Youda Fisherman

Youda Fisherman review by Honorabili

One Sentence Review:
“A really fun RTS economy management flash game for people of all ages”

Overall Score:
8 out of 10

Overview & Fun Factor:

Youda’s Fisherman game is about you taking control of a failing fishing company and turning it around. The game is kind of silly as you have to control your fishing boats, while managing the selling and trading resources to keep your company afloat, while you battle pirates (Nigeria anyone?) and mother nature (sharks, whales, and storms). The game is a lot of fun because it requires so much micromanagement that it won’t even let you look away. There’s pretty much always something for you to activate or ship, while the computer attacks you. You have to complete different maps/levels which all have a time limit. You can either get a gold, silver, or bronze medal and the better the medal the more the rewards you’ll get from completing that map. You in turn use those rewards to research better fishing, manufacturing, and transportation technologies which you can use to complete missions faster and are eventually needed to complete all maps while getting all gold medals. You get both technologies and passive improvements which increase the amount of money you get for goods and other factors as you rebuild the corporate headquarters and infrastructure of the fishing company.

There are many different resources for you to manage in the game’s economy such as fuel, wood, gold (money), metal, as well as all the raw goods, which you turn into products. Some of those products require other raw goods that must be purchased only and cannot be produced by any of the buildings, such as olives, tomatoes, chili peppers, silver rings, etc. This game is all about resource and time management as well as reflexes.

I was surprised as to how hectic this game gets but in a good way. It will keep you on your toes because of the constant ticking of the clock that you are fighting against. Each map has its own strategy and the top concern is to keep your eye on the objectives. Sure, you might build up a super manufacture infrastructure but if you are already getting a bronze medal your rewards will be marginal.

I give this game a score of 8 out of 10 in Fun Factor because it kept me entertained for the 12-14 hours it took me to beat it and it can be fun enough that it can be addictive enough to make you want to keep progressing through the levels as fast as possible.

Difficulty, Difficulty Versatility, & Replayability:

For a casual gamer, this would be a challenging but beatable game. I play a lot of competitive RTS games so I found the game easy but then again this game targets the casual gamer audience. There is no way to make the game harder so that will affect replayability in the future. I will probably play this game in a year or so since the missions are always the same, rather than randomly generated. For casual gamers I’d give the game a difficulty a score of 8 out of 10. For more hardcore gamers I’d give the difficulty a score of 6 out of 10. Difficulty Versatility I give a score of 5 out of 10 because the difficulty stays just about the same throughout the game and rare gets harder, as well as you not being able to adjust it. The only difficulty really is trying to get gold medals on every map and even then eventually you will be able to do it if you go back and play old missions once you unlock everything in the research tree. Because of these factors I give the game a Replayability score of 5 out of 10. Not much of a challenge but I do like this game so I might play it even after I beat it over and over.

Value:

The game is usually sold directly by Youda Games through their website at this link for $9.95 US Dollars. I beat the game playing nonstop in about 12-14 hours. Considering that’s more gameplay hours that are actually fun versus me playing some much more popular games which only lasted me 4-5 hours (like Fallout 3) and were much more expensive, I think it’s a great value for ten dollars. If you have children and would like to enhance their micromanagement RTS skills, then this is a really great starter game for that. If you’re new to RTS games yourself, this is a great game to practice and learn with. I give the Value category a score of 9 out of 10.

Sound:

The sounds are well made and are an integral part of the gameplay. There is a lot going on in this game and audio ques are extremely important. You literally will be clicking on units and products constantly and it’s important to know when you are under attack, a unit needs maintenance, etc. All the sounds for every action are easily identified after a short amount of playing the game and they do their job right. The samples are quite good for such a small game. I give sound a score of 9 out of 10.

Music:

The music fits the theme of the game really well. It’s not as memorable as say the music in Plants vs Zombies or Angry Birds but it does have nice calm tunes for a nice family game. I give the music a score of 8 out of 10.

Stability/Reliability:

No crashes or complaints here, not even when multitalking and doing alt tab a lot, on Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate edition. I give stability a score of 10 out of 10.

Controls:

You only need a mouse to play this game. It’s really simple and that’s something that makes it great and easy for anybody to play. Simple controls are always a good thing. Controls get a score of 10 out of 10.

Graphics & Performance:

This game can run on any PC. Even a netbook should be able to run it. Performance gets a score of 10 out of 10.

The Graphics are nice and polished for a flash game. The boats look like real fishing boats and animals such as the shark and whale look cute and funny (especially when you smack them out of the water). I didn’t like the rendered non-animated cut scenes that would give you plot information that much. I thought they looked really cheesy and dated. Graphics get a score of 8 out of 10.

Conclusion:

If you want a fun RTS economy simulator that will run on any computer, get this game. If you are new or old to RTS games, you will most likely enjoy the level of micromanagement this game offers. I strongly recommend its purchase.

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