After trying out a number of methods, it seems that the best way to start out is to breed and sell the basic plants or fish over and over again until you have enough money to buy the highest caliber of supplies. This does make for a rather dull start to the game, unfortunately. I would love to see a "bank loan" feature added to these games; borrow $10,000 to get started, and then pay it back with interest as time goes on.

You can buy a number of things in both games to increase your sales of plants (fancy fountains for your sale nursery) and fish (ornaments for your sale tank). I haven't found that these items make my buyers pay more for my plants and fish, but they do make more buyers show up at the sale. This means that the plants and fish sell more quickly. Since plants and fish only sell when you're actually in the sale screen, this is very good.

With no sales aids, it can take up to five minutes to sell a full crop. Figure B shows a screenshot from LDW's Web site of a Plant Tycoon nursery, full of people and sold plants.

FIGURE B

Adding sales aids makes your plants and fish sell more quickly. Click picture for a larger image.

The object of both games is to find the magic plants or fish. You do this by crossing two plants or fish with one other. (Not a plant with a fish, though...although that would be a neat experiment!) When the baby grows up, you can see what you've created. You can then cross these new creatures with each other, and so on. The magic fish and plants offer various benefits; such things as increased health and higher prices. (Don't worry, I won't be telling you how to find them--no spoilers here!)

What happens when you find them all? Well, the game tells you that you have succeeded, and then...you're right back into the game. A true simulation, really--the world goes on even though you've found all of the magic items. Whether you choose to continue or start over is up to you. I like to keep going and try to make something specific (a purple plant or a yellow fish with green fins).

There are three different levels of difficulty to the games, so you could start over at a harder level. I've done this, and the only thing that seems to be different is that it takes a lot longer for things to happen. I always play at the easy level now.

When you start a new game, you're given the option of getting help at each stage. I suggest this for at least your first few games, as it does a great job of explaining what to do.

Fishy, fishy
In Fish Tycoon, you breed fish to create new and different fish breeds. There are more than twenty fins and twenty body types available, which combine to make over four hundred different kinds of fish. Interestingly, you can breed fish A to fish B, and then turn right around and breed fish B to fish A. I'm not quite sure this is scientifically valid, but they do make a cool kissing noise when you breed them, so I think it's OK. The sounds can be turned off, which is probably a good idea for checking on your fish at work!

Some of the fish you can create are truly beautiful, while some are merely average looking. They all behave with incredible realism, however. They swim around each other, swim toward the food when you feed them, and even swim behind plants and through a stone arch in the sale tank. Gorgeous!