Mixing together fishing and aquarium building in an accessible manner is Lured In. Published by the excellent Two Left Thumbs, who have an eye for niche games with great gameplay, I went in excited to see how fishing and tank building could work, and I came away feeling that Lured In isn’t my type of game. That’s because all of Lured In’s gameplay is distilled down to its most basic, casual form. If you are looking for in-depth mechanics, you won’t find them here. If you want a super casual, dip in and out for a few minutes each day experience, then read on!
Lured In is a game of two halves. Fishing requires you to travel to different locations (unlocked in your research skill tree by researchers) to fish or drop pots to catch crabs and prawns. One of the best things about Lured In is that when you go fishing, it’ll select at random from several minigames to catch the fish. Most are quick time events or button mashers, with one being an analogue stick spinner to emulate reeling in a fish. These are simple, but the variety means it’ll take a while to feel burnt out. They are over in 3-8 seconds though, so don’t expect depth. You can take your catches back to your aquarium so long as there is room in your catchbox, and that is one of a few items you can upgrade with cash over the course of the game. All fish have a weight number between 1 and 10, and this applies to tanks as well as your catchbox, so if you can’t fit it in, you’ll need to throw it back in the water.
With fishing done, the rest of the game is spent in your aquarium. There is almost zero management required, except for cleaning the algae off of the tank glass. Your aquarium has dedicated spaces for normal and large tanks, and eventually you’ll have the choice of saltwater and freshwater tanks to place your catches into. Decorations are entirely optional, but they do make the tanks prettier, especially if you intend to use the full screen mode to have a pretty screensaver running. As soon as you place a fish in the tank, it starts generating revenue for you, which is amplified by how many guests are inside the aquarium. Early on, you’ll also buy a researcher, which starts to generate research points to unlock new locations, lures, and a few bonuses.
This is where the management side of things doesn’t quite gel for me. Instead of making a nice aquarium, you simply buy guest attendance limit increases, and it’s automatically fulfilled. Tanks can get revenue boosts by using fish food, which you can pay to boost their potency and boost duration. Everything takes on an incremental structure, but nothing you do truly impacts the guests or their reason to be there. Aside from weight and water type, there’s almost no reason to put certain fish together (aside from some rare synergy bonuses). Your aquarium requires zero additional products like benches, plants, or aesthetics, as they give no tangible benefit to your bottom line. It feels too simplistic for its own good. If you just want to put fish in tanks and watch them swim around the screen with minimal effort, then Lured In has you covered. It does nothing wrong in that regard. I was looking for some more nuance about rules, or having decorations or fish traits mean something. I feel like it’s a missed opportunity.
The developer has said more fish and things to do are coming post-launch. I think that’s wise, as parts of your aquarium are barren and bare because you can’t place tanks manually. It feels like there are parts of your aquarium waiting to be used, so hopefully this is the content and gameplay to come. That also bears out in the ascension system, which feels tacked on. Ascensions restart your aquarium but with money and research multipliers, making the game’s already streamlined gameplay feel like busy work. I’d argue you should ascend twice if you want to play Lured In for an hour at a time, but I only personally ascended once as I dipped in and out to keep things fresh.
I had limited fun with Lured In, but that’s because I wanted more to fiddle and noodle with. If you prefer your aquariums more like a desktop idler with a couple more interactions, this will scratch your itch.
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