Can’t afford your own fish tank at home, or just want to build a whole host of tanks with various exotic fish? Well Megaquarium gives you that opportunity!
- Developer: Twice Circled
- Publisher: Twice Circled
- Genre: Simulation strategy management
- Release Date: 13/9/18
- Platforms: PC/Steam
- Reviewed on: PC – i7 3.6, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX1070 8GB
- Game Supplied by: Evolve
As a in huge fan of tycoon style games Megaquarium offered another avenue to build, research, make money, but also make something different from your usual theme park.
Whilst not initially as in depth as some of the more popular or well known park building games the game does develop nicely and certainly for newcomers to the genre it will be at a pace to help you along and understand how to build with it’s simple objectives and frankly overly simple options.
I’ll admit, in the games infancy I was a little bored and was really wondering when the good stuff was going to come to allow me more creativity and freedom to express a build style of my own. So if you’re like myself then give the game sometime, plough through the tutorial levels and get a grip with the game as it will expand and begin to offer plenty of beautiful fish and decorations to make your attractions and park more pleasant.
Game dynamics are quite simple though and for those of you with fish tanks at home or at least a good knowledge of what fish need, you will get to grips with adding the correct number of fish, mix the correct species (there are guides if you look at the information on each fish) a good filter and making sure the heater is powerful enough to keep the fish warm and cosey rather than hot and toasty.
This part of the game is simple and as the game develops, like a tank template of what to get started with in every case. Adding decorations was where i was a little disappointed though as most good looking fish tanks you see have large features and nice backgrounds to them allowing have the depth and interest above the fish themselves, even in advanced levels this was lacking and, for me, too many tanks felt like carbon copies of the last one, even with larger tanks in floor space there is a issue due to the nature of the item placement that means most tanks will all follow the same principals.
Managing the fish health and wellbeing is also quite easy as long as you have enough staff and divide their tasks (feeding, cleaning, fixing, cleaning) well then they pretty much run your attractions with minimal effort from you apart from who does what.
Tanks are also very limited in their maintenance if setup right and allow future growth of the fish when choosing tank filters and heaters.
From here you have some freedom to then create the style of your building, easy to change decorations for walls and floors offer an almost inner world type of choice where, if you’re good with pallet colours, you can create some simple yet effective designs to make a very appealing set of surroundings for your visitors to enjoy and you of course.
Stepping forward from that there are then the food and drinks on offer which although quite limited I would hope to see more add ons in the future for this to allow a more restaurant style to be added which would further enhance the game and it’s depth.
Finally there are the physical decorations like benches, props and others to enhance the visual experience. Again basic to begin with but it expands quite nicely as time goes on and if you get creative you can make some cool scenes for your guests.
A core part of the game is the research, fish, filters, decorations and more become available to research overtime. None are hard to get really, just build up your attractions and you will easily research all of the varied options before you finish the designing of your Megaquarium. This allows a little time to get to grips with your newest fish and features before moving onto the next Megaquarium build project.
Visually it’s much less detailed than I like however give credit where it’s due it does look bright and appealing, however I’d stop short of saying it has great attention to detail, I found staying zoomed out a little gave the best visuals even on their highest settings.
Water effects are there a little but not heavily noticeable, I feel the developers went for transparency to see the fish and tank decorations over good water realism of any kind.
Sound is where it’s a bit of a typical sim type sound palette if you will, some visitor noises, bit of water and fish every now and again but on the whole the usual bland and calming background music to keep you more focused on the game than the noise from the game. I always find my own music makes it better in the background.
So that just about sums it up really.
SUMMARY
It’s a good game once it gets going, nothing too strenuous or taxing but hopefully the release will encourage more development of the game in the future as it does have great potential for add ons and spin offs, however whilst I could play this sort of game for hours and days it does have a bit of lackluster for me overall right now, so I wait with baited breath for more.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!