Write one line for each message. The name comes first, then two dots.

DolphinBot: Guys, I need to go for a minute.
hak_er: Where?
DolphinBot: Doesn't matter.
hak_er: Sure.

Extra things you can write

• * 404 joined the chat a grey line in the middle. Only use it for things a chat really shows, like joining, leaving or being removed
• + 😂 sticks that emoji on the message above
• Mod: !deleted shows this message was deleted
• call: hak_er starts a call screen, endcall ends it
• 404: pic:cake sends a picture from the Pictures tab
• 404: meme:laugh sends a little animation, see Stream mode below
• a line with no two dots that starts with a name becomes a grey line too
• # note to yourself is skipped, it never shows up
• a message that is only emoji comes out giant, like a sticker
• title: Cat Club changes the group name at the top
• hak_er: fine !pinned pins that message to the top of the chat
• dol_mom: hello (edited) puts a tiny edited after it
• day: Today puts a grey day line between the messages
• a grey line like * Mod changed the group name to Cat Club changes it too
• a name that is not in the cast still works, it just gets a plain round avatar

🎬 Stream mode, and Fishy Plus

Stream mode is the thing you buy. Press Stream mode in the controls bar and the Fishy Plus page opens: two dollars a month, one button, and it is yours. It is make believe, like the rest of Fishy. No money goes anywhere, and Fishy never asks you for a card, because no real app should ever be given one by you.

Once you have it the button works straight away. Press it and it goes red. Two things start happening:

• The camera. Every new message goes up on a black screen, blown up big enough to fill it, and stays there. The next message cuts straight to it, the way a video editor would. That is the zooming you see in chat videos, and you get it live instead of having to cut it in afterwards. Touch the screen, or start typing your own line, and it drops back to the whole chat.
• The memes. When somebody lands a punchline, a little animation drops into the chat, and the camera goes straight to it. They stay rare on purpose: one every few messages and never the same one twice in a row, so they keep being funny.

You can also put one exactly where you want it. Write meme: laugh on a line of its own, or 404: meme:laugh to send it from somebody. Those always play, stream mode or not. The ones you can ask for are laugh, wow, jump, what, huh, crazy, eyes, nice, rip and boom, and lots of other words find them too: lol and haha get the laughing one, dead and banned get the stone, sus gets the staring cat. They are part of Fishy, so they play with no internet. S on the keyboard turns stream mode on and off.

To film somebody buying it all over again, press Cancel Fishy Plus at the bottom of that page, or open it any time from 🎬 Fishy Plus in the Cast tab. Stream mode locks again and you can shoot the whole thing from the start.

Making a story without writing it

The Make a new story button in the Script tab writes a whole new one for you, with the same cats you already have. Pick a kind of story, or leave it on 🤖 a brand new story and the story bot builds one that has never existed before: it mixes beginnings, middles, twists and endings, so it never runs out of ideas. any story gives you one of the eight ready made ones. Press the button again until you like what you get, change any line you want, then press Save script. The name of the story is the first line, after the #, and Fishy does not play that line.

Sending a story to a friend

Copy this story turns whatever is in the box into a code you can send to anybody: a message, an email, anything that carries words. Your friend opens their Fishy, presses Paste a story, and it appears in their box. Their lines become yours and yours become theirs, so the story is really yours to play.

Getting an older script back

Fishy keeps the last three scripts. They sit under the box with a ↶ in front of the name. Press one and it comes back into the box, and nothing is saved until you press Save script. So you can never really lose a story by pressing the wrong button.

Saving everything to a file

In the Cast tab, Save everything to a file puts your cast, your story, your pictures and your little chats into one file. Open a file brings it all back, on this device or another one. Passwords are never put in the file.

The sign in screen

Fishy opens with a sign in screen so a video can start like a real app. It is make believe: nothing is sent anywhere and no password is kept as words. If you change the name and sign in, that becomes your name in the chat and in the script. You can switch the screen off in the Cast tab, or press Sign out now to see it again.

The chat list

Fishy opens on a list of chats, like a real app: the group at the top, then everybody else, each with the last thing said, the time, and a badge with the number of messages waiting. Tap one to go in and the arrow at the top left to come back out.

The group is the one your script plays in. The little chats are yours to type in whenever you want, and they remember what you wrote. If you leave the group while the script is playing, it keeps going and the badge on the list counts up.

Not everybody is online. A green dot means they are there right now, and under their name it says online or when they were last there. Write to somebody who is away and they turn up a moment later, start typing, and answer you. Your script is never touched by any of that.

Finding somebody and adding them

At the top of the chat list there is a search bar. Tap it and Fishy shows the people you can add, with a line about each one. Type a name and the list gets smaller: first your own chats that match, then the people you can add. On a computer you can just start typing on the chat list and the search opens by itself.

Press somebody and they are yours: they get a chat, they go in your cast so your script can use them, and they say hello a moment later. They always say the same hello, because nothing in Fishy is ever random.

Everybody who makes a Fishy account is in the same search. Right now that is only you, so the only names you find are Fishy's own people. When a friend makes an account, type their name in the search bar and they will be there.

If somebody bothers you

Hold a chat on the list, or press the three dots at the top of a chat, and you get three things:

• Mute. No sound and a grey badge. A little bell shows next to their name.
• Delete this chat. The chat goes and they can come back later if you want.
• Block. The chat goes and they cannot write to you again. Blocked people are listed in the Cast tab, and pressing a name there lets them back in.

When somebody new writes to you, a bar at the top of the chat says you do not know them, with Mute and Block right there. Blocking never touches your script: the person stays in your cast, so your story still plays exactly the same. And nobody, in Fishy or anywhere else, should ever be given your password.

The small things

• one tick means your message was sent, two blue ticks mean it was read
• a grey Today line goes above the first message of today
• edited shows in tiny letters after a message that was changed
• hold a message (or right click it) for Reply, Copy, Pin and Delete
• a pinned message sits at the top until you press the x on it, and tapping it jumps to where it was said
• Reply puts the message over your box, and your answer carries it inside

Accounts

Fishy remembers the accounts you make. The password is not written down as words, only as a scramble of it. A name and password that nobody made will not let you in, the same as a real app. The accounts Fishy remembers show above the boxes, and tapping one fills the name in for you.

Where the accounts live. When you open Fishy from its link, they go in a little box of its own, so an account you make on the computer is also there on the iPad. The line under the Sign in button tells you which it is. If you open the Fishy file straight off the computer there is no box, so those accounts stay on that one device, and an account made there will not be on your tablet. Make it again there once and it stays.

If you forget a password, sign in with that name, get it wrong, and press Forgot it? Remove this account. The account goes away and you can make it again. You are never locked out of your own app.

The preview

Press Make an account and a Preview one story first button appears. It plays one whole story, and you play it properly: it stops at every DolphinBot line and waits for you to type it, the controls bar stays there so you can pick Fishy keys or normal keys, and the helper in the bar tells you what to say. When the story ends it takes you back to the sign in screen. Your own script is kept safe the whole time and comes back exactly as it was. Back to sign in in the corner stops it early.

Your own lines

When the script reaches a line for the character marked This is me, Fishy waits. The words are shown to you in the controls bar, never in the message box, so nobody watching the video sees them. Type them yourself and press send, or say something completely different. You can also send a message at any time, even in the middle of the script.

If you spell something wrong

Nothing breaks. Fishy skips a line it cannot read and carries straight on with the next one, so a typo can never stop your video in the middle.

Keys while you record

Space pause or carry on, right arrow next message, S stream mode, H hides the controls so your video stays clean.

When the controls are hidden, the Controls button in the bottom corner brings the sound button and all the others back.

On the iPad

The iPad keyboard drags Safari back on screen, so Fishy has its own keyboard. Tap the message box and it slides up from the bottom. It never wakes the iPad keyboard, so full screen stays full screen while you type. It has an _ key for names like hak_er and dol_mom, and it is the same size as the real iPad one. The Fishy keys button turns it off again if you would rather use a normal keyboard.

Recording without the browser showing

Full screen makes Fishy fill the whole screen, so no address bar and no website around it end up in your video. F on the keyboard does the same, and Esc comes back out. On the computer there is also a Fishy icon on the desktop that opens it in a plain window with no browser at all.