Overview: Fish Wrangler is a simple collection game similar in style to MouseHunt – you improve your poles and bait, but the actual gameplay involves automated “catches” or occasional manual clicks. It’s a pleasant game to occasionally check on, and the various quests and special fish are fun goals to aim for.

For the first two tutorial sections, the “Fish Now” timer, eventually fifteen minutes, is only a few seconds. This allows you to get a feel for the game and read through all the tutorial tips in one sitting, instead of waiting hours to get enough casts in. The game is really very simple, though – you choose your pole, choose your bait, and click “Fish Now” to catch something, or just wait for your deckands to do all the work. As long as you open up the game at least once a day, you’ll continue catching fish.

The fish themselves are hilarious, and catching all of them is the best part. The Hippie Fish is a personal favorite of this reviewer, who swears it’s native to Austin. Each fish requires a particular pole, skill, and/or chum to catch, so there isn’t necessarily a “best” of any of these – it’s a strategic choice depending on what you’re looking to catch. As you use a given pole, it “levels up” as well, so a trusty but lower-tech pole may actually serve better than a shiny new one.

All that said, Fish Wrangler is intended to be a passive game that you only need to check on occasionally, and the gameplay very much reflects that. It’s perfect if you’re looking for an occasional amusement – it may be unsatisfying if you want a more interactive game. One very neat thing Fish Wrangler does, though, is choose a Charity of the Month, running events and generally drawing attention to worthy causes. Many of them are fish- or ocean-related, and now is certainly a good time to be supporting that sort of organization.