage your fishes since there's no real way to do so. Nothing like a list, inventory or the…

I would not recommend this idler. Whenever I open up other games that I want to play with controller, it would just not respond. Also, the time is saved locally so when you have to reformat your PC, all that time lost. I upgraded my PC at the time and lost ~160 hours.

Desktop Fishes is an idle desktop companion experience developed by Daniel Santalla and published by Daniel Santalla together with Gamersky Games, offering a peaceful blend of aquarium simulation and lightweight progression systems designed to exist quietly alongside everyday computer use. Instead of demanding full attention through objectives, missions, or complex gameplay loops, the game focuses on creating a calming digital environment where small aquatic companions slowly grow and evolve while players continue with work, entertainment, or browsing sessions. The idea may initially sound simple, but Desktop Fishes builds surprising charm through its relaxing atmosphere and gradual progression. At its heart, Desktop Fishes transforms part of a computer screen into a miniature ecosystem filled with animated fish that live directly on the desktop. Rather than existing inside a separate window that demands focus, the aquarium becomes integrated into daily routines. Fish swim naturally over applications or behind active windows depending on user preference, creating the impression of a small living world quietly existing alongside everything else taking place on the computer. The ga…

It's a pretty decent idle game but the it's very easy to get an overpopulation issue. The dev did try to prevent this by providing an option to hide fishes, but it's a hassle to hide the fishes 1 by 1 plus it's easy to misclick hidden fishes and unhide them instead. I didn't experience any bug for transparency or the fishes disappearing but I do think some of the achievements are quite boring to get (e.g running the game for 500 and 1000 hours even though the other achievements can be easily obtained under 100 hours). Another problem is that the spending money achievement is troublesome to obtain as you get discounts in the perk tree. And once you buyout all the cosmetics in the game, the only things available in the shop are more fish eggs, breeding food and poison, which are cheap items. So at a certain point it becomes very troublesome and an unrewarding grind just to get 1 achievement. Overall still a pretty decent desktop companion type of game. But if you are looking for similar games, there are better aquarium style idle games that have more interactive components than this.

Nice cute little game :)