FishVille Strategy Guide

While I probably will not cover FishVille (Zynga's new Facebook game) full-time like I have with Mafia Wars, I will post up a strategy guide for detailing the basics, strategy, and my first impressions.

FishVille Basics

In FishVille, you basically "run" an aquarium as if it was a business (I suppose it is for some people now that I think about it). You raise fish, feed them, keep the tank clean, and then sell them for coins and experience points. With your coins, you can buy new fish, decorations, plants, or even a second tank. As you get experience points from selling fish, you level up, giving you access to new fish, decorations, plants, and new tanks (expansions).

Currency

You will notice that in FishVille, this game is monetized from release (unlike Cafe World). Coins can be earned by selling fish that you have raised. Coins can be used to purchase most goods in game. Dollars can be bought for real life cash or earned by completing offers. Right away you can spend 20 fishville dollars to buy a tank expansion (up to all 8). There is no level cap on tanks bought with dollars (unlike their coin-costing counterparts), so a new player could easily get ahead by spending real life money (8x the experience points / coin earning rate).


Fish Basics

In FishVille, when you start out, each fish tank can hold a total of fifteen fish (of any size). To raise fish, you simply buy fish eggs (by clicking the store button) and lay them down in the tank. These eggs hatch within a couple seconds into baby fish.

After a certain amount of time (anywhere from 5 minutes to a day or more, this value is listed under each fish's description in the store panel), these fish will mature into "Junior Fish." Baby fish can not be sold, and as far as I know you can not even get rid of them even if you do not them anymore.

Baby fish (and all fish) need to be fed. The timer on each fish is two times its "grow" time. So, the Shy Hamlet grows every 4 hours, which means it needs to be fed every 8 hours.

Junior Fish can be sold for experience points and coins simply by clicking them with the net tool activated (bottom right toolbar). However, as Junior Fish mature, they increase in value. Past the baby level, each fish has an age. Think of this like a fish leveling system; as your fish sit in the tank they level up. A junior fish levels up in the same amount of time it takes to grow from a baby fish to a junior fish age 1. In other words:

- The Mini Dart Goby grows from a baby fish into a junior fish in 5 minutes.
- This junior Mini Dart Goby is now age 1.
- Five minutes later, it will be age 2.
- Five minutes later, it will be age 3.

However, once a junior fish reaches level 4, it will be come an adult fish. Adult fish do not need to be fed nearly as often and age very slowly. For example, the Mini Dart Goby grows every 5 minutes, but once it hits level 4, its grow time slows down to 1 full day. It only needs to be fed once every 2 days at this point as well.


Fish Strategy

As far as the "best fish" to raise, it seems the fastest growing ones provide the best coins and experience points for their time in the tank. So, the person who sits there and raises fish marked "fast" (specifically says "fast" in the market), will earn more coins and experience then someone who raises fish that take a full day to grow. This is similar to both Cafe World and FarmVille.

The more important question is when to sell your fish. My early tests suggest that it is most effective to wait until your fish reach Age 4 to sell them.

Example:

Mini Dart Gobi:

Grows In: 5 minutes
Cost: 7 Coins

Age 1 (5 mins after buying eggs):
Sells for: 18 coins (minus the 7 coins for buying an egg, this is 132 coins/hour)
XP: 6

Age 2 (10 mins after buying eggs):
Sells for: 36 coins (minus the 7 coins for buying an egg, this is 174 coins/hour)
XP: 12

Age 3 (15 mins after buying eggs):
Sells for: 54 coins (minus the 7 coins for buying an egg, this is 188 coins/hour)
XP: 18

Age 4 (20 mins after buying eggs):
Sells for 72 coins (minus the 7 coins for buying an egg, this is 195 coins/hour)
XP: 24


While the experience points per hour is the same per fish level, the coins per hour increases. Since up until age 4, fish increase in value at a steady rate equal to their grow time, letting them grow longer keeps your egg expenses low.


Other FishVille Features:

Feeding Your Fish:

Your fish will ask for food (food icon appearing by their heads) long before you need to feed them. If you have ever had a fish tank, you know that fish will eat when they are not hungry, so this is no surprise. Do not be alarmed or feel compelled to cater to the every want of your virtual fish farm. Fish food is free.


Decorations and Plants

Plants are basically decorations, as far as I can tell they do nothing. Your fish like to swim behind them though. You do not need me to post these here - simply look them up in the store manual!


Tapping on the Glass

If you click on your tank, it scares your fish. For some reason I enjoy this feature very much.


Showing Your Fish "Some Love"

This feature pops up every now and then in the bottom left corner of the tank. Clicking it with a full fish tank will give you coins. It also plays a cheering crowd sound bit that mysteriously sounds like the cheering in the original Sim City when you did something that your denizens liked.

Tank Upgrade

As you play FishVille, your tank will be upgraded, allowing you to hold more fish. At level 4, I was upgraded to a 30 fish limit for my tank (started at 15 fish).

My Impressions

Overall, I think this game will be a home run for Zynga. FishVille is definitely another play at the FarmVille and Cafe World crowd, as it is very similar in style graphically and mechanically. However, this game is much more polished at launch and feels like a good bit of effort has actually gone into the game design.

For starters, the game is actually monetized, which is good for Zynga, and the advantage in shelling out a few real life dollars is significant.

When it comes to feeding fish, FishVille satisfies my need for instant gratification. I can click on the fish food button and click 20 times really fast on the screen and be done feeding my fish in 3 seconds. I also appreciate the fact that the game is way less "clickier" than FarmVille. You do not have to click 1200 times to feed your fish (like planting a 20x20 farm in FarmVille!).

Secondly, the option to have up to 8 tanks will satisfy a lot of users as well. That way, players can have a few "money tanks" where they focus on fish that provide good coins and experience points while they work on building up a decorative tank on the side.

On top of that, it is nice that decorations do not effect the performance of your tank. In FarmVille for example, if you have decorations, you have less space for crops. If you want your farm to look like more than a big field, you are automatically leveling up a lot slower than a "mass field" friend. However, FishVille nips that in the bud because each tank is capped not by overall space but simply a 15 fish limit (upgrades over time) - users can decorate to their hearts content without effecting their productivity.


Conclusion


When all is said and done, I think I prefer FishVille to Cafe World and possibly even FarmVille. I think this will be another home run for Zynga.

If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments below, I (or other readers) will answer them when I/we can.