Rulebooks/Fishing
Rulebook 04 · Sorting puzzle
How to play a fishing game
A tidy sorting puzzle set along a row of fish tanks. Each tank holds a stack of mixed fish, and you move the top fish from one tank to another, one at a time, until every tank holds only a single kind. A fish can only land on a matching fish or in an empty tank. It looks simple and turns pleasantly knotty — the whole game is working out the order to unstack them in.
- Game type
- Casual sorting and stacking-logic puzzle, single player
- One board
- One to three minutes, entirely untimed
- Input
- Tap a tank to lift its top fish, tap another to drop it
- Attention
- Planning, not speed; the board never moves on its own
- Progress
- Boards solved and moves used, shown in-game only
What is on the screen
A row of tanks stands across the screen, usually five to seven of them, each a vertical stack of coloured fish. One or two tanks start empty and act as your working space. Only the top fish in any tank can be picked up, and it can only be placed on a fish of the same kind or into a tank that is empty. A small move counter tracks how many fish you have moved.
There is no timer and nothing to react to. Every board is a fixed arrangement with at least one solution, so a board that feels stuck is a board whose order needs rethinking, not one you have broken.
Sorting a board from scratch
Seven steps, in the order the game presents them.
- 1
Count the kinds before you move anything
Look across the tanks and count how many kinds of fish there are and roughly where each is buried. A quick census tells you which tank is nearly sorted already and which is the tangled one to leave for last.
- 2
Move only the top fish
Tap a tank to lift its top fish, then tap a destination to drop it. You can never reach a fish that is buried; the only way to it is to move the fish above it somewhere sensible first.
- 3
Respect the matching rule
A fish will only settle on a fish of its own kind or into an empty tank. If you tap a destination whose top fish does not match, the move is simply refused and nothing is spent.
- 4
Guard your empty tank
The empty tank is your only free space, so treat it as precious. Use it to hold a fish you must move out of the way, but try to empty it again soon rather than filling it with a fish you cannot easily place next.
- 5
Finish a colour once you start it
When you begin gathering one kind into a tank, try to complete it before opening up another. Half-sorted tanks everywhere is how a board locks up; one finished tank frees space for the rest.
- 6
Do not bury a fish you will want soon
Before dropping a fish, check you are not covering one you will need to reach in a move or two. The most common tangle is stacking the wrong fish on top of a colour you were about to gather.
- 7
Solve when every tank is one kind
The board is solved when each tank holds a single kind of fish or is empty. It then loads the next arrangement. Nothing carries over except which boards you have sorted and your best move counts.
Controls
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap a tank | Lifts its top fish, ready to place. |
| Tap a destination | Drops the lifted fish there, if the top fish matches or the tank is empty. |
| Undo | Steps back your last move. Unlimited on most builds. |
| Reset | Returns the board to its opening arrangement to try a different order. |
| Add-tank | Gives one extra empty tank as working space; a rare, optional help. |
What a session feels like
Pacing
Calm and satisfying, like tidying a shelf. Nothing hurries you, so a session is a run of small, quiet decisions with a neat finished board at the end of each. It is easy to play one tank-load and stop, and just as easy to solve five in a row without noticing.
Because each board is self-contained and untimed, stopping mid-board costs nothing — the arrangement stays exactly where you left it, and a board you cannot crack simply resets unchanged.
Pointers for a first hour
- Keep an empty tank as long as you can. Free space is the whole game; a board with no empty tank is a board with no moves.
- Finish the colour you have started. One completed tank opens room for everything else; several half-done ones lock the board.
- Look one or two moves ahead. Check you are not about to bury a fish you will need before you drop it.
- Start with the nearly-sorted tank. Clearing an easy one early usually hands you the free space to untangle a hard one.
- Undo freely. Trying an order and stepping it back is the intended way to play, and it costs nothing.
- There is no clock. The only budget is your own patience; take the time to see the whole board before moving.
Quick Play Notes is a reference site. This page describes a fish-sorting puzzle from our own play; the move counter it mentions is a display number inside the game and means nothing outside it. We have no commercial relationship with any game's publisher, and the game is named solely to identify what this page explains.