Desktop Fishes

About

Desktop Fishes is a single player casual management game with a economy theme. It was developed by Daniel Santalla and was released on November 13, 2025. It received positive reviews from players.

✨An aquarium right on your screen✨ Fish live on your desktop! Your desktop turns into a cozy aquarium where fish swim over your games, your work, or whatever you’re doing, bringing a gentle and playful vibe to your day. Designed for idle play, Desktop Fishes lets you enjoy a relaxing aquarium experience at your own pace. Your fishes will thrive even when you're busy doing other things ✨✨Fe…

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81%

Audience ScoreBased on 52 reviews

gameplay3 negative mentions

Cute and visually appealing fish with many variations and bouncy physics that make the aquarium lively and enjoyable.
Works well as a chill, minimalistic desktop companion or interactive wallpaper, perfect for background play during work or gaming.
Inclusion of a skill tree and breeding mechanics adds depth beyond typical idle games and enhances engagement.

Lacks meaningful long-term progression and content, with the shop purchasable quickly and limited late-game goals.
Performance issues arise with large fish populations causing lag and low frame rates, especially without effective fish management tools.
Some UI and design flaws including bugs that reset settings, poor scaling on certain monitors, lack of fish management features like selling or sorting, and problematic game-breaking bugs.

gameplay
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
60%
The gameplay is minimal and heavily focused on cosmetics rather than engaging mechanics. While the crossbreeding feature offers some interest, it is unreliable and overshadowed by clunky and frustrating mechanics like poison and the fishbowl system. Overall, the gameplay lacks depth, appealing mainly to those who enjoy the visual aspect of watching fish swim.
- “The crossbreeding mechanic can be interesting, but it's not reliable to get certain fish to eat the food since others can just act first.”
- “Not much gameplay, but love seeing the fish swimming on my screen.”
- “Bare bones game with a big focus on cosmetics with no actual gameplay.”
- “I guess that's why poison exists, but I still think it's an awful mechanic that should be replaced to nets.”
- “And for the record, I am aware of the fishbowl mechanic, but it's clunky to use and adding/removing certain fish is just an eye-spy game.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from noticeable optimization issues, especially with large fish counts and extended playtime, causing lag even in performance mode. While some players experience these problems more due to hardware limitations, overall the optimization could be significantly improved.
- “Skill tree has the same few things just repeated with higher percentage, achievements expect you to keep running this game 1000 hours when the game content is done at around 40h and gets laggy even with the performance mode.”
- “The main one being that the game doesn't really seem particularly well optimized for large fish counts, even with the new performance mode.”
- “Definitely could use some optimization but I don't have the best PC anyway and it's worth the flickers.”
graphics
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The graphics are an improvement over similar games like IdleQuarium, offering better visuals, but the overall experience feels repetitive and lacks engaging content.
story
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The story provides a basic backstory that sets the context for the game, though it may be somewhat minimal or introductory in nature.
grinding
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the grinding experience enjoyable and engaging, especially when focused on repetitive tasks like farming seaweed, with helpful overlays enhancing the process.