This game has 27 reported Temporal Dark Patterns. There are 6 votes indicating the absense of a dark pattern.
This game has 32 reported Monetary Dark Patterns. There are 17 votes indicating the absense of a dark pattern.
This game has 5 reported Social Dark Patterns. There are 16 votes indicating the absense of a dark pattern.
This game has 21 reported Psychological Dark Patterns. There are 13 votes indicating the absense of a dark pattern.
iOS: | (4.50) with 35,938 votes. |
you get certain fish or achievements only at certain (late) times of day
the event component makes it impossible to stop playing without feeling like you're missing out somehow
the coral you take care of says nice things to you that make you want to "escape" the real world into this game, and also all the fish are really adorable and cute and do hearts when you tap them, making you want to tap more
The bundles are listed first, and there's a ton of them
there's entire collection and achievement screens dedicated to making you want to fill them out
there are tons of badges and achievements you can get by having a certain amount of different fish, often with at least one premium (event-locked or in-game currency locked) fish included
Every time you get a new fish, the amount to buy another goes up, so you have to upgrade power-ups in order to keep up with the costs. Leveling up costs in game currency that you can get for free, but not at a good enough rate to avoid the desire to buy more in-game currency
If you miss an event, you can pay to have a chance to get a fish from that event
There is a subscription you can buy
the buttons to go to different parts of the app and buttons to purchase something are identical, and interspersed together. Now they even will suddenly do a pop-up for a very expensive fish you can buy after tapping a power-up button that you usually do by tapping multiple times, quickly, with the purchase button partially on top of where you would have been tapping. Your only safeguard is the app store confirmation screen.