Fish!
Entry updated 9 April 2015. Tagged: Game.
Videogame (1988). Magnetic Scrolls (MS). Designed by Pete Kemp, John Molloy, Phil South, Robert Steggles. Platforms: Amiga, AtariST, C64, DOS (1988); Spectrum (1989).
Fish! is a surreal text Adventure (with static illustrations) in which the player adopts the role of an inter-dimensional secret agent. This hero is something of a serial body snatcher, travelling between Parallel Worlds by possessing the bodies of their inhabitants (see Identity Transfer). As the game begins, the main character is taking a vacation in a goldfish bowl (and, not surprisingly, is a goldfish). Soon, however, its superior – an individual known as Sir Playfair Panchax – is dropped in by toy castle to give the player a new assignment. It seems that the Seven Deadly Fins, a group of dimension-hopping revolutionaries, have been up to their dastardly tricks again, and only the player can be trusted to stop them. This leads into a somewhat anarchic experience, featuring many awkward puzzles and a plethora of fishy puns, and culminating in a race against time to stop the destruction by dehydration of the subaquean (see Under the Sea) City of Hydropolis. While Fish! perhaps lacks the appealing ambience of Magnetic Scrolls' alternate England fantasy Jinxter (1987) (see Adventures) and the serious intent of their Corruption (1988 MS, Amiga, Amstrad, AtariST, C64, DOS, Spectrum) designed by Robert Steggles, Hugh Steers, a tale of yuppie venality in the modern world, it has its own special charm – that of a world in which no fish goes unpunned. [NT]
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