Australian developer Halfbrick (the studio behind Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride) has released an Android version of their 2013 iOS hit Fish out of Water. The game is free to download on Google Play and the Amazon App Store.
The game is a slick mobile variant on some of those old Flash games you’d use to while away your lunch break like Pingu Throw, where you pick up and throw a hapless animal (in this case, a school of fish – one at a time, of course) and try to get the best distance to compare with your friends.
Fish out of Water adds a few spins on that tried and tested formula. After your fish is thrown, it’s judged based on both distance AND the number of skips across the water. There’s six fish for you to choose from, and they each have different flight and skip characteristics.
You can also get speed boosts, change the costumes on the fish and even create “charms” from different coloured crystals (which you can of course buy/earn) that have different effects on the fish (extra skips, extra distance, etc). Another neat touch is the way the in-game weather changes about every 10 minutes – different weather conditions affect your fish in different ways.
Yes, there’s in-app purchases. A “large” crystal pack (50 crystals) costs $5, and an “enormous” one (250 crystals) is $15. Beyond that, you can customise the colour of your name for the princely sum of $1. As far as in-app purchases go, we’ve seen worse… but $15 is still $15.
Going deeper (get it?), the game also features achievements (which we’d expect from the guys responsible for Jetpack Joyride and there’s also an online component that shares high scores and syncs your progress across multiple devices. Unfortunately, that online component relies on Halfbrick’s own gaming network and eschews Google Play Games entirely – better luck next time on that, guys.
The online aspects offer some depth, though we could do with perhaps a little less attention on in-app purchases. Still, you don’t have to part with any money to enjoy the game. Ultimately, Fish out of Water is a fun time-waster and well worth the download. It’s consistent with what we’ve come to expect from Halfbrick – the slick presentation with high quality graphics, great animation and their trademark sense of humour.
Have you tried Fish out of Water? Tell us what you think in the comments!
Do the results of Android players go toe to toe with those of iObject players?