Glowfish is a very cute and addicting indie game created by MumboJumbo, LLC. The evil Dr. Urchin (who is an urchin) doesn’t like it when others are happy, so he has gone and kidnapped your girl, Coralline, and your friends and has forced them to be his friends. So naturally you won’t stand for this and set out on an adventure to save your friends and your girl.
You will travel through 50 bioluminescenced levels of the deep sea as you rescue your friends from Dr. Urchin’s control. Each level is a maze of visually beautiful coral and crystals letting off cold light emission, and is full of enemies of all kinds. Actually it turns out that the enemies are your friends, which Dr. Urchin has just turned against you.
So when you kill an enemy they end up turning back into your friend, and then proceed to follow you on your mission to rescue Coralline. As you rescue more friends your attacks gets more powerful. This is because it is your friends that either spin around you creating a kind of force field that will kill enemies, or, as you circle an enemy that might be too big to take on directly, they will shoot at the enemy until they either shrink down to a size you can take on or are killed.
From time to time you will have to part with some of your friends, though; because in order to unlock all parts to each level, you will have to bring a certain number of said friends to their homes to open the locked area. This makes things tricky at times because you might end up needing every last one of your friends to open a house and then end up having to go into a sea of enemies.
There is a vast array of enemies found throughout the adventure. First there are just the bubbles that will kill you if they are bigger than you and bump into you when you don’t have any friends. The bubbles can also trap your friends, and then the only way to get them is to pop the bubble. There are also enemies that will hunt you down unless your shield of friends is powerful enough to kill them; in which case they run away from you (smart enemies).
There are also stationary enemies that just get in your way. Typically these ones are too big to take straight on so you have to circle them repeatedly until you chop them down in size. Some of the stationary enemies will also shoot back, so watch out. Then there is the ever-so-popular spiked moving gates that must be avoided. Lastly there are enemies that you can’t do anything about other than avoiding them – those being the jellyfish and electric eels. Both of which will shock you upon contact, and then you will become disconnected from your friends and have to recollect them.
There is one friend, though, that you will never have to fear loosing; and that is your Chum. Your Chum is actually a mini-boss that you have defeated and brought over to your side. You are only allowed one Chum out at any time, but as you unlock more, you can change them out at any open house (there are a total of eight you can unlock). Your Chum will always follow you around and will give the added benefit of their special skill such as darting around faster, freezing enemies, or directly attacking enemies for you; to list just a few. Your Chum’s skills can even be upgraded buy purchasing them with the coins that are found throughout each level. Your Chum is your best friend, and they come in very handy – especially when you don’t have any friends with you.
Glowfish is straightforward when it comes to the controls. To move Glowfish, all you do is either use the mouse or the WASD keys. Mouse buttons are clicked to either have your friends circle you or just follow behind in a neat line. The last button you need to know about is the Ctrl button, which will make you dart for a short period of time. Just make sure that when you use the dart that your cursor is away from Glowfish. This is because he will only dart to where the cursor is located. So if you dart but then only have the cursor sitting right where there is a spiked gate, chances are you will get squished and killed.
I love the game’s graphics. The combination of the bright colors of the bioluminescent coral and the very cute character is great; also, the graphics are super clear and crisp. Even the music is a good fit for the game; it creates a soothing effect, making it very enjoyable and relaxing to play.
Overall, this game is an excellent pick-up. I played the PC version that is available through Steam, but there is also an app version available, too. It is a great way to unwind. Just be careful, because you might find yourself getting lost in the cuteness and end up playing for hours before you even notice.
