Part of my frustration may be my lack of tank artistry that may have impeded my progress. At the same time I can imagine the frustration younger players might have if they have to endlessly hunt for the same items level after level and they seem to get nowhere with the progress of their tank. The one reward is finishing the tanks and having the ability to continually update and modify as though the player had a real aquarium. In addition the finished tanks can be set as a screen saver.

I consider Fishdom a pseudo educational game due to some subtle messages contained within the audio and the gameplay. The game suggests to kids that it’s cool to clean up the ocean floor. It also shows what is typically found on the bottom when we all don’t care about our environment. Many of the items that can be found on the floor may not yet be in many young player’s vocabularies yet which heightens the educational value. Creating habitats for fish fosters caring for other species and the veiled reference to Jennifer’s studies at Environmental Protection University was a nice touch.

In closing, I thought I would include a few thoughts from my assistant-reviewer Aiden. Our budding Marine Biologist found the various ways one was asked to hunt for objects fun and that you get to “dive and get money and stuff”. From a purely gaming standpoint Aiden was happy that Fishdom “gave hints which many games don’t”.