Chillquarium's Ben Reber give us a detailed insight into how the fish-farming sim came to life
- Chillquarium is one of the more interesting releases to hit mobile recently
- I got to chat with creator Ben Reber about how the aquarium sim-slash-fish seller came about
- Find out how this indie creator brought their idea to life (and why cats love it)!
Chillquarium is one recent release that caught my eye, with its mixture of relaxing aquarium building and engaging fish-farming fun. Naturally, I got curious about how this game came together behind the scenes.
So, after reaching out, I got the chance to put my questions to none other than Chillquarium's creator, Ben Reber, who told me all about what inspired Chillquarium and how this seafood smorgasbord came to be.
I've been making games for nearly a decade at this point. When I first started taking computer science classes in undergrad, I started making games as a way to put what I was learning into practice. Game development is a nice blend of mental stimulation and artistic expression that has really grabbed me.
I've always been a fan of aquarium games and pet simulators in general. They used to be a staple subgenre for casual gaming. There were a few in particular that I played growing up, like FishVille and Fish Tycoon, but since releasing Chillquarium, I've had people reach out with dozens of different fish games from back in the day that it reminds them of.
There's lots of DNA from other games as well. One sort of obscure example that I really loved as a kid was the Zen Garden minigame from Plants Vs. Zombies, which was extremely idle and could barely be considered a game. I just loved seeing my plants grow up over time. The pace of the game was largely inspired by things like Wordle, which, like everyone else, I got in the habit of checking up on once a day with my morning coffee when it first came out. The idea to have fish come from packs of cards came from a brilliant little game called Stacklands. I'm also a big fan of shiny hunting in Pokemon, which is very directly reflected in Chillquarium.
With how popular idle games are, do you think Chillquarium will resonate with a similar audience?I definitely think so! There are basically two different player camps when it comes to idle games: passive and active players. I would say most idle games are balanced more strongly towards active players. In other idlers, systems are designed to scale up exponentially very quickly as you play. In a lot of cases, it only takes a couple of minutes of active play in order to double your total production.
This is by no means a bad thing; exponential growth is fundamental to the genre. It is fun to watch numbers go up, and you get a little thrill of acceleration as you get major upgrades. But the design tradeoff is that playing passively becomes relatively weak. Waiting overnight for resources to generate doesn't feel as exciting if you could have achieved the same result very quickly through active play.
Chillquarium is a game made for the passive gamers among us. It is designed to scale up a little more slowly. Growth is still exponential, but it is "gated" by the need to wait for your fish to grow up. This favours a passive playstyle where the game is left on the back burner, and helps the player to feel like real, tangible progress is being made while they're away. Waking up in the morning and checking on which fish have grown up overnight is an exciting part of the core experience of Chillquarium.
Can you give us an insight into how the art and music of Chillquarium was made to match the ocean theme?All of the art and music for Chillquarium was made by me; I have been writing music for over 10 years. One of the original reasons I started making video games was that I liked writing chiptunes and needed a place to put them. All of the music was written and recorded in my old apartment, with the microphone dragged outside of the room so that it didn't pick up my computer's extremely loud fan noise. Clicking "record", then running out to get situated with my guitar in time with the click track was a fun added challenge.
Drawing comes a little less naturally to me, but over the years I've been able to brute-force my way into making assets that look good enough. After drawing hundreds of fish, I am pretty good at drawing, specifically, fish. Everything else is a little more dodgy. All of the sprites are hand-drawn pixel art, which is fed into an interpolation filter, basically an algorithm which smooths out the jagged pixel art into nice curves.
And who do you think is the ideal gamer that Chillquarium will appeal to?I've gotten a lot of feedback that cats love the game!
Other than that, I think lots of people would enjoy the game! Part of the success of aquarium games comes from the fact that basically everybody likes fish and likes the idea of having some of them around. The downside, in real life, is you have to spend a bunch of time (and sometimes money) finding desk space, maintaining water parameters, fighting algae blooms, and cleaning the tank, all just to make sure your fish don't die. Virtual fish, on the other hand, are a lot easier to handle.
Is there any particular element of Chillquarium you think you'll focus on moving forward in your next game?Chillquarium was designed to be very minimalistic, and in some ways that helps the game to feel relaxing. However, I think that there is definitely room for more mechanics which provide different feelings of progression. In Stardew Valley, for example, you're not just making money. You're also upgrading tools, building barns, making friends with the townsfolk, donating to the museum, submitting community bundles, etc. There are lots of different axes for progression. I would like to lean a little bit more into that kind of thing for my next game, and for future content updates in Chillquarium as well.
It's hard to speak for them, but I think Snapbreak has published a very well-curated catalogue of indie games that are artistic and visually striking. I think they saw a little bit of that in Chillquarium. At least I hope that's why my game stuck out to them. Maybe they just wanted some fish?
Finally, any message for the fans who've come out to play Chillquarium?HUGE thanks to everyone who has played Chillquarium! Releasing this game has been completely life-changing for me. I feel lucky every day that I get to spend my working hours making art independently. It is an exceedingly rare and privileged position to be in, and the fans are, of course, the ones who made it a reality.
There you have it! Some pretty interesting points to have been made there. But speaking of new and interesting stuff, have you had the chance to check out the latest addition to our website yet? The Pocket Gamer Deals section offers an all-new aggregation of some of the best webstore discounts and exclusive discounts available for your favourite mobile games, so go check it out!
