Fishmania Bingo
Bingo bowls look a little like fish bowls when you think about it. Why hasn’t some enterprising developer considered creating a bingo game where the balls are drawn from a fish bowl? Well, now they have. The answer to all your prayers is right here in the form of Fishmania. It’s a simple online casino game that combines bingo with a marine theme. The moment this mobile-compatible game loads in fact you’ll be confronted by a ball containing spinning bingo balls. The effect is strangely mesmerising; don’t stare too long or you could stare your whole life away.
At the top of the board, you can see the paytable laid out in a long strip, starting with a single line on the extreme right and then working up to bingo in the far left, achieved when you’ve filled the 5x3 grid with balls. You’ll be awarded 1,500x your bet for achieving that feat, whereas you’ll earn just 1x for completing a single line. As soon as those lines get more exotic however, forming geometric shapes and running diagonally, the multipliers start to stack up. There’s as much as 40x available if you succeed in creating a 1-line chequerboard effect, filling every other square with a correct number.
Wish for Fish
The amount you’ll be awarded for completing 2 lines starts at 100x and rises from there to 200x by the time you’ve started scoring off some fancier and more complex combos. With the two most valuable wins there’s a Fishmania bonus applied. The second most valuable win is worth 500x your bet and calls for you filling the entire perimeter of your card with correct numbers. That just leaves that maximum possible win of 1,500x your stake.
You play Fishmania with two bingo cards which site central in the screen, while in the background there’s an image which depicts a sub-sea scene. You’ll need to stare closely to make it out and it’s got to be said that it’s a pretty cheap looking image, one which doesn’t serve to enhance the game one jot. It also doesn’t really do the name of the game justice either. Fishmania sounds like it should be a cheery cartoonish game with loads of adorable anthropomorphic fish darting about. Instead you get none of that there.
Reel Em In
The only really fishy touch which characterises this online casino game occurs when you record a win and tiny little orange fish appear alongside your winning lines. The fish look dreary and bored to be there and the graphics are more on a par with those from an old computer game from the early 00s. Because Fishmania has been designed for a mobile audience, the buttons are large and easy to locate, even when jabbing at them with a fat finger on a small screen.
In fact if you’re playing this game on desktop it won’t fill your browser. Instead, it will just remain as a square that doesn’t properly scale as you adjust your browser. There’s a repeat symbol to the left of the two cards. Click on this to start autoplay. This will continue indefinitely or at least until you order it to stop or run out of funds. All the while, you’re treated to a range of in-game sound effects that can charitably be described as basic.
Not a Pretty Sight
The same is true of the animation that’s applied when you click to start and the balls are released into the chute. It’s not a pretty sight, and it doesn’t complement the other elements of this game. If you’re wondering where the controls are for adjusting your bet levels and suchlike, click on the discreet arrow in the bottom left of the screen. Your max bet can be 80 coins, which covers both bingo cards, though you can wager as little as 4 if you like. You can also choose how many bingo cards you want to play with at a time, so although 2 is the default you can go as low as 1 or as high as 4.
Fishmania Conclusion
There’s not a lot that can be said about Fishmania other than that it’s a cool name for a below average game. The name is fine but the execution is poor and it doesn’t tie in with the way the game plays out. There are so many more opportunities for incorporating fishy elements to this game but you get none of that. Instead, this is just regular 1-4 card bingo which plays just like every other online bingo game. Still, on the plus side you can play for free or play for real money, and there are still some healthy amounts to be won.
