Okay, okay, it’s been more than a week since FishVille first launched. We were just marinating a formal review, that’s all. Frankly, even without a formal critique, the game has seen quite a bit of action, especially with the whole scammy offers fiasco that led to their removal, altogether, from Zynga games. Nonetheless, the game is certainly getting back on track with just under 11.5 million monthly active users as of today.

So what sort of game play earns so many users? Well, a lot of the traffic is in part to cross-promotion and advertisement through other popular Zynga titles such as Mafia Wars or Farmville, but whether or not someone sticks with the game is where design comes into the equation.

FishVille is no different than any other of its ilk, regarding its core premise: Buy fish, decorate tank, sell fish, repeat. So what makes this game so different? What stood out the most to us, and as was mentioned in our recent analysis of multiple virtual aquarium apps, was that the game is just so much better in terms of usability and convenience. Everything is quick loading and simple, items can be viewed in a tank before being purchased (games like Fish World do not let you cancel a transaction it seems), and the store’s menu design doesn’t require users to scroll back and forth through a selection just to go back to a main page (some similar apps utilize a “Go Back” button that is only on the first page or at the top of a category).

Unfortunately, and despite good design, there aren‘t exactly many categories for this design to make use of in the first place. The general lack of categories, means that there is a lack of selection in regards to decorative items. This has often been the case for Zynga games (such as Café World) when they first release. They do eventually add more, but sometimes it does feel like procrastination: “Oh, we’ll just do it later.”

On the plus side, the game integrates the whole leveling concept more with the tasks one must complete every day in game. Other fish games grant experience simply for selling fish or cleaning your own tank. Everything you do in FishVille, on the other hand, earns you some experience; whether it is buying fish, selling them, or decoration. Frankly, the only thing that doesn’t give experience seems to be feeding the fish. Either way, it’s a minor reward that really makes players feel they are accomplishing something. Granted, it isn’t a gifted decorative item or new fish, but if a user feels they are progressing, they are more likely to keep playing.

The game also has greater integration into social play. Beyond simply feeding treats to your friends, players can also help out their neighbors’ tanks by fixing random problems that may occur (such as the tank overheating).

The last point worth touching on is the presentation. The sound effects work, but the music gets very repetitive very quick and tends to end up muted. Visually, the artwork is fantastic. Beautiful and colorful fish and aquatic items liter this game with wonderful vector graphics. However… the praise is quickly killed by the animations. The fish do not feel like fish at all, just cut-outs that dart about. They don’t move like fish; when they turn, you can tell they are flat; their fins don’t move at the rate they are swimming; and when they move up and down they rotate on their center axis, which, more than anything else, completely shatters the fourth wall and any suspension of disbelief.

Okay, so it’s a Facebook game, but a virtual aquarium should still feel like an aquarium in some way. Games take you away from reality, if even for a moment. They take you to their reality, and issues like this completely destroy it.

Nevertheless, FishVille is a well made game at its core. If anything needs to be fixed, it is animation and an increase in the variety of items. It is easily, the most usable of any of the fish titles, which can be accredited to the extensive experience Zynga all ready has. Quite frankly, and despite complaints, with over 9 million users, the company has to be doing something right. Right?