It was around this time six years ago when the COVID-19 lockdowns really started to take shape. It was a time that undoubtedly affected everyone, as every story you’d hear about someone’s experience would be unique but also fairly relatable.
I find the experiences had by young professionals, especially those right out of college, to be among the most interesting. After all, whether you’re just finishing high school or college, those years are supposed to be transformative in a way that indicates it’s your last chance to be young. Fishbowl is a story about grief during a big life transition, and it just so happens to take place at a time when almost everybody was hoping things would go back to the way they were.
Fishbowl puts you in the shoes of Alo, a 21-year-old who moves to the big city alone after getting her first job. As exciting as that is, the vibes are bogged down because she’s dealing with the recent passing of her grandmother. To make things more difficult, the world is starting to shelter in place, so leaving the house to find comfort with other people and her family is also not an option for the time being.
There’s nothing more wholesome than gaming in a game.
The game’s narrative takes place over the course of an entire month, and you’ll do things like wake up, shower, work from home, binge-watch TV, play video games, find hobbies, and all sorts of other things people do when at home. Like real life, it’s all up to your mood, which is one of the things that I found especially accurate.
In addition to Alo’s stay-at-home work as a video editor, she dabbles in poetry. One of the things you can make Alo try to do every day is write in her journal, but she just can’t. When you first start Fishbowl, there are a bunch of easy things you can’t do because Alo just isn’t feeling it. Outside of taking bubble baths, which she can’t do because of a pipe problem that gets fixed later in the game when you’ve established a relationship with your landlord, everything you do in the game is going to be based on your mood, and everything you do affects your mood, represented by a gauge that appears at the top of the screen.
When you get up, you can use the toilet, brush your teeth, and shower. That all affects your mood positively. From there, you can go to the kitchen, find something quick to eat (because you’re never in the mood to cook), and make some coffee. That also makes you feel good. Wanna slack off for a bit and go to the living room and scroll your life away on your phone or binge your favorite series? By all means, go ahead — but those activities also bring your mood down. Weirdly enough, if you actually go up to the couch and interact with your phone or your tablet, you won’t be able to back out.
The ability to say no to these activities once they are interacted with is only available. .. You guessed it — when you have a higher mood rating. Every single one of these activities is either a yes-or-no thing, and some have a fail-safe quicktime event that gives you the illusion of progress. Typical cozy stuff.
Thankfully, this was simpler than it looks. *gives Premier a dirty look*
Then there’s working from home. As mentioned, Alo is a video editor, and luckily for detail-oriented people like me who spend too much time perfecting three seconds of B-roll, you aren’t actually expected to do that. When you log on to your computer, you have a short talk with your co-workers, and that’s capped off with a minigame where you actually just have to play a quick and time-based matching game to keep files organized. Images, sound, and video will be visible on a timeline that you just properly sort, and to throw a bit of a curveball, you’ll eventually come across files that need to be deleted. It’s all pretty simple, and it’s my favorite of the daily activities. You can even get an achievement for abusing their version of Clippy.
The real meat of the narrative comes from the relationships Alo builds with her family, friends, and mostly herself during this trying time, which you can do simply by calling them on your phone. Outside of her unwillingness to write, I found it pretty easy to relate to Alo’s character. You can tell she’s trying her best to be mentally strong, doing what she wants, and tactfully calling her mom out without really offending her — which is sort of a talent in Asian culture.
Early in the game, Alo convinces her mom to send all of her grandma’s stuff that her mom was just trying to get rid of, which you eventually unpack as one of your daily activities. Each time you unpack something, you unlock a playable core memory from Alo’s childhood — somehow activated by a toy fish who eventually sort of doubles as your only in-person friend. As you can imagine, these memories heavily affect Alo’s mood and help her remember or pick up new skills along the way.
You’ll be able to play music with a record player or old games using her handheld gaming device, giving that nostalgia tickle. You’ll also discover a cookbook that inspires Alo to cook, which not only helps her rely less on snacks and ready-made meals in her fridge, but also helps her rediscover the flavors from her time working at the family diner. I loved this particular instance because food is an international language, and this point made me think about times I can completely paint in my head just from the flavors of the food I had that day. This being a game from a small Indian development team immediately made me think of Venba from a few years ago and how memorable that game was.
I didn’t go through this during the pandemic, but I’d argue my six months of unemployment in 2024 were much worse than anything I went through from 2020-22.
Again, this is all stuff you’ll do over the course of a month, and it goes by pretty quickly — though it could be subjective. There is nothing in this game that will challenge you since there’s no actual punishment for anything, but the things you do definitely have an impact on the ending. I’ve only gone through the game once, and it took me roughly eight hours, when I’ve been told it can be up to 10. This can be a long time for people expecting more action or a big payoff. I enjoyed the ending I got, but I’m in no hurry to go back and experience it all again, except maybe to clean up the trophies once guides are published for the game. That said, I’d encourage people to take this game day by day rather than binging it. That’s how chill and cozy games are typically best enjoyed, after all.
Fishbowl was a real pleasure to experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. While a low number of people will be eager to think back to the lockdowns and the pandemic, the simple gameplay and personal narrative within the game really opened my eyes to how the human mood works. Given my own experience as an Asian-American, it really gave me a real appreciation for this story and how it was portrayed. The duo at imissmyfriends.studio did an amazing job, and I hope the reaction Fishbowl gets from other players brings more games like this in the future.
Fishbowl is a story about grief during a big life transition, and it just so happens to take place at a time when almost everybody was hoping things would go back to the way they were.
It was around this time six years ago when the COVID-19 lockdowns really started to take shape. It was a time that undoubtedly affected everyone, as every story you’d hear about someone’s experience would be unique but also fairly relatable.
I find the experiences had by young professionals, especially those right out of college, to be among the most interesting. After all, whether you’re just finishing high school or college, those years are supposed to be transformative in a way that indicates it’s your last chance to be young. Fishbowl is a story about grief during a big life transition, and it just so happens to take place at a time when almost everybody was hoping things would go back to the way they were.
Fishbowl puts you in the shoes of Alo, a 21-year-old who moves to the big city alone after getting her first job. As exciting as that is, the vibes are bogged down because she’s dealing with the recent passing of her grandmother. To make things more difficult, the world is starting to shelter in place, so leaving the house to find comfort with other people and her family is also not an option for the time being.
There’s nothing more wholesome than gaming in a game.
The game’s narrative takes place over the course of an entire month, and you’ll do things like wake up, shower, work from home, binge-watch TV, play video games, find hobbies, and all sorts of other things people do when at home. Like real life, it’s all up to your mood, which is one of the things that I found especially accurate.
In addition to Alo’s stay-at-home work as a video editor, she dabbles in poetry. One of the things you can make Alo try to do every day is write in her journal, but she just can’t. When you first start Fishbowl, there are a bunch of easy things you can’t do because Alo just isn’t feeling it. Outside of taking bubble baths, which she can’t do because of a pipe problem that gets fixed later in the game when you’ve established a relationship with your landlord, everything you do in the game is going to be based on your mood, and everything you do affects your mood, represented by a gauge that appears at the top of the screen.
When you get up, you can use the toilet, brush your teeth, and shower. That all affects your mood positively. From there, you can go to the kitchen, find something quick to eat (because you’re never in the mood to cook), and make some coffee. That also makes you feel good. Wanna slack off for a bit and go to the living room and scroll your life away on your phone or binge your favorite series? By all means, go ahead — but those activities also bring your mood down. Weirdly enough, if you actually go up to the couch and interact with your phone or your tablet, you won’t be able to back out.
The ability to say no to these activities once they are interacted with is only available. .. You guessed it — when you have a higher mood rating. Every single one of these activities is either a yes-or-no thing, and some have a fail-safe quicktime event that gives you the illusion of progress. Typical cozy stuff.
Thankfully, this was simpler than it looks. *gives Premier a dirty look*
Then there’s working from home. As mentioned, Alo is a video editor, and luckily for detail-oriented people like me who spend too much time perfecting three seconds of B-roll, you aren’t actually expected to do that. When you log on to your computer, you have a short talk with your co-workers, and that’s capped off with a minigame where you actually just have to play a quick and time-based matching game to keep files organized. Images, sound, and video will be visible on a timeline that you just properly sort, and to throw a bit of a curveball, you’ll eventually come across files that need to be deleted. It’s all pretty simple, and it’s my favorite of the daily activities. You can even get an achievement for abusing their version of Clippy.
The real meat of the narrative comes from the relationships Alo builds with her family, friends, and mostly herself during this trying time, which you can do simply by calling them on your phone. Outside of her unwillingness to write, I found it pretty easy to relate to Alo’s character. You can tell she’s trying her best to be mentally strong, doing what she wants, and tactfully calling her mom out without really offending her — which is sort of a talent in Asian culture.
Early in the game, Alo convinces her mom to send all of her grandma’s stuff that her mom was just trying to get rid of, which you eventually unpack as one of your daily activities. Each time you unpack something, you unlock a playable core memory from Alo’s childhood — somehow activated by a toy fish who eventually sort of doubles as your only in-person friend. As you can imagine, these memories heavily affect Alo’s mood and help her remember or pick up new skills along the way.
You’ll be able to play music with a record player or old games using her handheld gaming device, giving that nostalgia tickle. You’ll also discover a cookbook that inspires Alo to cook, which not only helps her rely less on snacks and ready-made meals in her fridge, but also helps her rediscover the flavors from her time working at the family diner. I loved this particular instance because food is an international language, and this point made me think about times I can completely paint in my head just from the flavors of the food I had that day. This being a game from a small Indian development team immediately made me think of Venba from a few years ago and how memorable that game was.
I didn’t go through this during the pandemic, but I’d argue my six months of unemployment in 2024 were much worse than anything I went through from 2020-22.
Again, this is all stuff you’ll do over the course of a month, and it goes by pretty quickly — though it could be subjective. There is nothing in this game that will challenge you since there’s no actual punishment for anything, but the things you do definitely have an impact on the ending. I’ve only gone through the game once, and it took me roughly eight hours, when I’ve been told it can be up to 10. This can be a long time for people expecting more action or a big payoff. I enjoyed the ending I got, but I’m in no hurry to go back and experience it all again, except maybe to clean up the trophies once guides are published for the game. That said, I’d encourage people to take this game day by day rather than binging it. That’s how chill and cozy games are typically best enjoyed, after all.
Fishbowl was a real pleasure to experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. While a low number of people will be eager to think back to the lockdowns and the pandemic, the simple gameplay and personal narrative within the game really opened my eyes to how the human mood works. Given my own experience as an Asian-American, it really gave me a real appreciation for this story and how it was portrayed. The duo at imissmyfriends.studio did an amazing job, and I hope the reaction Fishbowl gets from other players brings more games like this in the future.
by Danreb Victorio
