Frantic Fish – Definitely fishy.

Frantic Fish has many die-hard fans, and if you want to be one of them you’d better head over to Gamesville! This game is a cross between bingo and slots, and if you couldn’t guess by the name, it has a beachy theme. ^_^

 

Aloha!

 

In each game you have 4 minutes and 20 “spins” to score as many points as you can. On each spin you’ll get five fish with numbers one them, and one bonus item. All of these things appear at the top of the board,

 

The first five fish are directly above columns of numbered shells. Each shell randomly contains a number between 1 and 75, and the fish are numbered in that range too. However!  The numbered fish can only be matched to shells in the column directly below them!

 

Dangit. :(

 

To “match” a fish to a shell, just click on the fish and drag it to the shell. Keep matching fish each round and try to make as many bingo lines as you can. A bingo line is five fish-covered shells in a row, column, or diagonally. Each bingo line is worth 1,000 points!

 

Fish-o!

 

That takes care of the first five fish. The sixth spot is a random bonus, and you’ll get one of three things.

 

Item	Purpose
Random # Fish	It’s like a regular fish, except you can place it on ANY shell with that number!
Wild Fish	Place it on ANY shell for an instant match!
Coin	+1000 points to your score. Woohoo!

 

Pretty cool, huh? Unfortunately, the randomly numbered fish doesn’t always have a match on the board. Sadness. :(

 

But the Wild Fish is awesome! I love it. ^_^

 

Frantic Fish also has an awesome feature called “Auto Daub.” With auto daub on, the first 5 fish will automatically find their matches on each spin! You’ll need to take care of any bonus fish yourself, but with auto daub you have less to worry about. Woohooo!

 

Scoring & Rewards

Scoring is really simple. You get 200 points for every matched fish and both coins and bingo lines are worth 1,000 points. See? Easy. ^_^

 

The rewards are a little more complicated. Here are the current payouts.

 

1 Gold Coin	5 GVs
1 Bingo Line	10 GVs
Be in the Top 5 when the game ends	250 GVs & 5 entries
Be the #1 player when the game ends	250 GVs & 20 entries

 

Basically, you REALLY want to be one of the Top 5 players when the game ends! The entries are for a daily $25 drawing. This particular drawing is unique to Frantic Fish, and you cannot earn entries through other games! Really! You can’t buy entries with GVs either.

 

It’s pretty tough to get into the Top 5, so you’d better bring your A game and bribe lady luck.

 

Tips & Tricks

First things first. Turn auto daub ON! This will save you a lot of frustration down the road.

Secondly, keep an eye on your board and plan where you would place a Wild Fish. You want to make as many bingo lines as possible, so look for lines that are the closest to being finished. For example, a line with 3-4 fish already in it. ^_^

If the game has barely begun and you have few (or no) fish on the board, well, you have three options.

1. Start using the diagonals to build an X across the board. This distributes the fish and opens possibilities for more bingos.
2. Look for shells with duplicate numbers and cover one (or more) of them with a Wild Fish. Why? Well imagine that you have two #12 shells on the board. If you’re lucky you *might* get a bonus #12 fish that you can place anywhere, but it’s unlikely that you’ll get two bonus #12 fishies.
3. Close your eyes and pick randomly. Don’t look at me like that! Random can be fun. ^_^

Frantic Fish can turn upside down within seconds. I’ve had games where I was in the Top 5 for 10+ rounds and then stalled out at the end, and I’ve had one game where I joined on round 8 and somehow managed to make it into the Top 5. o_O

But most of the time I end up with a moderately covered board and no Top 5 title to make me happy.

Carp!

 

Final Ranting Rating

Many Gamesvillians LOVE Frantic Fish, but uh, I’m not one of them. *^_^* It kind of surprised me, because Slingo Classic is one of my favorite games, and Frantic Fish is a lot like it. I don’t want to delve into a full-out rant, but… well…. 

Get comfy.

Okay, here’s my BIG problem with Frantic Fish: If I play with auto daub on, I only have to worry about the bonus fish. This means I have 10 seconds to place one fish, and most of the time I either get a number I can’t use or a coin. I have nothing to do! Even 10 seconds feels like a loooooooong time if you’re just sitting there waiting for the timer to run out, and it’s not uncommon to sit there for 4+ rounds in a row with absolutely nothing going on.

On the other hand, with auto daub off, I have 10 seconds to scan and place 5-6 fish. No matter how hard I try, I can never do it fast enough. Since I automatically scan from the left to the right, this means I frequently miss out on the bonus fish. It’s extremely frustrating to realize you missed a fish. >_<

The reason there’s so much down time in Frantic Fish compared to Slingo Classic, is because it’s working with a larger pool. In Frantic Fish, every shell picks a number between 1 and 75. With Slingo Classic the columns divide the numbers into groups of 15, and nothing repeats.  (Column A ranges from #1-15. Column B ranges from #16-30, and so on.)

What this means is that you have vastly different odds of actually spinning something that you can use. Let’s focus on just the first column. With Frantic Fish, you have a 7% chance of spinning a match on the first spin. (5 out of 75.)

Slingo Classic has bonus pieces that you can pick up in the spins so the numbers are a little different, but for the first column you have a 32% chance of spinning a match on the first spin. (6 out of 19. Don’t ask, but it’s right.)

Slingo Classic doesn’t have auto daub, but it’s easier to find matches because I’m working with a smaller pool of numbers per row. It’s a quick pace but I never have trouble keeping up with it. Conversely, in Frantic Fish I often sit around and wonder if auto daub is working because nothing is happening. Seriously!

Also, the rewards are pretty shoddy. Unless you’re in the Top 5 you probably won’t get many GVs. (I usually picked up 30-50 GVs per game.) Oh, and good luck on getting in the Top 5, because you’re competing against everyone playing Frantic Fish at that moment. They take all of the players in all of the rooms and arrange the high scores through that.

Gamesville does this with most of their games, but Frantic Fish is the only one where getting in the Top 5 really matters. Remember, in order to get entries into the Frantic Fish $25 daily drawing, you must get into the Top 5 at least once! There’s no other way to get entries.

A game that has me yo-yoing between boredom and frustration is not a winner for me. I love the crew at Gamesville, but Frantic Fish is a stinker in my book. :(

2 stars out of 5.

Are you one of the rabid fans? Tell me why you like (or dislike) Frantic Fish! What would you have rated it? ^_^

 

Similar Games

If you like Frantic Fish, be sure to try some of these games too!

• Slingo Classic at Slingo – An exciting cross between bingo and slots! But you already knew that.
• Lottso Express at Pogo – Here we cross bingo with scratchcards! It’s really fun. ^_^
• Bingo Bash at Winster – Work together with your teammates to complete bingo patterns!

CLUE:Secrets & Spies - The first hit is free!

My mother-in-law loves hidden-object games. One day as she was playing, I pulled up a chair to chat and see if I could find any objects too. Well, I got hooked. Later that night I downloaded the same game and spent hours playing!! Now it's our "thing," where we'll find a new hidden-object game and play it together. Yeah, my MIL is awesome. ^_^

So I was thrilled when I saw that Pogo *finally* had a hidden-object game available! CLUE: Secrets & Spies is the first ever hidden-object game on Pogo, and hopefully there will be more in the future! (Here on out the game is abbreviated as CLUE:SS.) 

CLUE:SS has nothing to do with the CLUE board game. Instead, you're a spy looking for clues about another spy, or something like that. The game is broken into episodes, with each episode featuring 5 hidden-object rounds plus a final spot-the-differences round. Each episode has a time limit of an hour. I finished the first episode in 7 minutes, so you have PLENTY of time.

Ooohhh... Looks technical!

The first episode is available for free. The rest... well, more on that later. ^_^

For "The Mole in Morocco," your 5 destinations are Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Casablanca, and New York.

Next up on CSI:International...

You can pick any city you want, other than New York. In order to play New York you have to find the night-vision goggles, which are hidden in another city.

If you've never played a hidden-object game, prepare to be amazed! (Click on the pic for full detail.)

Ahh.. Venice is so beautiful this time of year!

Inside this gorgeous picture are 10+ objects for you to find. (They're listed on the left.) Items can be hidden anywhere on the photo. Check patterns in clothing and wallpapers if you get stuck!

Istanbul was Constantinople. 

Some items have double (or triple!) meanings. For example, a bow might be a ribbon, bow tie, or even a violin bow! Keep your eyes open and stretch your mind!

Here's looking at you, kid.

Come across an item you've never heard of? Pause the game by clicking MAP, then do a search on Google Images so you have an idea of what to look for.

I spy with my little eye... A button!

If you get stuck, click on the CLUE button. A gigantic glowy ring will replace your cursor and help you locate one of the items on your list. But uh, the gigantic glowy ring isn't very specific. Prepare for mass clicking.

Once you find the night vision goggles you can head to New York. This room is completely dark and the goggles turn your cursor into a flashlight. Move your cursor around to illuminate the room and find the objects!

Gah. I hate dark rooms!

There are mannequins in the room, so don't freak out when you see them. ^_^

Personally, I dislike dark rooms. I want to see the whole picture and not be forced to stare at a little bit at a time. Bleh.

Once you've finished all 5 hidden-object boards, you move to the final challenge: a spot-the-differences board.

Uhhh.....

Here you have to find 15 differences between the two pictures. Your cursor doubles, so that you move across both pictures at the same time. It sounds confusing, but it helps. ^_^

The differences are often very, very small. Don't be afraid to use that CLUE button!

I don't like find-the-differences games, as they give me a headache. But they're a staple of this genre. Booooo. :(

If you finish the episode before the hour is up, you earn a jackpot spin! Pogo features progressive jackpots that max out at $4,999. It's incredibly unlikely that you will win the JP, but you'll still pick up bonus tokens, so it isn't a total waste. ^_^

Tips & Tricks

When a game screen loads a message pops up to remind you of the time limit. There's a checkbox in the corner that hides the message for the rest of the game. DO NOT HIDE IT!!! While it's up on the screen the timer is stopped, and it's transparent to boot. This gives you a great chance to look for items on the list before the timer starts!

Completing an episode without using any hints gives a 100 token bonus, but ONLY for the first time you play the episode. (More on that in a bit.) I like a challenging game, but when it swings to frustration I'll use a hint. Games are supposed to be fun. ^_^

If you have trouble seeing some of the darker boards, try adjusting the contrast or brightness on your monitor. More tips and suggestions can be found at BadgeHungry, a fantastic Pogo fan site!

Rant Time

I really liked this game. But the way Pogo released it just infuriates me. Why am I so mad? Well the reason I titled this post, "CLUE: Secrets & Spies - The first hit is free!" is because you can play one episode for free. After that, you gotta pay!

Follow the math here. You buy additional episodes with Pogo Gems. Each episode costs 40 gems. Currently there are 6 buyable episodes, so that's 240 gems. Gems come in several package sizes, but the absolute cheapest way to get 240 gems costs 15 dollars. That's a whopping $2.50 per episode. (Keep in mind that the one free episode took me less than 10 minutes to complete, AND they're hoping to release new episodes in the future.)

A year subscription to Pogo is $39.99, which is nearly half the cost of this one game right there. But even members don't get CLUE:SS for free! They get a 2nd episode for free and then a 50% discount on the other episodes. That's still $7 for an unfinished game.

As previously mentioned, I've played many, many hidden-object games with my mother-in-law. So I have a pretty good idea how much these games cost. My favorite series is Big City Adventure, and you can buy a full game for $7 at Big Fish Games. That $7 covers a game so massive that it takes my MIL and I at least 20 hours to go through it all.

If you think the episodes might be worth buying so you can replay for tokens, they aren't. When I played the first episode again I got this lovely message.

WHAT?!?!?!

Unfortunately, they're serious. If you play the same episode over you will earn 1/10th of the tokens. Sure, the game is a little easier when you've played it a few times, but they should find a better way to balance the tokens!

I'm not against Pogo making money. They are a business and I understand that. But I am strongly against ripping customers off, and that's exactly what they're doing here. New episodes should cost $1 at the most and become cheaper over time.


Final Rating

Ugh. I don't think I've ever been so torn. The game itself is good, but the way Pogo is selling it is a complete turn off.

The hidden-object boards are well done. They aren't a bunch of random objects thrown together, which is nice. The plot isn't a big deal to me, but I'm glad it doesn't take up a lot of game time. Simple = good.

What I got to play is honestly a 5 star game. But I'm deducting 2 stars for Pogo being skeezy. My blog, my rules. ^_^

3 stars out of 5.