- #Where can i play happy aquarium without facebook how to
- #Where can i play happy aquarium without facebook free
Another key to making Facebook games fun is surprisingly good AI. Other not-so-revolutionary elements make Facebook games fun as well. They’ve made the unpredictability of genetics into an intriguing (for me) game mechanic. In another of my favorite Facebook games, Birdland, I can breed birds and never be entirely sure what the offspring will look like. I never know what I’ll get when I open one of these. I now have a chicken that lays “mystery eggs” in FarmVille.
#Where can i play happy aquarium without facebook free
Feel free to start using it in game design lectures.) The “mystery box” or “mystery gift” is frequently passed back and forth between friends. I like to think of it as the “click-surprise!” mechanic. Other rewards throughout the more advanced Facebook games use the classic pull-the-lever-and-see-what-I-won mechanic so popular in slot machines. The crops change over time – the art goes from seeds to seedlings to mature plants, and crops like grapes are staked up like a vineyard, rather than being identical to, say, wheat.įarmVille and other Facebook games use the passage of time and the rhythm of frequent absences and returns (the way people naturally use Facebook already) to reward players who keep track of when they need to harvest crops. FarmVille managed to make the mechanic of waiting for crops to grow into something more interesting than being held hostage by a boring progress bar.
#Where can i play happy aquarium without facebook how to
For instance, just because MMOGs hadn’t figured out how to make farming fun for me didn’t mean that nobody could. To realize that, I had to let go of some of my preconceived ideas. Game design principles and human nature provide some perfectly sensible reasons Farmville and other Facebook games work as well as they do. And here’s my truly shocking confession – I have quite a bit of fun there. So I now have a flower and fruit tree farm in FarmVille. I had to bite the bullet and play the game. I think the technical term for this is “easy fun.” (Seriously. I’m not de-populating coral reefs with my hobby I’m reinvigorating the depleted clownfish numbers. All the cool stuff from real life, without the penalties for mistakes. Happy Aquarium understood and maintained the heart of what makes aquarium simulations entertaining for those of us afflicted by the curse of enjoying them: The fish were pretty, changed gradually as they grew up, didn’t die from overfeeding, and would lay their own eggs when conditions were right. So this “social game” (I still have no friends in Happy Aquarium) captured my interest because it locked in on something I already enjoyed. In real life, I’ve killed plenty of water-breathers and I even had plans and supplies (but no time, sadly) to turn an old CRT monitor into a fish tank. Even my smartphone currently sports an animated aquarium wallpaper where I can feed the fish with a double-tap. I’m one of those people who pays actual money for aquarium-themed screensavers. See, I have another embarrassing confession to make. When I came up for air (see, these puns just get better and better) the game designer in me had to figure out what happened – how could I so enjoy this repellent genre? Was it clever mechanics? No. I am completely addicted to this Facebook game, I confess. And when you “sell” them, they don’t go to a store or another aquarium. The baby fishies were so cute I just wanted to pinch their fat wittle cheeks.
Within minutes, I was hooked (bad pun intended) on this twee little aquarium simulation. I did a quick look over my shoulder to make sure no one was looking, and I clicked on the link.
That’s not something you can say about many invertebrates. Now, not only is that an adorable title for a game, but the art managed to depict a truly charming octopus. Then one day I saw an ad in Facebook’s side rail that said I could adopt an adorable octopus for my aquarium in a game called Happy Aquarium. Nothing could make me suffer through FarmVille. Everyone wanted to build the next FarmVille. But as much as I tried to ignore it, game developers I know and respect were soon being hired to build Facebook games.
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