Snapshot Aquarium is an Aquarium creation and maintenance simulator with a photography twist to it. Besides the fish and the aquariums themselves, The main focus is to take pictures of the fish and earn points from them. The game gives you challenges to complete, such as photography quality, species count, etcetera, and successfully completing these challenges helps you unlock new items for your aquarium, such as rocks, plants, gravel, lights, even backgrounds and new fish. Here is the run down of the game's features
[h1] Pros [/h1]
- The fish look pretty realistic and are well animated. One thing I notice in a lot of aquarium games, is that they rarely seem to get the swimming animations in the fish look realistic. This game however captures the animations perfectly. Even the eyes and gills are animated.
- Customization is easy and flexible, Allowing you to mix all sorts of plants and objects together into the tank. Some can even clip through eachother (but not the aquarium glass), allowing for an infinite variety of customization.
- The photography feature is really well fleshed out and fun. It doesn't take much time at all getting used to, and can get quite challenging to get good photos of fast swimming fish, but its really interesting and fun to mess around with.
- The challenges are also fun and not overly complex. They are pretty straight forward, from working towards a set score number, to photographing all the fish species in the tank. So far the ones Ive played are easy (im afraid to try out hard mode x.x ). The photography challenges certainly make this game unique
[h1] Cons [/h1]
- You have limited ways to view your aquariums, you cant really turn the camera around three dimensionally, except looking from a slightly upward angle, meaning you cant view your aquarium from the side or from behind. This makes aquascaping kinda challenging and confusing at times.
- The fish in your aquarium (outside of the challenge mode ones) require real time care. Meaning you need to open the game up every day to feed them. I do understand why this was implimented, for replayability. However I would like for that to be an optional setting, cause even though your fish dont really die, some people (like me, who has alarms on my phone to feed my irl fish) will sometimes forget, especially since these are virtual fish and not irl fish.
- There are no marine fish. There's no saltwater fish in this game (that I know of), One of the challenge mode aquariums is marine themed, but all the fish are freshwater in it.
- One peculiar thing that I have noticed, Especially in the red tail black shark, is that for no reason, the fish goes from swimming normally, to suddenly freaking out and darting all over the aquarium, swimming extremely fast. This might of been to make the photography challenges a bit more challenging, either that or it might be a behavioral glitch. Tapping on the glass does scare the fish into acting this way, however I can never do that because it makes me feel bad for the fish :c .
[h1] Suggestions [/h1]
- When ornaments and aquarium objects, like rocks and plants, clip through the glass, have the glass basically cut or deform the model into fitting, Ive seen other aquarium sims do this, and it would be really helpful and expand creativity.
- This is a major suggestion. Add brackish water and marine fish. This will expand the diversity of the fish roster a ton and is a surefire way to attract more people into playing the game. It adds way more creativity.
- Create unique behaviors for fish. Some fish in real life, have unique behaviors. For example, fish with upturned mouths, like guppies, mollies, hatchetfish, etc, tend to stay near the water's surface. Others, like corydoras and plecostomus, tend to stay at the bottom. Some fish like to hide more than others, while some, like congo tetras, and zebra danios, are very active swimmers that need lots of space. Adding various behaviors to the fish, such as mating displays, pecking at ornaments and glass, and even sleeping, will make the fish feel more alive.
- Add cleaning maintenance. It doesnt have to be overly complex. You can add something simple like algae buildup, because not only will it help with replayability, but some people actually like some algae buildup in their aquariums believe it or not (I usually let the green algae on the rocks and back of my tank grow freely without it getting out of control). Infact, adding algae could possibly help with keeping certain fish, like mollies, fed, as they are known to eat the stuff.
- add live foods/ more food variety. Some food variety would be nice, especially since some fish prefer certain foods more than others. Brine shrimp, seed shrimp, daphnia, mosquito larva, bloodworms, scuds, tubifex, shrimp and algae pellets, these would be perfect for feeding for different kinds of fish.
- add crustaceans and snails. Alot of aquarium hobbyists (like me) are fans of neocaridina shrimp (otherwise known as "cherry shrimp in the red variety) since they come in all sorts of colors imagineable. Adding freshwater crabs, shrimp, crayfish, nerite snails, apple snails, etc would help expand the fish roster, especially marine crustaceans and molluscs like porcelain crabs, cleaner shrimp, and nudibranchs.
[h1] Conclusion [/h1]
Do I recommend this game? Of course I do! 100% thumbs up. The game JUST released by the time this review was written, and it is currently in early access, even though there's a lot good going for it already, there's tons of ways that it could improve if given time. So in the unlikely chance that you aren't satisfied with the game, then please be patient, because If a game like this is already good, then it certainly will improve to be even better in the future.
