The Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys® Virtual Aquarium (1999)
Developer: KO Interactive, Inc.
Publisher: ValuSoft
Release: 1999
Platform: 
This was the very first Sea-Monkeys® video game, which was developed during the early years of Educational Insights having acquired the brand’s license. This title consists of a simple point-and-click gameplay in which you follow your pet Sea-Monkey as it moves around the six different rooms of its house, during which you fulfill specific requests to keep it alive and happy.
The game was developed by Pennsylvania-based KO Interactive, with programming provided by Singularity Software based in Virginia. Both studios appeared to have been young, and it seems they had a short life in the gaming industry, leaving not much information about them behind.
The game was published by ValuSoft, whose main market was budget & shovelware software. This company eventually went through various acquisitions & mergers throughout the years, with the latest one being Ziggurat Interactive. As per an inquiry made to Ziggurat Interactive a few years back, they confirmed this game is not in their library of acquired titles.
Gameplay Aspects
- The Sea-Monkey’s name can be up to 8 characters long.
- You can only have one active Sea-Monkey at a time. Hatching a new one will overwrite the previous save data.
- You don’t control the Sea-Monkey; it randomly moves about the six areas of the house, which you select with your cursor.
- Simple point & click gameplay; except the outside of the house, which has one intractable object, all other five rooms have two objects you can interact with to fulfill the requests your Sea-Monkey makes to raise its happiness & health.
- The Sea-Monkey can be kept alive for a maximum of 60 real-time days.
- It has a babysitter mode, which decreases the stats by half, but will keep your pet Sea-Monkey alive for a day if you can’t be present to check your pet within a 24-hour period.
- The female & male 3D models are the same, with the female just having an added hairpiece & necklace.
- “Virtual Aquarium” is the game title as it appears in the readme text file.
Game Screenshots
The screenshots are organized in the same order as the rooms are laid out in the game. In the living room and bedroom, one can spot three photo frames that have the three Sea-Monkey characters from The Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys TV series.
Gameplay Video
System Requirements
Pentium processor running at 166 MHz or greater, 75 megabytes of free hard drive space, Microsoft Windows 95/98 Operating System, 16 Megabyte of Memory or greater, 2X CD ROM or greater, Window compatible sound card (for voice overs).
Credits
KO Interactive
Producer & Designer:
Shawn Sullivan
Production Assistant:
Amy Sullivan
Programming:
Singularity Software
Modeling and Animation:
Lonnie Jones
Stephen Møller
Gary Wilson
Sound and Music:
Michael Bross & SoundPlanet
Special Thanks to:
Philip Samson
Joshua Sullivan
