Fishdom on Facebook Preview

Playrix Entertainment's flagship Fishdom franchise is going social. The Facebook adaptation of the popular match-3/aquarium sim is slated to hit Facebook in beta on March 5 (thanks to Games.com for the heads-up), with versions planned later on for MySpace and the popular Russian social network Vkontakte as well.

Playrix's President, Products, Igor Bukhman has confirmed that the Facebook version of Fishdom will not be a match-3. Instead, Playrix is pulling out the aquarium simulation part of the original Fishdom and making that the sole focus of the Facebook game, letting players create and care for a fish tank full of colorful tropical creatures, plants and decorative accessories.

(above) Some of the decorations you'll see in the social version of Fishdom.

Players will earn experience points by collecting diamonds that their fish produce when they're happy, by feeding their fish and cleaning their tanks, and buying new fish and decorations.

Some of Fishdom's new social features will include the ability for players to show off their tanks to friends, feed their friends' fish and clean friends' fish tanks (to earn additional diamonds), and visiting other players' tanks.

Playrix also confirmed with Gamezebo that Fishdom will use some form of micro-transactions. Players will be able to purchase unique and exclusive content, such as decorative items, fish and aquarium environments.

The original Fishdom was released in June 2008 as a PC download, and since then has spawned four sequels: Fishdom: Spooky Splash, Fishdom: Harvest Splash, Fishdom: Frosty Splash, and the hidden object game Fishdom H20: Hidden Odyssey.

Click here to take a peek at some additional screenshots and artwork.