Drawquarium has launched on Steam, offering a welcoming home for everything from lovingly painted fish to whatever happens when you attempt one with a mouse. Solo developer byKaleb and publisher rokaplay’s aquarium sandbox is available now on Windows PC, with a free demo if you want to test the waters first.
The idea is straightforward: draw your own fish and watch them become little living residents of an aquarium. You can feed and raise them, introduce new companions and see relationships develop, including friendships, rivalries and the occasional arrival of baby fish. Apparently even the aquatic doodles have a more complicated social calendar than the rest of us.
There are ready-made creatures and templates for anyone whose artistic ambitions tend to exceed their actual drawing ability. The tools are deliberately simple, and players can also import PNG artwork made elsewhere, which gives you a route to bring in your own creations without doing everything inside the game’s editor.
Your designs are not limited to the fish either. Plants and decorations can be drawn and placed around the tank, with golden fish scales unlocking more tools and ways to personalise the space. Changes to the sand, lighting and other decorative elements let you shape the whole aquarium rather than just filling it with residents.
Desktop Wallpaper Mode is the particularly tempting extra for anyone who spends their day staring at a computer. It keeps the aquarium visible while you work and lets you interact with its inhabitants, while a journal, task manager and timer offer a little structure alongside the fish. The developer also points out that Wallpaper Mode’s Sleep Mode settings can reduce graphics quality when the aquarium is running behind another application.
Drawquarium costs £7.99 on the UK Steam store at launch, a 20% reduction from its regular £9.99 price. Kaleb specifically recommends trying the free demo before buying, particularly on older hardware, so there is a sensible way to find out whether your PC and your appetite for digital fishkeeping are up to it. The official Steam page has the game and demo, with more detail in the developer’s launch announcement.