The Buzz

Well, I don’t know what really possessed me to play either one of these browser games. Perhaps, with all the hype of Café World; I wanted to play a game that would be nice and soothing that would also entertain my one year old son as I play [he enjoys watching me play Café World] So, looking at my options I ruled out Sorority Life, Mafia Wars, and FarmVille. I mean do I look like someone who would enjoy pretending to be in a Sorority? Farming isn’t really my thing and I’m certainly no gangster. So, that’s when I decided to try FishVille on Facebook and Happy Aquarium on tagged [this is also featured on Facebook, but I play on tagged because the tagged version is better].



FishVille is an online browser game brought to you by Zynga who also provides the ever so popular Café World, Mafia Wars, Farmville, and the list goes on.

In FishVille, you are giving a fish tank that is supposed to hold up to ten fish (but really only holds nine) that you take care of. The way of leveling up or gaining experience is that you feed the fish until they reach adulthood or junior status and then you sell them to obtain experience and more coins to build up your fish tank. You can also purchase items to obtain experience; as well as visit your neighbors [if you can find any] in which you can click on their treasure chest that pops up a wheel and gives you things [fish, coins, sand dollars, etc.)

Some of the items and fish costs what they call Sand Dollars [sand dollars couldn’t they have been a tad bit more creative?] which you have to obtain by purchasing them with a credit card or paypal account. The cheapest prices for the sand dollars are twenty-five sand dollars for $5.00 USD. The highest is $40.00 USD and get you 240 Sand Dollars. So, if you wish to upgrade your fish tank you’re going to have to have other neighbors or again purchase a new fish tank with sand dollars.

As far as I can see this is the only goal and purpose of this game. Buy fish, feed, sell; repeat. Oh, you can give your fish love in which when you do you are giving more coins to buy more things for your fish tank. So perhaps the correct formula would be:

Buy Fish, Feed Fish, Love Fish, Sell Fish; repeat.



On the other hand, Happy Aquarium is an online browser game brought to you by Crowdstar whom is a relative new company.

In Happy Aquarium, you are also giving a fish tank that literally holds up to ten fish [that’s one more fish then what FishVille will let you have without saying you have to upgrade.] You can also, play this game in full screen mode, as in Fishville you are only limited to the browser screen window.

In Happy Aquarium you can do all sorts of things with your fish. First and foremost, you can train your fish which you do so by playing a mini game that allows you obtain more coins and fish food and teaches you’re fish a new trick. Each time you train your fish you get a chance to win more coins and fish food.

You can also mate your fish, which is pretty cool because when they mate they just do this little spin around thing and hearts swirl around them and out comes a fish egg. So, you don’t necessarily have to purchase more fish you can buy two of each of the cheapest ones and then mate them and get new fish.

If you ever get tired of looking at one of your fish you can always choose to release the fish into the ocean [also known as sell the fish] and then purchase another.

The way for obtaining experience in this game is through training your fish, feeding your fish, cleaning your fish tank, so all in all taking care of your fish.

To purchase items for your fish tank you have to part with coins or pearls. This isn’t that bad because they start you off with so many pearls. Also, each time you level up you are giving another pearl and for those who just have to have certain items you can also purchase pearls using a credit card, paypal, Amazon payments and even at 7-Eleven. The lowest package is only $1.00 USD and gets you 12 pearls, the highest is $20.00 USD and gets you 365 pearls [which is $20.00 USD less then what Fishville wants for 210 Sand Dollars]

All in all if you decided to play one, I would have to say Happy Aquarium is most definitely the better of the two. You get to do more things with your fish and in the long run if you decided to pay to play it is the cheaper of the two.