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Known Users: El-Fish

Maxis el-fish aquarium fish game program review 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

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