With many gaming franchises finding mainstream success, it's no surprise marketing departments have jumped on the bandwagon. While pack-in cult classics like Chex Quest have, somewhat inexplicably, found their place in history, no brand has produced quite so many video gaming options as Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish.
A handful of different mobile games feature Goldfish characters in wildly disparate activities. These games aren't quite as epic as Chex Quest, but bring their own sort of whimsy to some standard gaming tropes. They build up the Goldfish lore, giving individual identities to a crew of goldfish and allowing them to pursue dreams in everything from tinkering to playing sports. Here are the available Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish games, ranked.
6. Swimmington's Monkey Dream
Grumpy, cultured Swimmington makes his appearance as he rumbles through the jungle on a juggernaut, monkey-powered cart in Swimmington's Monkey Dream. Players collect cart upgrades and additional monkeys, but must dodge and backflip to avoid obstacles as they barrel down a mountain trying to make it as far as possible.
With so many monkeys, it's actually easy to forget this is a Goldfish game, and some bugs (at least on Android) make Swimmington's Monkey Dream hard to dive into.
5. Goldfish Go-Karts
Xtreme, the daredevil of the Goldfish family, and Brooke, master tinkerer, race go-karts on toy-themed tracks in Goldfish Go-Karts. With trophies to win, new karts to unlock and the ability to build bespoke tracks, Goldfish Go-Karts seems to be one of the most robust of the Goldfish games.
However, the mobile interface for racing seems unintuitive and uninteresting. Players control the speed of their kart and can slow down to avoid crashing on turns and taking damage, but not the steering, which results in one-dimensional interaction.
4. Goldfish Pinball Blast
Brooke returns to put her tinkering skills to work in Goldfish Pinball Blast, a standard pinball game with environments crafted from toys and art supplies. Goldfish arm each of the flippers and help to start the ball off, but then have very little involvement in the game.
Aside from limited thematic cohesion, Goldfish Pinball Blast provides a fairly fun pinball game. The limited but intuitive interaction and a fun, joyous aesthetic make it a solid little game.
3. Xtreme's Hoop Dream
Flavor-blasted Xtreme takes to the court in Xtreme Hoop Dreams, a game of collaborative, Rube Goldberg basketball shots through popsicle-stick mazes and around moving obstacles. The game is much less about basketball than about aiming physics as one goldfish passes to another.
What sets Xtreme Hoop Dreams apart from the other Goldfish games is that it bothers with something like tutorialization. Early levels offer aiming guides that gradually disappear, leaving players to their own devices.
2. Gilbert's Hamster Dream
The pretzel goldfish Gilbert, known also for his quiet demeanor and spookability, finds his game in Gilbert's Hamster Dream. On the run from a giant hamster, Gilbert must collect coins while dodging obstacles to make his escape. Gilbert's Hamster Dream uses some cool mechanics to slide underneath gates that bar his way or jump over impeding toys with a swipe of the screen.
It's clear the game has put more effort into animating Gilbert the Goldfish, whose salty hide looks ready to eat, than in the menacing hamster, whose polygonal form is perhaps more terrifying than intended. But Gilbert's Hamster Dream is a fast-paced game with well-realized mechanics that's fun to play.
1. Finn's Space Dream
Fans ready for a science-fiction Goldfish adventure will demolish Finn's Space Dream, the best of the available Goldfish games. Finn's Space Dream follows the exploits of Finn, the leader of the Goldfish team who's here for adventure but has a song in his heart.
Geared up for space travel, Finn must hop from planet to planet, escaping their gravitational pull at just the right moment and trajectory to reach the next target. Along the way, players can collect power-ups and dodge harmful asteroids in order to reach their destination safely. Finn's Space Dream is a fun physics simulator that plays with orbital mechanics through the lens of cheesy crackers, which is honestly a wonderful combination.
Other goldfish mobile games may be available -- Brooke's Giant Dream is listed on the website, but seems unavailable in the Google Play store, while Get Gilbert is only available on Apple devices. There's also a Goldfish Movie Maker that lets users craft scenes from the whole Goldfish crew, for a more narrative experience. Even without these additions, the Goldfish promotional games pack a punch. While clearly designed to market the crackers, some of the Goldfish games are legitimately interesting concepts and, more importantly, fun to play.