won the festival's category "Innovation in Game Design". Fan contacted PopCap Games and asked if they would be at GDC 2002. They met up at Fan's finalist booth at the conference. PopCap offered Fan aid in publishing Insaniquarium as a downloadable game, though didn't hire him as Fan was already offered a job at Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard allowed Fan to develop Insaniquarium before working with them, and PopCap Games aided Fan on Insaniquarium for the next two years. Following the start of PopCap Games's aid, Insaniquarium used PopCap Games Framework as its engine. Fan designed and programmed a majority of the game along with drawing its concept art and composing some of the music. Release Flying Bear Entertainment first released Insaniquarium as a free, Java-based online game on their website on August 31, 2001. The game received updates over the next year. Following GDC 2002, PopCap Games became the publisher for Insaniquarium. The second version was released on PopCap Games's official website on July 29, 2002. The paid downloadable version, known as Insaniquarium Deluxe, was released in 2004. Earlier in 2004 around April, Insaniquarium was released to personal digital assistants (PDAs). Glu Mobile announced in December 2005 that Insaniquarium was being ported to mobile phones. They released Insaniquarium for the mobile platform on April 13, 2006, in the United States, and on June 29, 2006, in Europe. Astraware later released the game on Palm OS smartphones and Windows Mobile phones on August 6, 2008. Reception Insaniquarium was a success. IGN reported in December 2005 that Insaniquarium Deluxe reached over 18 million downloads on the PC. In April 2006, Pocket Gamer reported 20 million downloads. Insaniquarium also received positive appraisal. Jay Bibby of Jay is Games called Insaniquarium "cute, strange and addictive". PCMag Carol Mangnis stated that Insaniquarium "takes the joy and anxiety of maintaining an aquarium and turns [it] into a supercharged Tamagotchi-like experience." Retrospectively, Jordan Devore from Destructoid felt that Insaniquarium had aged well. Jody Macgregor of PC Gamer listed Insaniquarium on his list of best underwater games. He said "Insaniquarium takes the inane pleasantness of owning a fish tank and video gamifies the hell out of it." The fast-paced gameplay was praised by many critics. Steve Palley of GameSpot said that Insaniquarium is "a fast-clicking experience that's several orders of magnitude crazier than your typical real-life aquarium." GameDaily Samantha Rupert recommended Insaniquarium, having written that the game never