How to Play Digital Fish Rain

DIGITAL FISH RAIN

Player's Guide

📱 Playing on Mobile 🖥️ Playing on Desktop

The Basics

Animals fall from above, each one a fixed 2×3 block. Steer it left or right and drop it into the bucket of food it actually eats. Feed the right bucket and you score. Feed the wrong bucket — or let one hit bottom without a match — and you lose a life. Start with 9 lives; the game ends at zero.

The tank has 7 buckets side by side along the bottom: Krill, Zooplankton, Squid, Shrimp, Mackerel, Small Fish, and Seal. Your goal is to rack up as many correct catches as possible before you run out of lives.

On Deck — the panel to the right of the tank shows the next animal arriving. Always check it before you place the current one so you can plan ahead.

Controls

← →	Move left or right between buckets
↓	Soft drop — accelerate downward
Space	Hard drop — instant slam into the current lane
P	Pause or resume the game

The Fish

Twelve species inhabit the tank, all the same 2×3 size, and every one of them is active with a known diet.

Who Eats What

Bucket	Feeds	Notes
🦐 Krill	Humpback Whale, Giant Squid	shared bucket
🦠 Zooplankton	Ocean Sunfish	only match
🦑 Squid	Dolphin, Striped Bass, Snapper, Ocean Sunfish, Giant Squid, Orca	shared bucket
🦐 Shrimp	Stingray, Striped Bass, Puffer Fish, Snapper, Goliath Grouper, Giant Squid	shared bucket
🐟 Mackerel	Bluefin Tuna, Barracuda, Orca	shared bucket
🐠 Small Fish	Barracuda, Snapper, Ocean Sunfish, Goliath Grouper, Orca	shared bucket
🦭 Seal	Orca	only match

Orcas eat small fish, mackerel, squid, and seals — four valid buckets, more than any other animal in the tank. Giant Squid also eats crabs, but there's no Crab bucket yet, so that part of its diet isn't scorable.

Scoring

A correct catch pays +100, plus a streak bonus of up to +100 more for consecutive correct catches. A wrong bucket resets your streak and costs a life. Every 8 correct catches, the drop speed ticks up.

Tips

Orca is the most forgiving animal in the tank — it eats Small Fish, Mackerel, Squid, and Seals, so four different buckets all count as a correct catch.
Snapper and Ocean Sunfish each have three valid buckets, so you rarely have to travel far for a safe catch.
Striped Bass eats both Squid and Shrimp, so either bucket is a safe catch.
The Seal bucket only ever takes an Orca — every other animal has somewhere else to go, so save that lane for when you see one coming.
Watch the highlighted bucket under the falling animal — it shows exactly which lane you're about to drop into.
Only use hard drop once you're lined up over the right bucket. A rushed slam into the wrong lane costs a life just as fast as a miss.
As your catch count climbs, animals fall faster. Decide your lane before the piece even fully appears — use the On Deck preview to plan ahead.

© 2026 Project Research LLC — All Rights Reserved.
Digital Fish Rain, all marine animal artwork and animations (Barracuda, Puffer Fish, Stingray, Bluefin Tuna, Striped Bass, Snapper, Ocean Sunfish, Goliath Grouper, Giant Squid, Orca, Humpback Whale, Bottlenose Dolphin), Reef Radio music (Adrift, Fish Rain, Nightfall), source code, and visual design are the exclusive property of Project Research LLC and protected by U.S. and international copyright law. See Terms of Use for the full intellectual property statement.

Playing on a Phone or Tablet

No keyboard needed! Use your fingers to control the fish pieces on a touch screen.

What you do	What happens
👈 Swipe left or right	Moves the animal between buckets
👇 Drag your finger down	Makes the piece fall faster
👆👆 Double-tap the bottom of the board	Drops the piece all the way to the bottom instantly

Tip: The Reef Radio music player appears below the game on phones so you can pick your track and adjust the volume without leaving the game. Volume starts at 0 — slide it up when you're ready!

Reef Radio

Music by Project Research LLC

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