When my grand children ask me how did I get carpal tunnel so early in my life, well they are in for one hell of a story

The only people who don't like this game are the ones who didn't play it as a kid.

Back before PopCap was bought by EA and the company saw the detriments that the very move brings, they made the most awesome "casual" games that somehow intrigued both casual and hardcore gamers alike. PopCap's major successes include Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants Vs. Zombies, but through playing all of their games for the past twelve years, Insaniquarium is by far my personal favorite, and in my opinion, the most original, creative, and fun.

This game is part simulation, part "management", part tycoon, part action, and all sorts of...well, insanity. You are put in charge of an aquarium, where you can buy goldish, carnivorous fish, and many other types of creatures that you grow and make money off of. (First win of the game: goldfish poop money!) You use this money for upgrades (upgrade the food to make the fish grow faster and get hungry less often, buy carnivorous fish that poop diamonds but eat little goldfish, etc.). You have access to dozens of unlockable aquarium pets throughout the game that help you in various ways, and you choose which three you'd like to bring to any level. Oh, but I haven't mentioned the aliens. That's right, folks, aliens are so jealous of your awesometacular aquarium that they'll attack, and throughout the campaign the aliens get fiercer (and sometimes come in multiples!). Aliens will eat your fish, but not if you kill them first with a laser gun that you can also upgrade...with the money your fish poop, of course.

Not only does this game have a great campaign that will keep you busy over the course of quite a few hours, but it also presents new challenges to the player along the way, in the forms of various alien types, different fish you have to figure out how to make profitable, etc. Not only that, but throughout playing you'll unlock sea shells that serve as currency for a "Pet Aquarium", where you can purchase fish (among other things) for a relaxing sim aquarium. These fish are essentially the same species from the game, but they come in a large variety of color combinations and sometimes even have special skills (some hilarious, some useful, etc.). What's even better? The selection of fish in the store is randomized and changed daily, meaning you'll come across some really awesome fish one day that you might not see for awhile again, so you can save your shells and get rarities or even just cool looking fish to add to you aquarium. You can collect quite a few, and you can even name them. You also have access to their "interests" screen, where you can learn more about your fish. Does Gill like to take walks in the park? How long have you owned little Floater? You can see all that and more.

Insaniquarium is a perfect example of PopCap at their finest. Sure, the game is "casual", but it offers you so many options and it has so much detail that many developers wouldn't have added in (like telling you your fish's interests, for example). If you are a fan of PopCap's earlier work, buy this. If you are a fan of simulation or tycoon games, buy this. If you are looking for a game with a sense of humor to pass a few hours, buy this. This is PopCap's best effort, and will forever be a classic.

i loved playing this game while my parents yelled at eachother

When my best friend Zach Hadel told me to buy this game, I said, "What is this s**t?" But he said, "IT'S AMAZING!" and then I bought it and boy he is right. I grabbed my OJ and celery sticks and had a blast. You feed fish and shoot aliens.

when i was in kindergarten and 1st grade and stuff
i always wanted this game
i played demos on various sites, begging god that someday i'd get to have it
it is now 2015 and i finally have the game after all these years

thank you jesus
11/10

Better than Cyberpunk 2077

by far the best game to ever exist in the history of all games. i remember first playing this game on a Disney cruise at the age of 6 in their game room, and instead of enjoying the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cruise itself, i played it hours upon hours, i regret nothing. after that cruise i dreamt about this game all the time, and the idea of playing again, it got to the point where i didn’t even know if it was real or just a foggy dream.
ultimately one day at best buy, i was probably age 8, i saw the game once more, i begged my mom and step dad to buy it, and let me tell you no excitement will ever amount to that second when i convinced them to let me get it. i went home later that night and installed it on our family computer, and showed all of my siblings the magnificence of this piece of art.
during my time of playing it i had almost beat the whole game, until my little brother maliciously decided he would delete all of our accounts, i was distraught, i haven’t experienced pain worse then at that time, or so i thought, i almost beat the game yet again, until my parents decided to throw away our computer. alas, my insane aquarium cd was still in the disc drive! in that minute i didn’t even know how to cope with it, this loss was one i will never forget.
in early 2020 when looking for games i would wanna buy and play on steam, i immediately thought about this game and my love for it, so i immediately looked for it, i was ecstatic when i found out i could get it on here, all i needed was to buy it for a small price of $4.99. i planned on purchasing it when i had the funds, but my boyfriend at the time surprised me and bought it for me instead, i don’t even know if they knew how much that meant to me, i cried because of how euphoric that time was for me, (and when i said no excitement will ever amount to what i felt when i got it when i was 8 i lied, because in that moment exceeded that feeling by far.)
i ended up finishing the game and enjoyed every second i spent playing it.

anyways to finish my dramatic review about my love for this game, i will explain what the objective of this game is.
basically it’s a clicker game that has you start with little guppies, and you want to feed them so they get bigger, the bigger they are the more money they give you, (guppies don’t give you money though) eventually you will get different types of “fish” that give you money, and when getting that money you are trying to upgrade the food you feed them, the gun you use (more on that later), and other things like more fish or “fish”. in the midst of the game you will have random aliens fight and try to eat you fishys, your job is to protect them, kill the aliens, and keep your fish alive as long as possible. what is the main reason for earning and collecting money you ask? well the goal is to save up enough money to buy a special egg slowly, you buy it in parts, and the more rare the egg is the more expensive it will be. these special eggs will turn into special little helper pets that will do different tasks to assist you in keeping your fish alive, or get you to your end goal of collecting the special eggs.
one of my personal favorite parts is the personal aquarium you get to have, you get to buy, name, and keep fish that will never die in your personal tank, they too will give you money, the money is worth a lot less, and not even close to as much as you would get if you were to be playing the, for a lack of a better word “campaign”.
i don’t want to go too much into detail, because i genuinely recommend giving it a try, it is honestly an amazing game to turn your brain off and just play, .•˚✧₊⁎*~to a point~*⁎⁺˳✧༚•., it’s just the right amount of challenging and fun. so overall 1,000,000/10 would replay again, and again, and again, and again, infact if i had my laptop on me right now i would be playing it right now! (ृ ´͈ ᵕ `͈ ृ )ु

Do you remember that time when you used to sit at the playground swing as the evening afternoon slowly came to an end? Maybe you were in middle school, high school, some small child who stared blankly outwards towards a world you didn't even know you were so blatantly ignorant to. All you knew then was that you wanted to swing on that swing for hours and hours and never go home.

A chill might have crept up your back then, as a soft wind beckoned the oncoming of nighttime, and you knew in your heart that you needed to go back home, back to your parents and your siblings and your family pet and all the small things you kept in the little corner you called your world. You might've wanted to sit on that swing for hours and hours, or swing on that monkey bar until your arms fell off. You wanted to run in that park field until you collapsed from laughter and exhaustion, or ran through those thickets and wooded areas your parents told you not to go into. You might've wanted to chase your friends around in a never-ending game of chase, or hide forever in that one little spot you knew by heart.

But as you grew up, you found yourself attracted by the myriad vagaries of life. You might've gone on that first date, or gone far away from home for some nebulous reason you don't know. Maybe you decided you hated what things had become, or who you were becoming, or blamed life for misery, for suffering, for the conditions intrinsic to human existence itself. Maybe you sat by yourself at times, wondering who you were, where you were going, why things were the way they were. Always looking for answers in the wrong places, always searching for the next high, the next fad that'd distract you from the emptiness gnawing within you.

And when you became an adult, you found yourself again looking blankly, but backwards this time. Wondering where had all that time gone, why hadn't things turned out the way you wanted? Who was I still, and what was important to me? Questions of philosophy and human intricacies might've ran rampant within you, struggling with your body and spirit as you split yourself into a veritable crowd of personalities, all fighting bitterly for conquest and dominion over your eternal soul.

But when I sat for a few minutes and played Insaniquarium, I felt all at once an uneasy peace come over me.

For my restless soul that bound itself to conflict and purposeful self-inflicted pain, who knew all at once what was right and wrong and yet chose wrong and rejected right.

As I dropped these fish pellets I floated in my own fish tank, empty and blank, seeing nothing but a horizon of the rising sun, the distant sky tinged in a pallet of orange and green.

And as the sweet, soft music played I felt a hot streak come down my cheek, and was overcome with shame at what I was and was not.

And when my fish died, I died with them.

And when they grew up happily and in contentedness, I grew with them in equal measure.

I fought the demons and the aliens, and struggled for lives that were not my own.

And when it ended, and I beheld all those creatures and companions I had acquired and protected over those many levels, who could say that it had been merely a video game?

Beyond the veil of childish design and simplicity I looked upon an ageless beauty, feeling redemption undeserved for a tired and weary soul. Comfort and joyous light brushed my cheeks, and all at once my ego was shattered into a thousand pieces.

Like a Rosetta stone of love, this game will forever be ingrained into the crevices of my heart, for all my days.

This game is truly a testament to what it was like growing up in the early 2000s with nothing more than a family computer.

100 HOUR EDIT: The plot really starts picking up around this time. While I still have yet to feel that I've reached the story's climax, I do think that good things are in store. Most definitely never reached this point as a child. Will update as things get better.

250 HOUR EDIT: I can NOT believe that the aliens did that!!!! You absolutely HAVE to play this game until this point. It's a bit slow to get to the 100 hour point, but things most definitely pick up after that, and the following 150 hours are utterly irreplaceable. Truly a perfect game. I will never regret my time spent on this so far.

500 HOUR EDIT: I recently noticed that my performance in game was slowly degrading. Hopefully the RTX 3080 I bought for this game will make it run at a buttery smooth 60 frames again. The plot has picked up tremendously, but I can most definitely tell that it has more in store if I just keep at it. No spoilers, but I absolutely did NOT think that the mermaid would do THAT. Definitely earns the certified M rating from me.

1000 HOUR EDIT: My girlfriend has left me and I have been fired from my job. This game has utterly taken over my life and I cannot stop playing it. The fish VS alien race war is well underway and there is no current clear winner. Both sides are taking extreme losses. I am stuck in the middle of this conflict. If I do not play the game, the fish will lose, but if I keep playing this game my entire life will be forfeit to the mermaid. SHE IS A LIE. I will keep you updated. This game is better than any other I have ever played and is entirely worth my life falling apart.

1800 HOUR EDIT: This game is an addiction. For nearly a year, I was able to put it away and not think about the world of my aquarium. In a single moment of weakness, I noticed that the screensaver to my epic gamer PC was my aquarium of which I poured over 1000 hours into... and I broke. For days now, I have done nothing but play this game. I've been fired from my job and my boyfriend has left me. In a single moment, this life I had built up has been completely ruined. This 2001 game of the year continues to light up my life and be the only reason that I continue to wake up each morning. I've finally gotten to the end of the Guppy story ark. I shudder thinking of what is to come.