Saturday Casual Gaming 214: Pacifish

I'm sorry for how late this is going up today, guys. I had a bear of a time getting these screenshots and putting them in order. Who knew - being completely tech-illiterate is hard...

This past week, I was looking for something new and idle to play around with, and I found this:

Pacifish is a game from Conifer Studios over on Kongregate, and it's... it's certainly something different. I like games where you can just walk away and let things happen. I like games where you unlock things by doing other things. I like gambling. Pacifish covers all of these things! I've taken screenshots of all the major screens at level 18, but I've also left a lot of game for you to explore.

Currently, I'm catching fish, materials, and basically garbage in a Forest River, which is one of several locations you can go to. 

It's quite bucolic. Very peaceful. Wow.

I enjoy the fact that you can catch rocks. It's very Charlie Brown. Thankfully, though, rocks can be taken over to the market and sold or donated for gold or EXP.

It's a pleasant little store, yes?

Now, catching fish at the locations can earn you some player EXP, but the shop has its own EXP bar, which you fill by donating various fish, materials, or just plain trash (like rocks). You don't earn gold for things you donate, but boy is it nice to level up that market... You end up with a lot better possible bait or equipment you can get from the shop the higher the Market level.

And then there's the Hatchery...

Say you want to get extra gold or EXP for your market, but you're really slow at fishing or you have really bad luck. Fear not: you can hatch certain fish over at the Hatchery! After a while, these auto-generated fish may even reward you by inbreeding a nice golden version of themselves. These gold fish can be traded for upgrades, sold, or even eaten!

Oh yes, you can eat your fish...

Now, when you eat your fishies, you gain extra health and attack speed, which leads us (very suddenly, since eating is both self-explanatory and really weird in this game, which you'll see if you play it) to the next screen: Fighting

It amuses me to no end that it looks like you're beating fish, rocks, & gold dust to death with your fishing rod.

I really like the fighting part of Pacifish. You earn EXP, gold, and Pixels, one of the three currencies. The currencies, by the way, are Gold (pretty normal), Pixels, and Tokens. Pixels are used to upgrade your fighting stats. As you can see, I attack once every 2.8 seconds, I regenerated 2% of my HP every second, my damage ranges from 8-14 points, I perform a critical hit 6% of the time, and when I do, it's at 260% of my damage range (20.8-36.4 points). I'm not doing too well against the bosses, sadly.

Enough about fighting, let's talk about crafting!

I usually really enjoy crafting in games, but this one is kinda annoying, to be honest. You have to have the right items, you have to upgrade your workshop, and you have to find recipes. All of this is random, difficult, and hard to track what you need when. Thankfully, you can buy a lot of items you need for crafting in the store, and Gold is pretty easy to come by (especially if you're hatching lots of fish).

Now, earlier, I mentioned Tokens as the third form of currency. I also mentioned my love of gambling with fake money. Tokens are used to gamble on a slot machine. You cannot lose tokens on this machine. It always gives you something!

I like to play with 3 Tokens at once. You buy Tokens with Gold or win them with blue stars.

I really like winning stuff at the slot machine. You can win free spins, tokens, pixels, gold, even EXP! You can also win "fragments", which are a demi-currency.

These Fragments are used for upgrades!

Ah upgrades. I love upgrading things. Except my computer. That's always a slog. But here - upgrading is great. You trade your Fragments for Parts, then you use your Parts to upgrade things like your fishing speed, your Fragment chances, and your payouts from the "Casino" which is just the slot machine.

It's a fun little game, guys. It's not a serious game, and you're not ever in real damage. It's a good time. If you're ever in need of a silly little time-sink, maybe give it a try!

That'll do it for me, today. I've got a few things to keep working on, and I'm gonna try to kill the River Boss here. Wish me luck!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC