The Fish Dies in the End Review & Giveaway

Tiny Fins? Not Quite

The LOL-worthily ‘meta’ title which pokes good natured fun at the cruel inevitability’s of the endless high score genre turns out to be a bit of a red herring, as that’s as far as this game’s black humor goes, but Gutenberg Neto’s App Store debut, The Fish Dies in the End (out now, $0.99), will still reel younger iOS gamers in with its cute ‘n’ colorful presentation, intuitive one-touch control scheme and a trio of addictive game modes.

The Fish Dies in the End sees you guiding an adorable (Finding) Nemo looky-likey from left to right through a 2D underwater world fraught with all manner of obstacles and enemies. Your job is simply to hold onto your three lives for as long as possible and swim as far as you can.

Like I say, maneuvering around the ocean is delightfully straightforward: the fish moves forward automatically, while you just tap anywhere on the screen to move upwards and then release your finger to float back down again. So ducking and dodging the endless array of other sea life – snapping piranha, eels, octopi and more – requires a volley of well-timed taps on your part.

The game boasts three different difficulty levels (easy, normal and hard) the latter two of which feature faster enemies and come with a side-order of exciting shark attacks, while Game Center leaderboards and the ability to post achievements to Facebook and Twitter provide an incentive to keep striving for a better and better score. A fairly decent amount of content for 99 cents then, but I will say that if Gutenberg wants to appeal to a wider audience with this title, and not just younger gamers, he may want to consider adding a few more challenging modes/minigames (how’s about a treasure hunt or an endless shark attack game?) and perhaps giving the simplistic background visuals a bit of an overhaul.

Fancy winning the game? We’ve got two more codes for The Fish Dies in the End to give away. To be in with a chance of winning, simply: Follow iFanzine & thefishdies on Twitter, retweet this post and leave a quick comment below letting us know you’ve done so. We’re drawing the winners tomorrow, so be quick!

iFanzine Verdict: Fishing for a fun and addictive family friendly timewaster? This comes recommended for the little ‘uns. Sadly though the game is a bit too simplistic to keep bigger kids, such as myself, hooked.

[xrr rating=3/5]