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Walkthrough FAQ
* Credit ASCII Artwork: ASCII Generator
+------------------------------------------------------+
FAQ Version 0.50
Last Updated 04 April 2006
Copyright: 2006 Jasmine Sng
Written By: Jasmine Sng
Hi and thanks for looking at this FAQ. I know this game is not exactly very
popular but if you have a mobile phone or a pocket PC/Palm, it is a pretty good
game to get. A trial version is available for download at:
- For Pocket PC: http://ldw.com/ft_ppc/
- For Windows: http://www.arcadetown.com/fishtycoon/game.asp
This FAQ will cover both the trial and full version of the game.
================================================================================
Contents
================================================================================
1. Introduction:
A. General Information
B. Trial Version Download Addresses
C. Version Information
2. Walkthrough - Part 1: --- (trial version + early part of full version)
A. Starting Out ...
B. Game Basics and Objectives
- Basic Concept and Objectives
- Game Screens
+ Tank Screens
+ Supply Shop
+ Species Check and Isolation Tank
+ Your Shop Front
+ Options
C. Fish Breeding and Rearing Basics
- Feeding Your Fish
- Diseases
+ Ick
+ Fungus
+ Dealing With Sick Fish
+ Selling Sick Fish
+ Trashing Fish
- Breeding Fish
+ Basic Concepts
+ General Table
+ How to breed fish
+ Fragile Species
- Fish Growth Stages
D. Earning Your First Dollar
- The Selling Tank
- Adjusting Prices
E. Basic Research
F. Strategy For Walkthrough Part 1
3. Walkthrough - Part 2: --- (only for the full version)
A. Advanced Research
B. Breeding Rarer Fish
C. Fish Survival
MORE COMING SOON!
4. Item List
5. FAQS/ Contact/ Other Information
================================================================================
+================+
1. Introduction
+================+
----------------------
A. General Information
----------------------
Fish Tycoon is a fish breeding strategy game released for both Windows and
Pocket PC. There is a version for your mobile phone as well. You can download
the trial version for free, and play the full version once you have purchased
it online.
-----------------------------------
B. Trial Version Download Addresses
-----------------------------------
Fish Tycoon's trial version is available for download at these locations:
- For Pocket PC: http://ldw.com/ft_ppc/
- For Windows: http://www.arcadetown.com/fishtycoon/game.asp
* As I own the POCKET PC VERSION of this game, this FAQ will be based on that
operating system, but in general the versions should be the same.
----------------------
C. Version Information
----------------------
TRIAL VERSION:
The trial version allows you to play for either 30 days or an unlimited time
(seems to vary from site to site). Players are able to play all aspects of the
game, ie. rearing, breeding and selling fish. But the trial version restricts
on the types of items and research available in the Supply Shop screen, so the
level players can attain with regards to breeding rare and more expensive fish
in the game would be limited.
FULL VERSION:
All items and types of research are available for purchase in the full version.
+========================+
2. Walkthrough - Part 1:
+========================+
Part 1 of the Walkthrough will cover all aspects of the trial version, and will
also serve as the guide for the early part of the game for the full version of
this game.
-------------------
A. Starting Out ...
-------------------
When you first start the game, you will be taken to the main menu screen. Just
click on the New Game button to begin.
* Note that if you already have a saved game, clicking on the New Game button
will result in a pop-up asking if you want to begin anew. Saying Yes will
PERMANENTLY DELETE YOUR PREVIOUS SAVE, so make sure you know what you are doing.
After starting a new game, you will see several screen showing the basic story
of this game:
There is an mysterious island called Isola, and on it there was a magical
lagoon filled with many special fish. 7 Magical Fish keep the delicate balance
in this lagoon. But one day, the lagoon is destroyed and the magic fish
disappeared. You have to help Isola recover the 7 Magical Fish!
If you want to, click on Yes when the game asks if you need help for the first
time. This is recommended for first time players.
-----------------------------
B. Game Basics and Objectives
-----------------------------
=============================
Basic Concepts and Objectives
=============================
Fish Tycoon is a strategy game, and basically, your task is to breed fish and
discover new species of fish to finally get the 7 Magical Fish of Isola. In
doing so, you need money, so you have to sell some of your fish to finance your
cause. Thus the concept of the game isn't hard to grasp: Breed fish to discover
new species, and hopefully those of the 7 Magical Fish species, and sell your
extra fish along the way to finance better living environments and other
technologies for your fish. This game also runs all day, that means it will
continue (ie. your fish will grow up, or mature) even when you turn off the
Pocket PC. or computer. However, fish will not breed on their own.
=================
The Game Screens
=================
(THE TANK SCREENS)
When you first begin, you would be in the "TANK 1 SCREEN", this is the place
you will rear and breed your first fish. Notice 4 spaces on the top-left corner
of the screen. Only 2 are filled so far, on the leftmost is a bottle of fish
food, and on the extreme right is a bunch of fish eggs. Drag the eggs into the
tank.
While you wait for the eggs to hatch, take a look around the rest of the "TANK
SCREEN". You will notice that on the top right of the screen are 2 tabs, and
TANK 1 is highlighted. If you click on TANK 2, the game will tell you that you
don't have a second tank yet, but no matter; you can buy it later when you have
money and purchased the full version. The last tank is labeled TANK $, which is
your selling tank. All ADULT FISH placed in this tank can be sold for money, so
keep that in mind. More about selling later.
(THE SUPPLY SHOP)
On the bottom left of the "TANK SCREEN" you will see 4 buttons. The maroon one
is labeled Supplies. Click on that and it will take you to the Supply Shop.
This is the place where you can buy tank upgrades, research new technologies
and buy general fish supplies. If you have the trial version, scrolling or
browsing around the items available will show you what can be purchased in your
version, and which ones will require you to register if you want to purchase
them.
A list of items available for purchase in the trial version (Pocket PC):
- Ick Treatment
- Common Fish Eggs
- Aeration System
- Aquatic Plant
- Diver Ornament
- Fish Food Research Levels 2 and 3
A complete list of all items is available in the Items List section.
(SPECIES CHECK and ISOLATION TANK)
Next to the Supplies button you will find the purple button labeled Species. If
you have just retuned from the Supply Shop, you might notice that you have
several fish in your tank already. Try dragging one fish into the Isolation
Tank next to the button. This is the blue tank looking space. Notice that you
will get a message that the fish is too young to identify.
When your fish mature, you can place them into the isolation tank and by
clicking on the Species button, see the fish's parents. This is very useful if
you want to replicate a species.
(YOUR SHOP FRONT)
If you click on the Sell Fish button, you will go to a new screen, showing your
shop area. In this screen, customers will be able to purchase the adult fish
that you have put in your "SELLING TANK" or TANK $. If you do not click on the
Sell Fish button however, fish in your Selling Tank WILL NOT BE SOLD.
(OPTIONS)
This button will take you to the main screen of the game, where you can set
your preferences and view your game stats, and so on.
Try to familiarize yourself with the Preferences button and its options:
tweaking the Speed options can adjust your game speed, and how fast the game
progresses.
By selecting PAUSE, the game turns into a handy screensaver for your Palm or
Pocket PC.
-----------------------------------
C. Fish Breeding and Rearing Basics
-----------------------------------
==================
Feeding Your Fish
==================
As you have already observed in the early part of the game, the fish food is
located in the leftmost space/item slot on the top left corner of the Tank
Screen. To feed your fish, simply click on the feed bottle and drag the food to
the tank. It does not matter where you drop the food, all fish in the tank will
see an increase in their Fed bars when you do so.
You never run out of fish food, so you don't need to buy extra food to keep
your fish fed. However, you would like to spend some money on fish food
research. Better fish food will allow you fish to be less prone to diseases and
will need to be fed less often.
========
Diseases
========
The fish from Isola contact 2 kinds of diseases, which will be further
explained below:
(ICK)
Ick is a disease that looks like white spots on your fish. You can buy Ick
treatment for $30 from the Supply Shop. In the early stages of the game,
usually one drop of the treatment will cure your fish, but if that does not
work, don't fret. Simply come back to the screen half an hour later to
administer another drop, until the white spots disappear.
(FUNGUS)
Fungus is a treatment that looks like a green growth, usually on the tail end
of your fish. This can be treated with the Fungal Treatment. However, Fungal
Treatment is not available in the trail version, so it would only be wise to
trash the fish or sell it quickly since it has contacted this disease and not
doing so will only cause the disease to spread to other fish in the tank.
If you have the full version of the game, simply buy Fungal Treatment at the
Supply Shop for $40 and administer one drop every half hour until the green
growth disappears.
(DEALING WITH DISEASED FISH)
Generally, the health of fish will decrease whenever they contact a disease,
and the disease will be spread to other fish in the same tank if it is not
cured, or no treatments are given.
If you do not have enough money to purchase the treatments, try to sell your
fish quickly in the Selling Tank, or trash it.
(SELLING SICK FISH)
Most customers will not buy a sick fish, and selling a sick fish at its normal
price would be quite tough, though not impossible if its health is still quite
high. Try lowering the price of the fish to try get if off your hands as
quickly as possible, but remember to raise the price back to its regular level
again, or you will make losses selling other fish of the same species. To
adjust prices of fish for sale, look at the next section on selling fish.
(TRASHING FISH)
If you decide t get rid of the fish but cannot sell it, you might want to
consider trashing the fish so that an infected fish does not spread the disease
to other fish. To do so, simply drag the fish from the tank into the Isolation
Tank and click on the Trash Button on the right of the Isolation Tank (it looks
like a trash can, so you can't miss it). Trashing a fish means deleting it
forever, but if it was a new species that has reached adulthood, it will still
be counted in your stats as one of the Species Discovered.
Likewise, trash dead fish in your tank since they are no use and will only take
up space.
==============
Breeding Fish
==============
(BASIC CONCEPTS)
Breeding fish is really quite simple. But let's take a look at some basic
concepts in Fish Tycoon fish breeding first:
- You DO NOT need fish of the SAME SPECIES to breed.
- ANY fish can be bred with any other fish. This means that you can CROSSBREED
with all other species and they will still produce baby fish.
- The objective of the game is to crossbreed your existing fish to discover new
species of fish.
- Fish have a "MAIN" and a "SUB" characteristic: The "Main" refers to is general
general species, such as Beta, for example. The "Sub" will be its
sub-variation, such as Wasp, or Pink, for example.
So you might have 2 Beta fish but one has a pink fin and is listed as the
Pink Beta, while the other might be one with a spiny fin called the Wasp Beta.
Species of fish with different sub-variations are listed as different species.
(GENERAL TABLE)
Here is a general* table of what to expect in basic fish breeding:
(Conditions of Parent Fish) = (Result of Baby Fish)
Main A, Sub A + Main A, Sub B = Main A, Sub C
Main A, Sub A + Main A, Sub A = Main A, Sub A
Main A, Sub A + Main B, Sub B = *Main C, Sub C
Main A, Sub A + Main B, Sub A = *Main C, Sub A or C
*This is just a general table. Some fish may be bred in a totally different
pattern from the above table. If you consider stuff like mutation in the later
stages of the game, even the top 2 conditions might not apply.
(HOW TO BREED FISH)
Breeding fish to produce new varieties or species of fish is essential for you
to keep your cause going and towards reaching the final goal. You also need to
breed more fish to earn money to afford new technologies.
To breed fish, simply drag the fish you want to the Isolation Tank. Then drag
another fish you want it to breed with to the Isolation Tank and it will be
pregnant. All fish can be pregnant and there is no male or female fish, so you
don't have to worry about that aspect.
You'll see baby fish in a while, generally about 15 mins to half an hour
depending on the game speed you set.
(FRAGILE SPECIES)
Sometimes you will notice that the baby fish in your tank have their health
decreasing at a steady rate as they grow older. These are "Fragile Species"
that are rarer than their parents (on the assumption that the parents' health
are good) and require better conditions to keep them thriving for a long time.
Some fragile species may be so rare that they die before they reach adulthood,
meaning you have to trash dead baby fish. Other species may reach a low level
of health by adulthood. If you got some adult fragile species, then try to
quickly breed them with another fish and selling the fragile fish off to earn
some cash.
==================
Fish Growth Stages
==================
Well, you may already have realized that your fish will grow, but here is a
list of the growth stages in fish:
- Age 1 (new baby fish, all are grey regardless of species, cannot examine)
- Age 5 (begin to see the characteristics of the "Main", but not sub)
- Age 20 (finally able to examine, both Main and Sub present, can breed)
----------------------------
D. Earning Your First Dollar
----------------------------
================
The Selling Tank
================
Now that you have the new batch of adult fish, it may be time to sell some of
them to earn some money. To sell your fish, first take drag them to the Tank $,
or the Selling Tank. If you click on the Tank $ tab, you will be taken to the
Selling Tank, and you can see "For Sale" signs in the tank.
Placing your fish in the selling tank will not automatically sell them,
however. Click on the Sell Fish button on the bottom left of the screen to go
to your shop front, and there you will see customers walking around the shop
and observing the tank. If you have yet to buy any upgrades for the Selling
Tank, sales will go quite slowly, so just be patient.
================
Adjusting Prices
================
If the fish aren't selling well, you might want to exit and then re-enter the
shop front screen again to see if the new batch of customers will be more
"forgiving" this time and buy your fish. But if things are not working well,
it's time to adjust the prices.
First, drag your fish to the Isolation Tank and click on the Species button to
the right of the tank. You can see the fish's parents on the top of the screen
that appears, and the price of the fish below. Adjust the price of the fish
then click Done.
-----------------
E. Basic Research
-----------------
In the early stages of the game, you have little money ($200) to start off your
business, so research that are more expensive, such as Fish Environment, and
Advertising are quite out of reach. For the trial version, only the Fish Food
research is available.
Research basically requires you to pay the full fee and the research process
begins. You will see that the Buy screen for the particular research item has
now been replaced by a researching bar, and once the bar is full (couple of
hours) the new technology will be automatically put in place.
When completed, the Supply Shop screen will display the new level of research
you have attained when you click on the appropriate box.
------------------------------
F. Walkthrough Part 1 Strategy
------------------------------
==================================
Keep Baby Fish In The Selling Tank
==================================
As each tank can only hold so many fish, it is recommended that you make use of
both Tank 1 and the Selling Tank in the early stages of the game to breed as
many fish as you can. Try to not sell your 1st batch of baby fish when the
reach maturity. Instead, move them to the Selling Tank and breed them, than go
back to Tank 1 and re-breed the first batch of fish. When you get your 3rd or
4th batch of fish, you might want to sell the older fish or those with many of
the same species, to start making money. Move all the adult fish you want to
keep into Tank 1, while moving all baby fish and adult fish you want to sell
into the Selling Tank. Baby fish cannot be sold, so they are safe in the
selling tank.
==============
Early Upgrades
==============
You might want to by the Aeration System instead of spending your $200 on Fish
Food Research, or buying more eggs. This is especially true for those playing
the trial version, since I found that by installing the Aeration System it does
make fragile species live a little longer. If you have the full version, you
might want to consider saving enough money to research Fish Environment first.
===================================
Finding A "Tougher" Fragile Species
===================================
Once you have mixed and matched breeding a little, its pretty inevitable that
you would have some dead baby fish in your hands, being rare fish that cannot
survive in present water conditions. But you would sooner or later come along
some that do have decreasing health bars, but are still strong enough to reach
maturity. Try breeding your fish and see if you can come up with some that have
higher selling prices, such as in the range of $20 - $30+. One good one would
be Golden Goldbulb, which sells for $34.
As fragile species cannot survive long, breed them once (ie. Golden Goldbulb +
Golden Goldbulb, to produce more Golden Goldbulb for a constant source of $34
fish) and then sell those that have already bred once, and when their health is
getting low. Use the younger fish to breed and then sell those off quickly as
soon as they have baby fish, to avoid getting dead fish in your hands. In this
way, you have a "first in, first out" system of "pedigree" fragile fish that
can fetch a considerable amount of money.
WALKTHROUGH PART 2 COMING SOON!
+================================+
FAQs, Contact, Other Information
+================================+
-------------------
Contact Information
-------------------
If you need any help regarding gameplay that is not found in this FAQ, please
email me at:
Jassie_sun (at) keromail.com
Please note that I check this mailbox rarely, so please be patient and don't
expect an answer overnight.
---------------
Version History
---------------
0.50 (04 April 06): Started FAQ for fun, completed Walkthrough - Part 1
-----------
Legal Stuff
-----------
Fish Tycoon Copyright LDW Software
This FAQ Copyright Jasmine Sng, 2006.
If you want to post this FAQ on you own website, please send me an email first.
You can download and print this FAQ (whole or in part) for your own use, but
please do not make any changes to it or use it (in whole or in part) in your
own FAQ or any other source.
Please also send me an email if you want to link to this FAQ from your own
Website.
