The Living Aquarium Update — 125 Fish, Collections, Rewards & More

This is our largest update yet! ARC Aquarium has been expanded with 125 fish species, a permanent collection catalog, new rewards, achievements, redesigned menus, improved performance, and many quality-of-life features.

## 125 Fish to Discover

• Expanded the aquarium from 85 to 125 unique freshwater and saltwater fish species.

• Added individual names, descriptions, prices, growth values, and unlock requirements for every fish.

• Reworked the store so the complete fish catalog loads and displays reliably.

• Added a permanent Collection catalog that records every species you discover.

• Undiscovered fish remain locked in the catalog without revealing their details.

• Added the ability to lock favorite fish.

• Locked fish cannot be sold through the detail panel or by Shift-clicking.

• Improved fish artwork and font support across the complete catalog.

## Breeding, Progression, and Rewards

• Improved breeding support for adult male and female fish of the same species.

• Bred eggs are now correctly tracked through saving, loading, and offline hatching.

• Added a 30-day daily login reward cycle.

• Added 24 in-game achievements covering collecting, breeding, feeding, cleaning, selling, wealth, and level progression.

• Expanded achievement milestones and improved achievement notifications.

• New full-game saves receive a different fish every 15 minutes during the first 105 minutes.

• A special high-level decoration is awarded at the two-hour mark.

• Resetting the game now correctly restarts the introductory reward sequence.

## Economy Rebalance

• Rebalanced fish prices, selling values, EXP requirements, hatch times, and decoration income.

• Fish are now focused on the core buy, raise, breed, and sell gameplay loop.

• Passive income now comes exclusively from decorations.

• Decoration income is displayed more clearly in the store and aquarium interface.

• Existing saves and owned content remain compatible with the new economy.

## A More Lively Aquarium

• Completely rewrote fish swimming, turning, depth movement, and food-seeking behavior.

• Added smoother burst-and-coast swimming for more natural movement.

• Improved fish separation so large groups move more comfortably.

• Improved food targeting and feeding behavior.

• Refined tail animation, bubble movement, bubble timing, and visual effects.

• Improved dirt visuals and aquarium interaction feedback.

• Reduced frame spikes caused by fish movement, feeding, bubbles, and runtime UI updates.

## New Collection and Interface

• Added dedicated Collection, Achievements, Daily Rewards, How to Play, Settings, and Screenshot Sharing dialogs.

• Redesigned the bottom menu with clearer button priorities, consistent sizing, and unified hover effects.

• Moved decoration controls beside the top aquarium HUD for easier access.

• Added consistent headers, close buttons, spacing, and blue scrollbar styling across major dialogs.

• Added Escape-key support to settings, collection, achievements, decoration details, and other applicable dialogs.

• Added a reusable centered confirmation dialog for actions such as resetting the game.

• Improved menu layouts for ultrawide resolutions.

• Added separate music and sound-effect volume controls.

• Added a small FPS counter in the upper-right corner.

• Interface themes now apply consistently to menus, the Collection, sharing tools, and bottom navigation.

• Runtime-created UI now properly respects Chill Mode.

## Login and Loading Experience

• Added a new login screen with Start and Settings buttons.

• Settings can be opened directly over the login screen and closed with Escape.

• Added five randomized aquarium loading backgrounds.

• Added rotating gameplay tips covering feeding, breeding, growth, sickness, and offline progression.

• The loading screen now remains visible for a minimum duration and uses a fully opaque background.

• Fixed loading-screen text material and initialization errors.

## Screenshot Sharing

• Added a dedicated screenshot tool.

• Screenshots hide gameplay UI and capture only the aquarium.

• The ARC Aquarium logo is automatically placed at the top of the captured image.

• Added quick sharing options for popular social platforms and messaging services.

• Improved the sharing dialog layout, button sizes, branding, and theme integration.

## Localization and Accessibility

• Expanded and repaired localization across all 23 supported languages.

• Added translations for the Collection, achievements, rewards, sharing, loading tips, settings, and updated tutorials.

• Improved fallback fonts for Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text.

• Fixed unreadable language dropdown entries.

• Improved text sizing, wrapping, and alignment across the interface.

## Save and Demo Safety

• Added safer atomic save writing, backup recovery, and versioned save migration.

• Full-game and demo saves are now completely independent.

• Playing the demo will no longer overwrite or import progress from the full game.

• Improved demo build safety and full-game upgrade messaging.

• Added reliable catalog loading for both normal and demo builds.

• Added automated build verification for both configurations.

## Additional Fixes

• Fixed overlapping elements in the fish detail panel.

• Fixed store grid sizing for the complete 125-fish catalog.

• Fixed store and Collection scrollbar color inconsistencies.

• Fixed settings not closing correctly from the login screen.

• Fixed decoration details not closing with Escape.

• Fixed reset confirmation dialogs appearing behind the Settings panel.

• Improved toast notifications and removed unwanted colored artifacts.

• Removed unused assets and optimized runtime resource loading.

• Added extensive stability, layout, and performance improvements throughout the game.

Thank you for supporting ARC Aquarium. We hope you enjoy building, growing, and completing your aquarium!

Steam post imageSteam post imageSteam post imageSteam post image