From Russia with Glub



Author: David Reynolds

Date: May, 1994

Keywords: Maxis el-fish aquarium fish game program review

Text:
The Russians are coming, and they're bringing electronic aquariums.
     The product of a joint venture with Russian programmers (including
Vladimir Pokhilko of Tetris fame), El*Fish is the aquarium for the rest
of us: no water to slosh on the floor, no pH levels to balance, and no
overfeeding to worry about.  It's the perfect solution if you've ever
wanted to own fish, but:
     * you can't stand that lovely fish smell;
     * your roommate thinks that tank thermostats also heat the house;
     * you forget to feed the cute little goomers;
     * you own several cats;
     * you like sushi too much.
     El*Fish is a software toy as opposed to a software game:  the sole
purpose of the program is to create simulated aquariums that you can
watch.  No score to compare, no winners or losers, no bad guys to
shoot-the object of El*Fish is to create and experiment with fish
tanks.
     You start building your tank by going on a fishing expedition. 
You have a large map-including reefs, deltas, cays, rivers, and open
oceans-where you can cast your net. The fish caught in various areas
will look different, so it pays to drop bait in several different
areas.
     The simulated fish in El*Fish are created using the electronic
equivalent of genetic codes:  these are Teach-Text documents that look
like strings of nonsense characters, but actually contain 56 genes
which determine over 800 parameters of behavior, color, size, and
shape.
     Once you've caught some prize stock, you can tweak them in several
ways to get the best possible specimens: evolving and breeding. 
Evolving a fish recombines the electronic genes of an individual fish
to create variations in color and shape; breeding two fish combines
their e-genes to create a unique third fish. Both of these methods can
produce mutants-fish that can live but can no longer breed or evolve-if
the variations in color and shape are pushed too far.  The third method
involves playing mad scientist by opening the genetic (or roe) files
with TeachText and tossing in some random strings of your own.  Maxis
notes that you run the risk of crashing the program if you tweak the
wrong gene, but also says that the risk may be worth the reward.  To
paraphrase the manual: if it was safe, everybody would do it.
     I tried the mad scientist route myself, and came up with a red and
yellow striped fish with a tremendously long tail:  beautiful, but when
I tried to breed it with another engineered fish-instant freeze.
     Once you have the ultimate fish for your tank, you then get to
animate them.  A word of warning: find something else to do while your
computer works on this.  Maxis provides several suggestions in their
manual, such as alphabetizing a bag of M & Ms, computing pi to the last
digit, or wondering what kind of president Edgar Allen Poe would have
made.
     To animate a fish that you've caught requires anywhere from a few
minutes to several hours:  the reason for this is that El*Fish creates
a single frame of 3-D animation for all possible positions the  fish
will assume while swimming in your tank-256 frames per fish. 
Completely animated fish files may range in size from 84KB to 1.5 MB
each.  If you know a friend who owns their own El*Fish aquarium, you
can trade roe-the essential information needed to recreate the fish. 
Roe files are very small, typically 4k, thus allowing fast transmission
and mass storage.  The catch: roe files have to be re-animated to be
used.
     The animation process can be interrupted at any time and resumed
later with no loss of data.  In fact, I left my computer running all
night to animate a tankful, and had no problem.  If you've got the
equipment, the program's hunger for time is not a problem.  It was
actually a bonus-I found myself acting like a little kid, waiting for
the moment when I could put my little darlings into the tank and watch
them swim.
     The animations are worth the time spent to create them.  The
lifelike images are truly beautiful.  When the light glints off the
scales of a blue twinfin, or a striped pickerel races around the tank
or a melonhead nibbles on a plant, it's easy to believe that there are
actual living critters in there. 
     After the fish are ready, it's time to build the tank to house
them.  El*Fish gives you the choice of gravel, background, and tank
shape on which to base your tank.  Then you can populate the tank with
a variety of computer generated plants and rocks; also included are
standard aquarium fare of coral, statues, and grecian columns.  The
program allows you to place animated objects (other than the fish of
your choice) into the program-a skeleton pirate, a crab, and a cat's
paw are among the moving oddities you can add. You can even use objects
of your own creation:  the program allows you to import PICT files for
placement.
     Once the visual aspects of your tank are taken care of, it's time
to add some music.  El*Fish includes a semi-random music generator that
uses a complex algorithm to produce music in eight different styles.
     Now that the tank is done, just add fish, and enjoy.  You can turn
the tank light on and off, and even feed your fish.  Fortunately, you
can't overfeed them-they are e-fish, after all.  You can link several
tanks together in an exhibition, which switches between the specified
tanks at a user-specified interval.
     Though El*Fish doesn't require brine shrimp, it is hungry.  The
program requires a 68020 or better processor, 5 MB RAM, an 8-bit color
monitor, and 10 MB of free hard drive space.  These are the minimum
requirements put forth by Maxis, but I wouldn't recommend running this
program without a 68030 (and a math co-processor), 8MB RAM, and at
least 15 MB of unused hard drive space.
     The program interface is largely intuitive.  I was able to catch,
breed, and animate several fish without having to refer to the manual. 
Some of the more involved or obscure features, such as managing memory
or growing really huge fish, require going through the manual.  Reading
the book isn't a labor, either.  The text is almost amusing enough to
read just for enjoyment's sake.  The program also offers an online help
feature.
     Maxis is very up-front about the equipment and processor demands
of El*Fish.  In fact, they highlight these requirements, discussing a
concept called A-Life, which focuses on creating simplified living
behavior in a computer and assisting or watching its evolution into
more com-plicated stages.  El*Fish pushes the limits of current
technology to create A-Life in the form of an aquarium, and the manual
discusses some of the phi-losophical ramifications of classifying
A-Life as actual life, such as:  do artificial life-forms have legal
rights?; If you create an artificial life-form, will you be personally,
legally,  morally, and financially responsible for its protection,
care, feeding, and upbringing-just as you would be for a pet or even a
child?;  if you turn off your computer without first saving an
artificial life-form to disk, is it murder?  These questions are posed
only partially tongue-in-cheek.
     Maxis is well-known for its other simlation programs: SimCity,
SimAnt, SimLife, and SimEarth, so it's no surprise that El*Fish is as
impressive as it is.  El*Fish is well executed, and quite simply a joy
to watch.
     El*Fish's suggested retail price is $59.95, (mail order about 
$35.95), and is published by:     
     Maxis 
     2 Theatre Square, Suite 230 
     Orinda, CA 94563      
     510/254-9700

Copyright © may, 1994 by David Reynolds