''Fish!'' is a

text adventure Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

game by

Magnetic Scrolls Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audiovisually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s, and one of the ...

released in 1988. The game was designed by John Molloy, Phil South and Peter Kemp with contributions by Rob Steggles.

Plot

According to the game scenario, the Inter-Dimensional Espionage sends operatives throughout the

dimensions In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordi ...

to fight evil. This is done by possessing someone's body and controlling his actions. The player is Agent 10 who enjoys his leave of absence in the body of a goldfish. He learns that an inter-dimensional terrorist group named the Seven Deadly Fins have stolen a focus wheel. In the first part of the game, the player can visit three dimensions (a forest with a smithy, a hippie van near an abbey and a recording studio). Once the three parts of the wheel are gathered, he learns that the Fins are threatening to take over the water-world of Hydropolis by evaporating the ocean of that planet. The player must warp to Hydropolis to foil the Seven Deadly Fins. The player possesses Dr. Roach, who is in charge of the Project that will transfer water from another dimension to keep Hydropolis alive.

Gameplay

The game is a standard

with static graphics in some versions. The game was re-released as part of the Magnetic Scrolls Collection, featuring a

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

with an auto-map system, inventory, and pop-down menus.

Reception

The game was voted Best 16-bit Adventure Game of the Year at the

Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be voted ...

. Keith Campbell of ''

Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...

'' wrote that ''Fish!'' was "like no other adventure I've played before", and that it is "the most pun packed adventure ever." He praised the humor and cited the game as another example of Magnetic Scrolls "cleaning up on the adventure scene this year." Reviewing ''Fish'' in ''

Zzap!64 ''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazi ...

'', Kati Hamza wrote, "Every Magnetic Scrolls adventure gets praised to the skies, wins a thousand awards and gets an incredibly high mark in all the magazines. You'd think they could produce a dud once in awhile just for variety's sake". She remarked that ''Fish'' is "slick, subtle and sparkles with subaquatic humor", and that its "parser is up to Magnetic Scrolls usual high standards". In 1992,

Charles Ardai Charles Ardai is an American businessman, and writer of crime fiction and mysteries. He is co-founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style paperback crime novels. He was also an early employee of D. E. Shaw & Co. and a managing di ...

of ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

'' wrote when reviewing ''Magnetic Scrolls Collection'' that ''Fish!'' was "just a shade too crazy. Unpredictable is good; incomprehensible is not", but "if nothing else, this makes the game original" and had "the most clever gags of the three games".

References

External links

* * * * {{Magnetic Scrolls adventure games 1980s interactive fiction 1988 video games Acorn Archimedes games Amiga games Amstrad PCW games Atari ST games Classic Mac OS games Commodore 64 games DOS games Golden Joystick Award winners Magnetic Scrolls games Single-player video games Telecomsoft games Video games about fish Video games developed in the United Kingdom ZX Spectrum games