If you're looking for a management sim that's a bit on the lighter side, you could certainly do worse than Megaquarium. Twice Circled's aquarium construction sim is all about building oceanic attractions and filling them with weird and wonderful sea life.
The base game released eight years ago, but Twice Circled has updated it consistently since then. Indeed, its next update is one of the biggest yet, built to splash down alongside a new expansion that's all about underwater invertebrates.
The free update is so substantial that Twice Circled detailed it in two separate blog posts. The first of these focussed on UI improvements, detailing adjustments like an improved search function and a tank capacity icon that helps players predict when a given fishtank will become full as the animals inside it grow.
The second post delved deeper into changes to how Megaquarium plays. There are a bunch of more specific features that we'll get into. But the most significant change for new or lapsed players is a revamp to the game's campaign:
"I've learned a lot over the years about what makes a good Megaquarium campaign," writes Twice Circled's director Tim Wicksteed. "With that in mind, I went back and polished up the original base game campaign to make everything run as smoothly as possible."
Improvements to the campaign include smoother progression that requires less repeated researching of animals and equipment, greater animal availability inside objectives, and tweaked research costs and prestige requirements for better pacing. "In summary: it's the same campaign—only better!" Wicksteed writes.
Alongside this, the update will add improved priority options for staff to help you streamline your aquarium's workflow, better backpacks to help staff restock tanks, gift shop shelves and other resources, and the ability to place lights on any tank. It also specifically overhauls the calcium resource, transforming it from essentially a buff into "a hard requirement for animals that need it."
This latter change ties into the new stuff coming in Megaquarium's Invertebrilliant Collection DLC, which adds a host of spineless lifeforms to your collection such as a wide array of new corals. It also greatly expands the kinds of fishtank you can place in your oceanic zoo, adding underfoot floor tanks, bulbous magnifying tanks, and w i d e vista tanks.
Both the update and the DLC will arrive on February 25. How successful the changes will be remains to be seen, but Megaquarium was already a cracking management sim when it released, as Philippa Warr explained in her Megaquarium review. "Megaquarium is a game of wonderful tinkering. Hours drifted by as I expanded my floorplan, placed new tanks, fiddled with pumps and filters, tweaked temperatures, and generally tried to keep both fish and visitors happy."
