Info about Aquarist:

Official game description:
A relaxing sandbox casual simulation game where you perform various, even strange, aquarium-related tasks on very diverse levels. As an Aquarist you must create and manage a home to amazing fish🐟, sea turtles🐢, sharks🦈, octopuses🐙, and more🐬. Aquarium is their world and life. Make it worth...
Dive into the serene depths of Aquarist, a captivating underwater adventure where you become the master of your aquatic universe. Design and manage stunning aquariums, cultivating a diverse array of marine life. Learn more about underwater creatures and their behavior and take responsibility for their lives. Control the temperature and nourishment to provide a suitable environment. Will you rise to become the ultimate Aquarist?
**KEY FEATURES**
**CREATE YOU DREAM AQUARIUM**
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**An Aquarium is a glimpse into the vast depths of the sea and the creatures that call it their home.**
Customize every aspect of your underwater paradise, from the size and layout to the decorations and inhabitants. Create an aquarium in which each fish will want to live. Thanks to the variety of objects in the game, you can implement even the craziest ideas! A green, blooming oasis or raw, antique busts? The choice is yours. YOU CAN EVEN USE YOUR PHOTOGRAPH AS A BACKGROUND OF AQUARIUM!
**SET UP YOUR SHOP**
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**Aquarium fish make us realize how beautiful silence is.**
Running an aquarium shop is a real challenge! Clients will entrust you with difficult tasks you have to cope with. In return, a reward awaits you. Intended for business development - buying new fish, exotic plants, and a store.
**CARE FOR MARINE LIFE**
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**Aquarists are conservationists, ecologists, biologists, and pool cleaners all in one.**
We provide you with many species of fish both freshwater and saltwater species. Nurture a wide variety of exotic fish, vibrant corals, and other sea creatures, ensuring their health and happiness.
In addition to keeping typical goldfish, you will also deal with exotic species such as octopuses, shrimps, various species of sharks, cuttlefish, arapaima, rays, manta rays, glo fish, and many more fascinating aquatic animals.
**DIVERSIFIED GAMEPLAY**
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**Walking into the aquarium is like exploring a different world.**
Explore the Ocean: Embark on exciting expeditions to discover new species, hidden treasures, and mysterious underwater landscapes.
Carry out crazy projects commissioned by clients from all over the world. A huge aquarium with turtles in an art museum? An aquarium in a bar on a desert island? A tank with piranhas as an element of kitchen decor? Searching for underwater treasures and fish? Uncovering the mystery of a sunken pyramid in search of a lost species? These are just some of the orders you will receive during the game.
**MAKE PEOPLE ADMIRE YOU**
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**OK, just one more aquarium ... then I swear I'll stop. I promise.**
Engaging Quests: Undertake challenging quests and missions to unlock rare species, advanced equipment, and valuable resources. Develop your aquarium empire by purchasing and arranging new locations. In addition to the store, you will also find an aquarium exhibition, a large oceanarium, and even an aquatic museum.
The game offers us enormous possibilities. Just to name a few, a huge aquarium, a museum, underwater levels, crazy side quests for clients and taking care of various cool animal species. What can you do out there? You can arrange them in your style, build necessary elements, clean up, repair things, create aquariums, and attract customers to earn as much as possible at the end of the day. Of course, it is still a game in which you can create your dream aquarium however you want.

Release date: 29 Mar, 2024

Categories: Management Simulation, Animal Husbandry, Construction Simulation, Business Simulation, Exploration, Customization, Resource Management, Single-player Story


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Extensive aquarium customization options (weight 0.96): Players have extensive creative freedom in designing and customizing aquariums. The game offers a wide variety of fish, plants, decorations, and tank customization options, allowing for unique and personalized aquatic environments. This encourages experimentation and provides a satisfying creative outlet.
- Diverse and realistic fish species (weight 0.91): The game features a diverse range of fish species with realistic behaviors, enhancing the aquarium simulation experience. Players can learn about different fish and their needs, adding an educational element to the gameplay. The variety of fish contributes significantly to the game's appeal.
- Varied gameplay and progression (weight 0.9): The game offers a variety of activities beyond aquarium creation, including missions, store management, and underwater exploration. Completing missions and progressing through the game unlocks new content, providing a sense of accomplishment and encouraging continued play. This variety keeps the gameplay engaging and prevents it from becoming repetitive.
- Realistic aquarium simulation (weight 0.88): The game realistically simulates aquarium keeping, including managing water parameters, caring for fish, and maintaining equipment. This attention to detail creates an immersive experience for players, especially those familiar with the hobby. The game also has a cozy and realistic look.
- Helpful and engaging tutorial (weight 0.76): The game includes a helpful and well-designed tutorial that guides new players through the basics of aquarium keeping. The tutorial is story-driven and amusing, making it an engaging introduction to the game's mechanics. The tutorial is short and can be completed in about 30 minutes.
- Immersive underwater exploration (weight 0.76): The game features underwater exploration levels that provide a scavenger hunt experience. Players can find new fish and decor during exploration, which can then be added to their aquariums. Taking photos in the underwater areas involves beautiful swimming, exploration, and fun little puzzles.
- Relaxing and enjoyable experience (weight 0.75): Many reviewers describe the game as relaxing, calming, and enjoyable, with a chill atmosphere and good music. The game provides a therapeutic experience without time constraints, making it suitable for unwinding and creative expression. The relaxing nature of the game is a recurring positive point.
- Engaging store management (weight 0.73): Players manage a store in their basement, selling various items and expanding with more aquariums and shelves for related products. The shop is the reviewer's favorite area due to the amount of interaction and work involved. The game is rewarding, with customers buying things and restocking the shop.
- Frequent updates and valuable DLC (weight 0.3): The game receives regular updates and DLC, adding new content and features. The DLC is considered worth the price, offering substantial value and enhancing the overall experience. Constant updates keep the game feeling fresh and exciting, indicating strong developer support.
- Stunning visuals and graphics (weight 0.23): The game features stunning visuals and detailed graphics without compromising frame rates. The graphics are described as super pretty and very beautiful, encouraging players to zoom in and take screenshots. The audio is not too bad, and the visuals are pleasant.

Common complaints:
- Clunky, unintuitive controls (weight 0.78): The game suffers from clunky and unintuitive controls, especially when placing and rotating items. This makes aquascaping and decorating frustrating and imprecise, limiting creative freedom and leading to items clipping or falling over.
- Tedious, repetitive tasks (weight 0.74): The game contains tedious and repetitive tasks that detract from the core aquarium-building experience.  Players are forced to perform chores like cleaning, trash pickup, and repetitive actions to fill tanks, overshadowing the creative aspects and limiting player freedom.
- Inadequate save system (weight 0.63): The game's save system is inadequate, lacking quicksave and autosave features. This leads to significant progress loss after crashes, forcing players to repeat sections and adding frustration.
- Numerous game-breaking bugs (weight 0.26): The game is plagued with bugs, including game-breaking issues in the tutorial that prevent progression and cause crashes. These bugs lead to lost progress and make the game unplayable for some players.
- Poor localization/translation (weight 0.12): The game suffers from poor localization and translation, resulting in spelling errors and sentences that are difficult to understand. This detracts from the overall experience and makes it hard to follow the story or instructions.
- Fish lack realistic behavior (weight 0.05): Fish lack distinct behaviors and characteristics, with limited differentiation beyond models. The absence of schooling behavior and color variations makes the aquariums feel unnatural and lifeless.
- Cannot shape substrate (weight 0.05): The inability to shape the aquarium substrate limits creative freedom. The sandbed can only be laid flat, preventing players from creating hills or other formations.

Gameplay feedback:
- Design, build, and maintain aquariums (weight 0.45): The core gameplay loop revolves around designing, building, and maintaining aquariums, managing resources, and progressing through different locations. Players balance the needs of aquatic life, manage water chemistry, and expand their operations from a small basement to larger exhibitions and oceanariums. The game features a variety of fish species, decorations, and accessories to unlock as they progress.
- Simplified aquarium management mechanics (weight 0.06): The game simplifies certain aspects of aquarium management, such as filter and temperature control, and water quality, making it more casual and accessible. However, this simplification may reduce the realism and depth for players seeking a more challenging simulation.
- Incorporates elements from other games (weight 0.05): The game incorporates elements from other simulation games, such as house renovation and fossil hunting, through odd jobs and side quests. These tasks add depth to the experience by introducing manual labor and survival game mechanics.
- Objects disappearing from fish tank (weight 0.03): Some players have reported issues with objects disappearing from the fish tank, including fish, decorations, and grass. This bug can negatively impact the player's experience and the visual appeal of their aquariums.
- Food and coral needs unclear (weight 0.03): The game requires specific food for herbivores and carnivores, but the herbivore plant image sometimes doesn't show. Also, coral food's effectiveness is uncertain as coral needs are not apparent.
- Object placement/removal issues (weight 0.02): The game has an issue where objects can be submerged into the sand and bound to the back of the tank, but once bound, they can only be removed by selling them. This can be frustrating for players who want to rearrange their aquariums.

Performance notes:
- Inconsistent technical performance and stability (weight 0.19): Players report a range of technical issues, from minor graphical glitches and lag to crashes and failures to launch, even on systems exceeding minimum requirements. Some users experienced overheating and black screens, while others encountered no issues. This inconsistency suggests optimization problems.
- Cannot maximize after minimizing (weight 0.02): The game has a bug that prevents it from being maximized after being minimized. This is a specific, reproducible issue that impacts usability.
- Translated text appears too small (weight 0.02): A minor bug causes translated text to appear very small. While not game-breaking, this impacts readability and user experience for non-English speakers.
- Lack of time pressure (weight 0.02): The game's day/night cycle and shop hours create a relaxed, untimed gameplay experience. There is no pressure to complete tasks within a certain timeframe.

Recommendations:
- Mixed reception; potential, but flawed (weight 0.74): The general sentiment towards the game is mixed. Many reviewers acknowledge the game's potential and find aspects to enjoy, but temper their recommendations due to bugs, lack of content, and unpolished gameplay. Some suggest waiting for sales or further updates before purchasing.
- Requests for more content/features (weight 0.32): Reviewers suggest several improvements and additions to enhance the game, including more fish species, improved aquarium design tools, better fish behavior, Steam Workshop support, and more content such as additional scenarios and quests.
- Good for aquarium/simulation fans (weight 0.31): The game is frequently recommended for players who enjoy simulation games, particularly those focused on aquariums, fish keeping, and creative design. It's also suggested as a good starting point for beginners interested in learning about aquarium management before investing in a real setup.
- Developers not listening to feedback (weight 0.3): Some reviewers express disappointment with the developers for not listening to player feedback, leading to negative reviews despite the game's potential. This suggests a breakdown in communication and responsiveness to community concerns.
- Positive feedback for Japanese DLC (weight 0.04): The Japanese Garden DLC is specifically praised for adding engaging design and decoration possibilities, enhancing the overall experience with new items and Koi fish.
- Only for children with strong vestibular system (weight 0.01): One reviewer claims the game is only suitable for children with a very strong vestibular system. This point is too vague and lacks specific details about the gameplay mechanics that cause this issue, so the importance is reduced.

Other player notes:
- Early Access, frequent updates (weight 0.04): The game is in early access and receives frequent updates. This suggests that the game is still under development and that the developers are actively working on improving it.
- Controller incompatibility issues (weight 0.02): The game has controller incompatibility issues. Players are forced to use mouse and keyboard.
- Aquarium purchases stop mid-game (weight 0.02): The game stops featuring aquarium purchases in the mid-game. This limits the player's options and progression.
- Shameless self-promotion (weight 0.02): The game features shameless self-promotion within the odd jobs. This can be immersion-breaking and detract from the overall experience.
- In-game day starts at 2pm (weight 0.01): The in-game day starts at 2pm for unexplained reasons. This is an odd design choice that can be confusing or immersion-breaking for players.
- Mod support concerns (weight 0.01): The reviewer expresses concern that mod/workshop support could ruin the game's development, as the mod community would create every fish and stall development. This point is speculative and lacks specific details.

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