Fish!

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Fish!
Studio Magnetic scrolls
Publisher Rainbird
Senior Developer John Molloy, Phil South, Peter Kemp
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1988
platform Amiga , Amstrad PCW , Apple II , Archimedes , Atari ST , C64 , MS-DOS , Spectrum +3
genre Text adventure
control Keyboard , mouse
medium Cassette, floppy disk
language English
Current version 1.10
copy protection Feelies

Fish! is a text adventure with graphics by Magnetic Scrolls from 1988.

action

Fish! takes place in a fictional world in which an interdimensional intelligence agency sends its agents across the dimensions to fight evil. In the target dimension, the agents take over a foreign body to carry out their task and control its actions. The player takes on the role of Agent 10, who enjoys a special leave in the body of a goldfish at the beginning of the game. Surprisingly, his superior Colonel Panchax instructs him to prevent an attack by the interdimensional terrorist group Seven Deadly Fins. First, he has to retrieve an artifact that was stolen by the terrorists and dismantled into three parts. The next step is to save the Hydropolis water world from drying up by the terrorists.

Game principle and technology

Fish! is a text adventure, which means that surroundings and events are displayed as screen text and the actions of the player are also entered as text via the keyboard. Almost all versions show still images illustrating the scenery; only the Spectrum + 3 and Apple II versions have to manage without any graphic background due to the limited memory. There are a total of 30 of these images, which are post-processed photographs. In the 16-bit versions, there is a pull-down menu between the image and the text field that can be operated with the mouse, in which game settings can be made and games saved and loaded.

Several inserts were enclosed with the game packaging, some of which provided copy protection through referencing in the game. The first edition of the game included:

  • a printed mission briefing, manual and hint book at the same time
  • a chart with outlines of various fish species (copy protection through referencing in the game)
  • a weekly ticket for the fictional Hydropolis Underground Omnibus
  • a printed manual for the care of aquarium fish

Production notes

The game took over a year to produce. It goes back to an initial idea by Molloy and South, who wanted to develop the most difficult possible basic setting for an adventure game. The following were responsible for the technical implementation:

  • Programming: Richard Huddy, Bob Coles
  • Graphics: Geoff Quilley, Alan Hunnisett, Chris Kent, Richard Selby, Tristan Humphries, Duncan McLean
  • Music: John Molloy

Fish! was re-released in 1991 as part of the Magnetic Scrolls Collection . Molloy and South worked for a while on a sequel called "Fish 2: Fish Harder", which would be an online multiplayer game, but never got beyond the conceptual stage.

The terrorist "Chuckette Cementhead" listed in the manual is illustrated by a picture of John Molloy's son John.

reception

The Computer & Video Games gave the game under the election of the Golden Joystick Awards 1989 "Best Adventure Game 16bit". In the review (October 1988), C&VG primarily emphasized the pun of the game ("most pun packed adventure ever") and described it as "simply crazy". The Happy Computer also praised the graphics and the parser .

magazine Rating link
C&VG 9/10 link
Crash 93% link
Happy computer 83% link
Zzap 88% link

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b MSChronicles.com: Through the Goldfish Bowl - an Interview with Phil South ( Memento of October 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Excerpt from the manual
  3. ↑ C&VG # 092 June 1989, p. 62, available online