At first glance, first-person shooters and fish table games may seem to have very little in common. But in both these genres, players benefit from having good hand-eye coordination and reactions. They also both utilize gamification and gaming elements like score multipliers, and FPS gamers will have experience in recognizing scoring opportunities and how to best trigger those opportunities.
How They Work
Having originated in physical casinos about 20 years ago, fish table games have transitioned to online casinos in recent years. They are generally preferred by players who enjoy some degree of skill in their gambling. Online gaming expert Jovan Milenkovic points to their combination of generous jackpots, interactive gameplay, and arcade features as the main reasons for their popularity.
Skill Or Chance-Based Games?
Although there are still large elements of chance involved in fish casino games, they do combine luck with skill-based elements. Players need to choose the fish they attack and then ensure they hit the fish while tapping or clicking the screen. FPS players typically enjoy games of skill and don’t enjoy games that rely solely on luck.
Hand-Eye Coordination
Hand-eye coordination is the ability of the brain to quickly translate visual information into a physical response. In FPS games, it means recognizing enemies and shooting at them, or identifying threats and blocking or taking cover. In fish casino games, it means spotting fish, identifying which ones make the best targets, and then clicking on them to catch or kill them. FPS games not only require these reactions, but they can actually improve hand-eye coordination in players, which means fish games are a natural outlet for shooter players.
Quick Reflexes
Whereas hand-eye coordination is a coordinated response to visual stimuli, reflexes are automatic reactions. Although reflexes are a part of hand-eye coordination, they are not the same. While careful planning and reliable hand-eye coordination set an FPS gamer up for effective gaming, reflexes enable more rapid deployment of those plans as well as more efficient damage mitigation and damage dealing. Similarly, in fish games, reflexes enable fish casino gamers to quickly react to changing game conditions.
Pressure Gaming
FPS games are pressure-filled. The best players are those who can soak up the pressure and react positively to it. Those who thrive on pressure also do well in fish games as schools of fish can move quickly, and conditions change. When there is money involved, the pressure can be even higher than in a first-person shooter.
Gaming Elements
Elements of fish games are similar to first-person shooters. Multipliers enable players to increase the size of their winnings, and they are offered for killing certain fish. Think of them as the support class of the table game world, whereas the cash fish are the assault classes. FPS gamers know that simply running in guns blazing isn’t the best option in every single fight or every game.
Arcade Style
Games like roulette and blackjack are quite passive. You pick your bet and place your wager, and then sit back. First-person shooters, on the other hand, are a lot more active. Players are directly involved in games, and this is one area where fish games excel at online casinos. They are interactive and dynamic. They also tend to have brighter colours as well as more interesting designs and, even, higher quality audio, all of which appeal to regular gamers.
Popular Fish Games
While they aren’t available on all websites, fish games have become popular with different games launched by some of the best-known casino game makers. Some of the most widely available include:
KA Fish Hunter
KA Fish Hunter is one of a portfolio of fish games from KA Gaming, a Taiwanese game-making studio. The game has a Return To Player ratio of 96%, which means for every $100 of wagers placed, $96 is returned to gamers as winnings. The game has different rooms for different budgets, and it incorporates features like freeze bombs, which freeze all the fish, and are sure to prove popular with gamers.
Fish! Shoot For Cash
Playtech is one of the biggest casino game studios in the world, and it is responsible for Fish! Shoot For Cash. Its RTP is slightly lower, but only just, at 95.8%. As is typical, the player chooses a base cost, which is how much each shot will cost. Interesting features include a bonus chest that transports players to a bonus game when they shoot it open, and a bomb that kills all fish near it.
Fish Catch
Fish Catch from Real Time Gaming has a 96% RTP and offers similar mechanics to other fish games, except that the fish display a health bar so you know how many more shots it is going to take to take down your quarry.
Fish Game Tips
Although different games do have slightly different rules, bonuses, and features, they all share the same basic principle. Shoot fish to build your prize, and enhance your prize pot by shooting multiplier fish. Experience is the best way to get better, as is true with first-person shooters, but there are some general tips you can follow to help improve your chances of winning.
Know The Rules
Before you start playing, get to know the basic rules of this type of game. They are relatively simple. Choose a stake, which is the cost of each shot you fire, and then shoot fish to add money to your prize pot or to unlock multipliers. When you have no more shots left or you opt to stop shooting, the game ends, and you collect any prizes accumulated.
Get To Know Individual Features And Bonuses
In the same way different shooters have different layouts and features, from 2D shooters to VR, every fish game is a little bit different. Some offer the basic features of prize fish and multiplier fish. Others offer extra features like freeze bombs and bombs. Before you start playing any game, learn the bonuses and other features of that game.
Start Small
Start small, and not just in terms of betting small stakes in your first few games. Bigger fish tend to carry bigger prizes, but they also take more shots to kill. Start out with smaller fish. Killing a few means your prizes can still stack up to a decent amount.
Preserve Ammo
Boss fish are big fish that can carry sizeable prizes and big multipliers, but they take a lot of shots to kill. If you want to have a hope of taking one down, you will need to conserve ammo as you play through and kill the smaller fish. Think of it like saving your grenades and special weapons during a first-person shooter level to take on the end-of-level boss.
Conclusion
Fish casino games have become popular, and they can be found at a lot of online casinos, with different variants, genres, and features available in different games. Their interactive gameplay and arcade-style features make them a popular option, and also mean that regular FPS gamers tend to do especially well playing these games.
