9th game played so far
Genre: Life Simulation
Platform: Various ones
Year of Release: 1985
Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision
Did you know there are little people living in your computer? Well, there are, and in this Tamagotchi-like fishbowl game, you can see one of them going through his daily routine.
Yes, a guy and his dog in a house. They walk around and do the usual it’s a quiet day and I’ll relax stuff, while we just get to watch. Oh, you can bring food and water occasionally, and ask them to do things, but most of them, you just watch.
Our Playthrough
Turn on, sit back, do other things while occasionally glancing over to the screen. It’s all you can do, really.
Our Thoughts
Please dance *shrug* boring.
It’s like watching someone doing nothing for a few days. Watch some TV, read, talk on the phone, eat, drink, ignore the dog. Basically, it’s like Big Brother without the possibility of nudity or any real drama. And with no other people around. The game isn’t really one I’d recommend playing. It’s interesting as a piece of history – a predecessor of the Tamagotchi and other toys – but there’s nothing for you to do. Press “give food” and “Give water” and “Give dog food”, and that’s it.
I can see how it came to be an inspiritation for games like The Sims. To the right person this could be incredibly fascinating, even nowadays. Someone with as much of a life as the guy in the game? That’s not for me to judge.ย Even so, the first thing games like The Sims did was adding interactivity, and that’s the one thing missing from this game. Sure, you can type in requests for the man, but you have to be lucky enough to have him listen.
In some ways this game was reaching way beyond it’s grasp. Possibly. In any case, it was a first step that needed some more work to really become a game, rather than a slightly interactive screensaver. In some ways a real life aqauarium would have been more fun, at least there is some chance of the fish fighting each other.
Final Thoughts
This game is a relic, pure and simple. It is always interesting to see where successful franchises such as The Sims came from historically. This is not something you can really play… but it’s an interesting distraction for 5-10 minutes.
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