I'm just coming down off a two-day !Fishy! bender. It's a silly Flash game I found by going to ArcadeTown (which is run by someone here IIRC). You can play Fishy here:

Fishy! (http://www.arcadetown.com/fishy/index.asp)

I think it has a wonderful play mechanic--as you proceed in the game, your predators become your prey, in a natural progression. It's all so wonderfully intuitive.

A fair part of the reason I'm posting is so y'all will try the game, so that I won't be the only one draining away hours at it. But I'm also posting to see if The Community here can help me pin down exactly what is so spiffy about the design. It's always hard to come up with new and innovative play mechanics, and I think this did it. So--what can we learn from Fishy?

p.s. Yes, I did (finally) beat it. You win when you catch your 450th fish. Sounds like a lot, but you effectively win somewhere around 150 fish. You'll see.

Originally posted by Larry Hastings
Yes, I did (finally) beat it. You win when you catch your 450th fish. Sounds like a lot, but you effectively win somewhere around 150 fish. You'll see.

Yeah, it gets kinda boring after you get to this size though. :)

I've had similar ideas in the past but I haven't been able to fully think through all the ingredients of the play mechanics. And fishy doesn't have the answer either.

The fundamental flaw is that the game gets easier the longer you play. Which is backwards.

Ack! I keep getting eaten by fish that are my size. Not always easy to tell which fish you can eat. I would also like to see other fish eating other fish, for some reason the player seems to be the only food source. Otherwise quite fun for a few games.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
I've had similar ideas in the past but I haven't been able to fully think through all the ingredients of the play mechanics. And fishy doesn't have the answer either.

The fundamental flaw is that the game gets easier the longer you play. Which is backwards.

Actually, on one hand it gets easier since there're more fish you can eat, on the other hand it gets harder since it's more difficult to avoid larger fish because you yourself are larger. It's pretty challenging up to a certain point where you get so large that you can eat 90% of the fish, and after that you've basically won.

Originally posted by Larry Hastings
It's always hard to come up with new and innovative play mechanics, and I think this did it. I wouldn't quite call this "new and innovative". I remember playing a game quite similar to this on my Amiga long ago. My memory tells me it was called "Fishy Fishy". Then again, there are a lot of old game ideas that haven't been used in ages, and that could benefit from a modern make-over.

Consider trying the game "EVO" on snes.

That's what you were thinking about without knowing ;)
pat.

Originally posted by Matthijs Hollemans
I wouldn't quite call this "new and innovative". I remember playing a game quite similar to this on my Amiga long ago.
And I remeber doing an educational title at work a few years ago. One of the games (the title had 5-7 small games) had that very same gameplay.

Hugo - Animals of the ocean (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000869V1/qid=1073732266/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-8605583-0648034?v=glance&s=software)

Screenshot:
http://lassedenlivlige.dk/Hugo.jpg

Originally posted by Larry Hastings
if The Community here can help me pin down exactly what is so spiffy about the design.


Game looks like a perfect example of positive and negative loopbacks simultaneously.

As you getting bigger -
a) positive - bigger fish you can eat.
b) negative - it's becoming harder to evade big one's.

This two factors, working together, constantly transforms gameplay, as you progressing throught the game.

There are a lot of games that have tried the "build a bigger fish" theme, though this one is the only one that I'm really satisfied with. The others resorted to tricks to keep it challenging like:

- Making you get smaller over time(and too quickly as well)

-Only getting bigger as you reach new levels, and then changing the scales so nothing's really different.

I still haven't beaten this game after like 5 or 6 tries because of the "too big to manuever" problem. It makes it frustrating but satisfying at the same time.

Does this sound familiar to you?

You start out as a small independent software devloper. You're quick to maneuver, but a myriad dangers lurk all around you. Take on a project that's too ambitious? Can't resist a full-page on the back cover of PC Gamer? Spend $30,000 on fancy graphics, and have nothing left to pay your programmer? You're dead!

But if you're clever, you can grow. And in doing so, you can afford to do more; things that used to frighten you aren't so bad. You take the ad out on Penny-Arcade. You buy that dual-processor system to cut your render times in half. You hire a third programmer. But the dangers are different, now. Now that you have an art budget, you want to spend three years doing that straight Warcraft clone? Dead!

If you resist the temptation to bite off more than you can chew, you grow even bigger. You hire those 3D modelers. Original sountrack? Sure! Unfortunately, you're no longer as nimble as you once were. Further, figuring out what's juuust outside your reach is tough; if you don't eye things just right, your choice could come back to bite you. Ouch!

Finally, you grow large enough such that nothing fazes you. You sell out to a developer and retire. The end.

"FISHY!" is a perfect metaphor for Indie development, if I ever saw one.

Original post by Anthony Flack
The fundamental flaw is that the game gets easier the longer you play. Which is backwards.


Actually, this is exactly what made me play this silly game from start to finish: the promise that if I go through the early stages I'll have a field day eating all the other fishes (gollum, gollum). So many games promise to end with a painful struggle against impossible odds, I am always tempted to instantly quit those before they begin.

Well, I know what you mean about that. Eating fish and geting bigger is kind of satisfying, and it's important to provide the player with tasks that are rewarding.

The problem was, when you start the game is boring and frustrating. There are very few fish small enough for you to eat and you have to wait around for ages and be very patient. Then when you get a bit bigger, the gameplay kind of balances out and you start to have fun. A little bit further on than that, it becomes ridiculously easy and you rack up a huge score and win.

The positive feedback element here also means that trying for a high score, etc., is meaningless. After a certain point, everyone will achieve the maximum score.

You could try for a faster time...

But then the game's randomness gets in the way. I think the only thing that REALLY needs changing is the patterns of fish - they should be different at different stages of the game, so that skillful play can occur at all points.