El-Fish
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El-Fish (or SimFish) is a fish and fish-tank simulator developed by Russian game developer AnimaTek, with Maxis providing development advice. The game was published by Maxis in 1993.
Each fish in El-Fish has a unique Roe, similar to the genome. This allows the user to catch fish and use selective breeding and mutation to create fish to their own tastes for placing them in virtual aquariums. Once fish are selected, El-Fish will generate up to 256 animation frames so that the fish will appear to swim smoothly around the tank.
The tank simulator is very customizable for this game's era. The player can select from a large number of backdrops and tank ornaments for the fish to swim between. The user can also import their own images to use as tank ornaments. El-Fish includes a fractal based plant generator for creating unique aquarium plants. There are several "moving objects" that can be added to the tanks which the fish will react to, such as a cat paw, fibcrab, and a small plastic scuba diver. The user can also choose a separate MIDI music file to be played for each virtual aquarium, and feed the fish.
The tank simulator can run as a memory-resident program in MS-DOS, making it a screensaver. Multiple tanks can be displayed via El-Fish
Development
El-Fish was created by Vladimir Pokhilko, Ph.D. and Alexey Pajitnov, who had backgrounds in mathematics, computer science, and psychology. They were attempting to create software for INTEC (a company that they started) that would be made for "people's souls". They developed this idea, calling it "Human Software", with three rules:
- The software needs to be "aesthetically beautiful"
- The software needs to be constructive
- The software needs to bring feeling to people that they would not otherwise enjoy
Although El-Fish's demanding (for its time) system requirements prevented it from selling many units, it was an early version of what would become a very widespread genre.
Performance
| Computer | Catch/Breed/Evolve | Animate |
|---|---|---|
| 386SX16 | 5-7 minutes | 6-7 hours |
| 386DX25 | 3.5-4 minutes | 3.5-4hours |
| 386DX25† | 25-35 seconds | 25-35 minutes |
| 486DX33 | 7-10 seconds | 7-10 minutes |
| 486DX2-66 | 5 seconds | 4-6 minutes |
Quotes
The manual contains several interesting phrases, shameless plugs and offbeat humor:
- "SimLife and El-Fish tax the powers of today's computers to their limits... it will be a few years before this marriage of simulation and animation will make it into our homes. But eventually, we'll wonder how we ever put up with two-dimensional computer creatures."
- "You're probably getting antsy (oops -- wrong game)" (Reference to the game SimAnt)
- "Fish tried to evolve into many shapes and sizes, and all failed. Dinosaurs were a real fiasco. Fishkind tried for millions of years to get dinosaurs to build computers, but they wouldn't. So the fish wiped them out and started over with mammals."
- "There's a suckerfish born every minute."
- "When you make fish that are so beautiful that all your friends tell you that you are wonderful, is that considered fishing for compliments?"
- "All that glitters is not goldfish."
- "You ain't nothing but a dogfish." -El-Fish Presley
- "I'm a union fish -- a Pisces working for scale."
- "Any friend of yours is an anemone of mine."
- "Don't smell fish -- Play El-Fish!"
References
- Michael Bremer (1993). El-Fish: The Electronic Aquarium: User's Manual. Orinda: Maxis.
External links
- [El-Fish] at MobyGames
- [El-Fish] at Home of the Underdogs
| The Sim Universe and Maxis |
|---|
| City games |
| SimCity > SimCity 2000 | SimCity 3000 | SimCity 4 |
| The Sims |
| The Sims > The Sims 2 | The Sims Online |
| Other Sim games |
| SimEarth > SimAnt | SimLife | SimFarm | SimTower | SimHealth | SimIsle | SimCopter | SimGolf | Streets of SimCity |
| Youth Sim games |
| SimTown > SimPark | SimSafari | SimTunes |
| Sim related |
| A-Train > El-Fish | Sid Meier's SimGolf | Spore | Widget Workshop |
| Cancelled Sim games |
| SimMars > Simsville |
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