My game is now on the App Store. Today I’d like to introduce Shrimprium, the small game I made.
0. Overview
I’m an engineer working in refrigeration, HVAC and building energy modeling.
When I happened to start keeping shrimp one day, I wanted to turn that complex ecosystem into a game grounded in engineering. Shrimprium is the result.
Shrimp, ecosystems, energy models, famous paintings, jazz, pixel art and a touch of melancholy. So much of my own taste went into it that it has become a slightly eccentric game.
To be honest, I don’t expect it to be loved by many people. There are plenty of games out there that are flashier, faster and more thrilling.
But even if this game is quietly forgotten and fades away, I’m already more than satisfied.
Because I’ve completed a world filled with the things I love.
Today, I’d like to introduce that small world.
1. Why is a shrimp tank fun?
Many idle games simplify reality to turn it into a game. And players eventually find the most efficient strategy: the optimal production route, the optimal upgrade order, the optimal walkthrough.
A shrimp tank is a little different.
Of course, with experience you can get better at raising shrimp.
But life doesn’t follow the walkthrough.
The water temperature shifts slightly, the plants grow a little more, the bacteria settle in a little late, and the microalgae spread faster than expected.
Even in a small tank, countless living things live together, influencing one another.
Shrimp, plants, bacteria and microalgae.
Their balance makes the tank, and that balance sets the difficulty of the game.
2. The player sets the difficulty
While making the game, I deliberately chose not to fix its difficulty.
Nature, after all, never sets a difficulty level.
Instead, I let the player’s choices decide it.
Cycle the water properly, add shrimp slowly and build a stable ecosystem, and this becomes a calm, relaxing game.
Get greedy and add lots of shrimp, or leave the water quality to fall out of balance, and it becomes a fairly challenging ecosystem simulation.
What kind of tank you build is up to you.
3. But the shrimp never die
Reality can be harsh. When water quality collapses, the shrimp’s lives are at risk.
I didn’t want to give players that experience in a game, though.
So the shrimp in Shrimprium never die.
When their condition worsens, they go to the hospital for treatment.
The player gets a chance to change the water, restore the ecosystem and bring back its balance.
I wanted failure to be not an ending, but part of learning.
4. There are some strange things, too
The game is based on real shrimp tanks, but it doesn’t pursue realism alone.
There are platform blocks for the shrimp to play on, logic blocks with special functions, and even a black hole whose reason for existing I can’t quite explain myself.
At some point, the game stopped being just an aquarium simulator and became a small toy box of the things I love to imagine.
5. A tank for the night
Shrimprium has no particular goal.
You don’t need to rank first, and you don’t need to grow fast.
Instead, you can simply watch the tank in quiet.
Plants sway in the current, light glimmers along the surface, and shrimp walk slowly across the bottom.
Jazz I love plays in the background, and scenes inspired by famous paintings sit behind the tank.
If you’d also like to step away from a busy day for a moment and gaze into a quiet tank, come and visit Shrimprium.
Inside, you’ll find small shrimp, a small ecosystem and the things I have loved.