Feedback on shop and progression

[soft arch]

It was very confusing to get started - I thought i could buy a fish but when I went on shop there was no buy option when I clicked on the fish I wanted - I skipped tutorial cause I dont usually like them. I had to restart because I had no clue how to get a fish. Then read and only then discovered I had to "drag" a fish i wanted into inventory.

To me that felt unsatisfying and not intuative. I wanted shops to be like shops and buy the fish. I wanted to have a set money and then i would pick and buy the fish and plants i wanted.

How I would make money? Not sure - maybe reproducing and selling fish and plants? Or other ways.

Other feedback:

• add achievements
• have us have to earn bigger tanks and not just choose from the start (unless in creative mode)
• Buying from shop and not "stealing"
• A way to earn money - and perhaps make a single simple fish free to avoid deadlock if fish dies at the start of game.
• More shop UI to feel like a shop, and change wording when on shops - There were many wording that indicated the shop tank was mine and i was very confused at the start.
• Allow us to also buy food and other cool things from shop

[true monolith]

I’ll let the devs speak for themselves, but there is a thread in a comment section on reddit where OP asks for currency instead of borrowing and this was ryguy’s (who i believe is one of the devs) answer

edit: i know this only tackles one of your recommendations but I hope it sheds light on the structure they’re going for it seems.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fishgame/s/xRhQlTCQZ1

[soft arch]

idk it felt so unintuative, to go to a "shop" and not be able to buy fishes, because then it is not a shop. I'd then suggest to instead of having a shop to have a community trade then. Where some fishes are there to just take but others you have to trade with the person who has those fishes. Having to breed your fish and then trade them for another you might want!

Trading instead of currency then still leaves with sense of satisfaction and progression, without having them be bought or sold. Saying goodbye to a little fish might be harder etc.

UI feedback: I would also add UI elements to add fish to inventory without having to drag them. clicking on fish from the "shop" should have a option of taking the fish

[naive gazelle]

trading still leads to having to breed fish to get cool things, and steps into the territory that ryguy explained they want to avoid (the treating your fish as cattle loop)

it's just cutting out the middle man, which is money in this case

[foggy gulch]

Thanks for surfacing this, @true monolith and @naive gazelle! @soft arch , I hear you and see where you're coming from. I agree it can feel kind of odd and we've thought about "trading" rather than "buying". Peepy hit the idea on the head, it still encourages Cattle Ranching from the player and we are just doing something different. If you want an aquarium game with economy elements, every other aquarium sim we could find is just that, maybe they're more your speed? The note on UI--good points and I agree the shop UI needs more work. It's already on our internal roadmap.

[scarlet hinge]

We appreciate the feedback!

Fish Game will never have an economy system.

The spiritual goal of the game is to recreate the feeling of fishkeeping, and for the vast majority people in the hobby, making money is not part of that experience.