Something I’ve been messing around with is Kokoro ga Uruou Birei Aquarium DS by Ertain. It’s a portable aquarium program, but instead of raising “regular” fish you take care of penguins, dolphins and sting rays. There is another Kokoro ga Uruou Birei Aquarium DS program with guppies and stuff you can find at the local pet store, but why would you want to raise something you can take care of in real life? I used the word program because Ertain’s Aquarium DS isn’t a game, it is more like a virtual fish tank. You have five tanks of varying sizes you can take care of. The smallest can only hold baby sea turtles and sea horses while the largest tank can hold whales. After you select fish for your tank you can decorate it by choosing a background and placing rocks on the floor. Once you’re done adding necessary additions, like a leaning tower of Pisa replica, you can do “important” things like adjust the water temperature and feed your fish. When you choose to feed your fish you can select the kind of food like meatballs, clams, shrimp and squid then tap the DS screen to place the food. You can go into “fish cam” mode where you follow a fish around and put food directly in your favorite fish’s path or just sprinkle seaweed around the tank. Besides that the only other “action” element is scrubbing the tank by moving the stylus up and down the touch screen. Kokoro ga Uruou Birei Aquaraium DS isn’t exactly exciting, it’s software for the non gamer who wants to take care of fish without the mess or equipment. The main thing that keeps players coming back to the game is taking good care of your fish. Watching the fish cam is kind fun too and by fun I mean relaxing. I took some video of the three tanks I’m raising past the break so you can see what I mean. Watch closely and you’ll see that penguins have the magical ability to phase through matter.
