Holiday Theme: Spooky Halloween Contest

I am thrilled that Tap Fish is hosting a Halloween Contest that will actually award 60 fish bucks and 6000 coins for the top 10 entries. Regrettably, I am not prepared this year since I didn't buy more breeding tanks when they were on-sale. I am not planning to spend fish bucks to "Speed Up" the breeding process nor acquiring more breeding tanks at the full price. However, I will try my best to whip up some nasty critters for the contest. See ya'll at high-noon :)

I will keep this post up-to-date with the progress from my Halloween Theme Decoration. This is what I have so far. A little pathetic; but definitely will be kick-ass when the time comes.

Updated: 10/30/2011 - The contest is winding down in 2 days, 21 hours, 14 minutes. Since the breeding is sooooo tauntingly slow, I can't help it but to spend a few extra bucks to speed up the process. It is costly but definitely worth it :) I still have 2 more breds in the breeding tanks to be mature in 2 days. That's all the bucks I'm willing spend for this contest.

Updated: 11/1/2011 - I finally got through the last 2 breds and submitted the photo for the contest. It would be nice to win that 60 fish bucks; but I enjoyed the breeding process. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I was.

Updated: 11/04/2011 - Well, I just got a new Halloween Background from the Jackpot spin.

Big Bang for the Buck

Unlike coins, fish bucks are quite expensive and considered RARE commodities in Tap Fish. Although you can win a few bucks here and there through levels advancement, Jackpot Spins, and mini-games, it is important to be frugal and only spend at the right moment to maximize their value. I have been playing this game for a while and always wait until premium items (things that you can only buy with fish bucks) to go on-sale for at least 40% off before I grab them.

Even if you plan to donate to support the game developers (Gameview Studios) by buying fish bucks, you should consider buying the bucks whenever they are on sale for 40% off. I paid $6 for 325 fish bucks, which would normally cost $10. I hope it is not too late to mention this; but DONOT ever buy the coins with real money since they are sooooo easy to earn. Most items are rarely on sale; but they will eventually, so try to be really patient :)

Below is a list of items that you might find helpful in your decision making when consider spending your fish bucks. I organize the list starting with the most useful items to least.

1. Regular Breeding Tanks - There are lots of breedable fishes. Unless you have many regular breeding tanks, it seems impossible to breed all of the fish combinations. Also, regular breeding tanks are useful in breeding events where you win prices for certain number of fishes you bred.
2. Mystery Breeding Tanks - These tanks can only be use to breed Limited Breedable Fishes. Although there aren't many, it is really hard to get all the bred you need since the offspring is random.
3. Limited Breedable Fishes - You must breed them selectively with a predetermined pair; but their offsprings are pretty and with numerous possibilities. Hence, it is exciting to wait for the breeding result since you don't know what you get until they hatched (which often could result in total disappointment if you are getting a duplicate bred).
4. Breedable Fishes (for special occasions such as Santa, Indian, etc) - These breedables are perfect for creating a theme for the up-coming holidays. Breed out your imagination :)
5. Breedable Fishes - Once you have done with all the special bred, you can always have more time to experiment to see what kind weirdo offspring you can come up with. You can breed a Breedable Fish with any other Breedable Fishes.
6. Decorative Items - Normally, I only buy decorative items with coins. If you really need it, I guess it is ok to treat yourself.
7. Backgrounds - Be a little cautious when spending fish bucks on backgrounds since they are excessively expensive. Plus, Tap Fish frequently gives them to you for free through the Jackpot Spin.

Best Route to Take

Like driving and direction, it can be intimidating to navigate in new places. I played Tap Fish a while back; but quit before even getting past the first level, mainly because I found the game a little hard to swallow. Fortunately I got some help from friends this time and with a clear objective, the game becomes much more exciting. Well, I am leaving some breadcrumbs just in case anyone would like to get lost in my footsteps :)

Beginner (Level 1-10)

You are excited and eager for some actions at this stage, so farming Green Snappers is the best option. It is cheap and matures every 4 hours.  Fill as many tanks as you can with the Green Snappers and you will get endless tapping and level advancement. Below is a quick breakdown of the math. For those number crunchers who wish to see more, here is a detail spreadsheet.

If don’t have a lot of time to keep up with the gruesome frequency required by the Green Snappers, you can alternatively farm the Yellow Snappers (6 hours), Gold Fishes (9 hours), or Asia Arowana (1 day).

Fish Name	Category	Recommend	Buy	*Sell	**Bonus	Mature
Green Snapper	Starter Fish	Farm - Frequent	10	15	3	4hrs
Yellow Snapper	Starter Fish	Farm - Moderate	12	19	4	6hrs
Gold Fish	Super Exotic	Farm - Overnight	14	26	5	9hrs
Asia Arowana	Starter Fish	Farm - Busy Schedule	36	60	12	1day

Intermediate (Level 11-25)

No doubt the Golden Dwarf is by far the most profitable fish to farm at this stage. However, to acquire the Golden Dwarf, you must be at least level 19. The White Grunt is a good alternate fish to farm; however, you probably won’t have enough coin to farm many of these suckers right now. That’s suck since you want to efficiently make fast money to buy more exotic fishes. My strategy was to mix in some Chromis (Level 15) and/or Goat Fishes to keep the tanks full. Try to maximize all of your real estate and invest all of coins when possible. Below is a quick breakdown of the math. Again, if you wish to see more, here is a detail spreadsheet.

Fish Name	Category	Recommend	Buy	*Sell	**Bonus	Mature
Chromis (Level 15)	Super Exotic	Alternative: Farm	175	290	58	1day
Golden Dwarf (Level 19)	Super Exotic	Best Farm	280	518	104	1day
Goat Fish	Super Exotic	Alternative: Farm,Breed	350	490	98	1.5day
White Grunt	Super Exotic	Good Farm, Best Breed	4,200	5,880	1,176	1day
Boxfish	Super Exotic	Best Breed, Farm	26,000	26,139	5,228	2days
Mummy Fish	Limited Time	Best Breed	35,000	40,250	8,050	5days

Advance (Level 26-64)

I am at level 56 right now. To advance a level at this stage would require 20,000xp. That is brutal; kinda like shifting through 20k pairs of shoes to find what you need :) My fingers are blistering.

The way Tap Fish is setup, once you reach this stage; you probably earned abundance of coins. But who doesn’t want more? After some trials and errors, I figure that the Royal Gramma would fetch the best return. Notice I didn’t say it’s the most profitable fish to invest. As I mentioned earlier, you probably are already rich by now so there is no need to raise excessive number of fishes (plus feeding and cleaning tanks) to earn more coins. You can comfortably live off the return from a tank-full of Gramma.

On the contrary, you can farm a lot of Green Snappers to advance level quickly like me. It might sound backward since Green Snappers are not much profitable relatively speaking. However, I raise them in huge volume to earn xp quickly (1xp for buying, 2xp for selling). The benefits are that I don’t have to feed the snappers nor clean the tanks because they mature every 4 hours so I can sell them off before they die of hunger (Sorry PETA, can’t sue me). Plus, I still get the full bonus since Tap Fish doesn’t update the happiness meter as long as I don’t tap on the fish. As shown in the photo, I get 765 coins for selling 50 snappers with 20% bonus and paid 15% commission (for selling in bulk). At the peak of my excitement, I farmed around 40+ tanks of Green Snappers. But Tap Fish finally broke me once they required 20,000xp to advance level. That is a lot of zeros: 0 time to eat, 0 time playing with my kids, 0 time for shopping. So finally threw down the towel. Nothing’s going get between me and shopping :)

Fish Name	Category	Recommend	Buy	*Sell	**Bonus	Mature
Borbonius Anthias	Super Exotic	Farm - Busy	1.5Mills	1,516,500	303,300	3days
Royal Gramma	Limited Time	Best Farm - High Level	500,000	520,000	104,000	3days
Pink Skunk Clown Fish	Limited Time	Weird Breeding	2.5Mills	2,625,300	525,060	5days

Guru (Level 65+) - Congrat!

OMG, I never will reach this stage. I feel bad for my iPhone getting all the beating as I tried rigorously tapping my way to the top. Siri, are you hurt honey?

Please drop me a note or comment if you have advanced beyond level 65. I would love to check out your tanks and drool about your achievement.

Fish Name	Category	Recommend	Buy	*Sell	**Bonus	Mature
Electric Eel (Lev65)	High Level	Best Farm - High Level	75,000	112,500	22,500	4days
Great White Shark(Lev80)	High Level	Farm - Alternative	150,000	202,500	40,500	8days

Notes

*Sell: By default you need to keep you fishes fed and the tank clean before you can sell your fish with the full adult price, assuming you are selling each one individually. If you sell all the fishes in the tank at once, you will lose 15% of the total price for the convenient fee. In the beginning, you are trying go earn coins as much as you can so selling fishes individually is a better approach. If you are farming with a lot of tanks, selling a tank-full of fishes at once would be a necessary approach because you won't have time to click on each fish and sell them.

** Bonus: If you change the background of your tank (plenty of standard wall papers for free), buy 8 decorations:Tank Basics:starfishes (50 coins each), and buy 8 plants: Tiered Elestos (65 coins each), you will increase the fishes happiness to 93%. When you sell your fishes at least 91% happiness, you will earn 20% bonus on top of the selling price. The 20% bonus doesn't seem much when you farm the cheap fishes; but it will be appearance when you deal with expensive fishes such as the Royal Grammas as shown in the photo. Also, if you are on a tight budget, like me initially, you can just keep your starfishes and plants in “Inventory” and only add them to the tank before selling the fishes, then put them back to “inventory” afterward. Hence, you can share the cost among all of your tanks. Wish I can do that to replace my shoes collection :)

2 Revive or NOT 2 Revive

I am so angry right now... probably need to play some Angry Birds games to relieve my anxiety. Nah, I’m just going to blog my anger.

Anyhow, I have been farming the White Grrrrrrrrrunts for many days already. The strategy is that I just drop the eggs and come back a day later to sell the Grunts without having to spend time feeding them (I have 40+ tanks of them). Based on the official rule, the fishes should survive 48 hours without feeding. Well, apparently that is no longer true. I just found them all belly-up within just 1 day for not feeding.

Tapping on a dead fish will give me the option to “revive all of my dead fishes” in a tank for 1 fish buck or flush them for free. Another option is for me to get my neighbor to revive the fishes for me for free. The catch is that they only allow a neighbor to revive 1 fish at a time, and can only revive a max of 3 fishes per day or so. We are talking about 40+ tanks of 50 fishes here. I am not good in the math thingy; but that is more fishes than my fingers and toes combined…. So the verdict is that I will just FLUSH them all.

Why flushed them all and wasted so many coins (millions) while I can just revive them all for just a few fish bucks? I will go into detail about the value of coins vs. fish bucks in a later post. The short answer is that coins are MUCH easier to earn; but fish bucks are RARE commodities in this game.

Well, I am feeling better now… time to go drop some eggs :)

Getting Started

Tap Fish is a great game if you like fishes but don't have the resources and patient to maintain an aquarium. Why would one settle for a few aquariums when you can effortlessly acquire 80 of them? With a little creativity, you can personalize a whole ecosystem at your finger tips.

After four busy weeks at tapping and scratching my head, I finally get the hang of the game. Currently, I am at level 51 thus earning enough experience to blog for anyone who would like to follow my adventure (or perhaps avoiding the pitfall).

Enough talk, take out your phone and let's get started now. Tap Fish should be available on both iOS App Store and Android Market. Yes, people use smart phone to do dumb things. I am one of them :)