I am mixed on Jellyfish Blind Box; however, I don’t really think it is bad and think that the jellyfish theming and creativity are really neat, so I think it deserves a positive review.
This is like many other aquarium simulations, but this one has the interesting twist of being focused on Jellyfish, which is neat, but not exactly revolutionary. It operates pretty much the same as another game I really like, Chillquarium, which is a gacha aquarium game with very cute pixel art fish. However, I am disappointed to say that this game is of a far lower quality when compared to Chillquarium. The balancing and pacing of the aquarium growth and the play for 5 minutes, then come back tomorrow, playstyle is handled well; the real issue is all the quality-of-life stuff missing that makes the game way more annoying to play. For example, in order to increase the capacity of the tank, it needs to be full first. Please just let me upgrade whenever I like. There is no reason for that restriction. Being limited to 1 tank (at least as far as I can tell this far in) also sucks; tank theming is fun, and having more tanks allows for that to happen. If I am incorrect and the extra tanks are there, it should still be clearer to give me an idea of how the progression looks earlier on. Getting the gacha jellyfish also kind of sucks; you have to click one by one to get each new jellyfish; alternatively, a single click held and hovered is way more effective (and fun). These things add up, but it just makes the experience feel rough. That is fine, but when comparing it to other games in the genre, it is worth asking which experience is better, and if there is a big discrepancy, you have to be a unique/interesting game or premise to break through; the Jellyfish theming is not enough to counter these criticisms in my opinion. The good news is that this game appears to price itself lower than its competitors and so appears to be mindful of where it sits in the hierarchy. Overall, if you know that you will like this style of game, you will have fun; if not, you are probably better off going with a more polished experience.
The sound design is pretty rough and is easily the weakest part of this game. The sound effects are pretty grating, and the background bubbly sound is mediocre at best and doesn’t even loop properly. The sound effects like the purchasing, jellyfish entering maturity dings, and the bubble food sounds all appear pretty low in quality to me. But none of that is horribly offensive for a game like this. However, the absolute assault on my ears whenever I come back and all of my jellyfish maturity dings happen at once is insanely loud, unnecessary, and outright unacceptable. In the end, I turned off all the sound it adds nothing to the game.
Graphically, it is a bit rough around the edges. Being that I use a 1440p monitor, the small size of the window is very noticeable, and when brought to full size, the game just looks blurry and bad. I like the style though. The jellyfish designs are very unique, colorful, and detailed, and I think the backgrounds and foregrounds match the style pretty well. Overall, it isn’t bad, but having a higher than 1080p resolution monitor does harm the experience, which I think is no longer acceptable with 1440p and 4k growing in popularity, but if that's not relevant to you or you like running games like this in a small window, then I think there is not a lot to complain about.
In the end, Jellyfish Blind Box isn’t exactly a stellar experience, but it has its charm, and if several of the issues I have addressed are resolved in the future, I think that the game will be in a far better spot overall. As it stands though, I think that this game is just fine, but nothing great; however, not every game has to be a 10/10 experience to be good or memorable. I think the greatest highlight of the game is its main selling point, the vast number of unique jellyfish and the unique art that comes with them. It was fun seeing what I would get next, and because the game does not demand a ton of your time and attention, it is easy to forgive the issues I had when they were only momentary thoughts in my mind. I am grateful that the dev offered to let me review this game. I would not have found something like this on my own, and I am glad to have had the experience. I hope to see the project grow a lot moving forward. Jellyfish Blind Box is a simple experience, but one that I found myself enjoying nonetheless because of my appreciation for collecting unique, pretty, or otherwise collectable things.
