Fishbowl Hands-on Preview
Hindsight is 2020, and vice versa.
Emily Merritt
co-host of indie video game podcast No Small Games
Kate Hunter
co-host of indie video game podcast No Small Games
Fishbowl: A pandemic story
Fishbowl, the upcoming debut title from imissmyfriends studio, is unapologetically a pandemic story, and it’s one of the first games that I’ve played that’s explicitly so. There are plenty of indie titles that you can point to from the past few years that were born of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, based on their timing and themes. But the 60-minute preview of Fishbowl felt like a ride directly into the past.
Emily Merritt – No Small Games
We meet main character Alo in her second week at a new job, in a brand new city. As she’s in the midst of navigating all of the usual awkwardness and avalanche of new information that comes with starting a job at a new company, she gets some surprising news. In a couple of days the company will shift over to 100% remote work for the foreseeable future. Everything is about to change and no one knows exactly what it will look like. The solitude of lockdown becomes the empty aquarium in which Alo seeps in her deepest grief: the recent passing of her beloved grandmother.
Speaking for myself, I need a game like Fishbowl right now, but I suspect I’m not the only one. I’m facing some really big life changes, ones that I hope will shape my life for the better. But the changes have me taking stock of everything that led me here. All the breaking down and healing and messiness and new directions can all be traced back to the ways my life changed during lockdown, and all the ways that I changed as a result.
One of the (many) things that I think made the COVID-19 pandemic so traumatic for all of us is the way we were all asked to adapt and ignore the trauma. We were expected to not skip a beat as we shifted work and school online. I remember walking my dog in the summer of 2020 (these daily walks were my few precious glances at the outside world) and reflecting on the fact that my life would never look the same as before, but I had no idea what it would look like. But eventually the walk would end, we would reach the front door to our little apartment in Mountain View, California, and I would try to push down the creeping anxieties in favor of prepping for my next Zoom meeting. And that’s how 2020 bled into 2021 and on. Pushing down and pushing through.
6 years later, there’s no time like the present to go back and revisit the events that got us here and start to examine all the experiences that we pushed out of focus at the time. Like it or not, wherever we’re at now in life, we’re here at least in part due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Those days feel like a distant memory now. Almost like a bad dream. Personally, I know I still have a lot to process about that time, and I’m looking forward to Fishbowl being a part of that journey for me.
The Visual Design of Fishbowl: Coziness amid chaos
imissmyfriends have created a visual world that brought me back to the exact feelings I experienced while navigating my first few months of the pandemic by keeping me inside the walls of Alo’s apartment. The limited environment and the weight of being alone there feels a bit heavy. But then, the soft and comforting colors and pixel art style remind me that there is a gentleness and beauty within our normal routines (or lack thereof) at home. I’ve played a lot of games with great pixel art, but Fishbowl has such a special visual identity that really holds its own.
Kate Hunter – No Small Games
The size and color of everything feels just right, which really grounds me as a player and evokes the feeling of aliveness. Even in its more abstract and dreamlike sequences where colors are more muted and images more distorted, I feel safe and familiar within this world, even though I’ve never been here before.
Gameplay: Learning how to be OK
I walked away from the Fishbowl preview feeling very curious about where the gameplay will take us in its full release. As it stands, Fishbowl is a life sim for one, where our main focus is trying to figure out what will help Alo feel better (or as good as is possible) from one day to the next. It was once again a sharply tuned throwback to the early days of lockdown in 2020, when I felt like Maslow was really carrying with his Hierarchy of Needs concept. A little water, a little food, and trying to remember to tell Alo to brush her teeth before work, all bring her mood up in what felt like the smallest increments. Baby steps. Video calls with friends and family might help or hurt, depending on what news they have to tell. But over time, a better mood leads to the possibility of more fulfilling activities.
Emily Merritt – No Small Games
I think that telling Alo’s story, in part, through the many small things she does to care for herself through the grief and the chaos, has the potential to build into something really powerful. Many of us learned really profound lessons about what our bodies and minds need to feel grounded, connected, and just plain OK, during the height of the pandemic. I’m looking forward to reflecting more on those lessons while playing the full release of Fishbowl.
Music and Audio: Dreamlike, yet grounded
The dreamlike sequences of Fishbowl sound like a music box playing while I’m half asleep at my grandparents’ house. The soundscape is thoughtfully mixed, and all sound effects are slightly realistic but ever so soft and muted, never overpowering the perfect blend of soothing rain and pleasantly wistful music. Advancing the dialogue is accompanied by a succession of beats that are bubbly and bright, and it’s a huge accomplishment to have sound design that is so memorable and reinforces the identity of the game. The time and thoughtfulness that went into Fishbowl is evident throughout, but I especially appreciate just how perfectly detailed the sound design is. It’s not minimalist or maximalist, it’s really sort of its own thing.
Kate Hunter – No Small Games
Fishbowl Trailer
Accessibility: A sliding scale of gentleness
imissmyfriends thoughtfully provide difficulty settings within the menu, where you can turn on slow mode for the video editing minigame or skip puzzles. You can also enlarge the in-game text, which I always appreciate. The game is available in 10 languages, and also presents the following content warning: “Fishbowl contains themes of grief, death of a loved one, loneliness and isolation. Please play with care <3”.
Kate Hunter – No Small Games
Conclusions: A soft journey back to hard times
In just 60 minutes, Fishbowl already achieved the incredible experience of transporting me straight back in time to the confusion, uncertainty, and sadness of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each of us has a highly personal experience of that time, in no small part due to extreme isolation, so I think that it’s important to experience it once again through someone else’s eyes. Through Alo’s eyes. I felt immediately at home with the very relatable cast of characters that Alo interacts with through her various screens, and look forward to reflecting more on my experiences as I live vicariously through theirs.
Emily Merritt – No Small Games
Although Fishbowl made me thoughtfully reflect on the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, my biggest takeaway from this preview was that I unexpectedly found great comfort from simply existing as Alo. I’m currently getting ready to move into my own place, and I haven’t lived by myself in over seven years. I’m pretty nervous about what that’s going to feel like. Alo and I are in this together, and experiencing her everyday life in her apartment even helped me look forward to things I could do in a new place on my own. It means so much to me that Fishbowl could provide me with comfort during this transitional moment in my life, and it helped to remind me that indie games will always be there for me. I know the fully baked experience of Fishbowl will have players experiencing something truly special that they didn’t even know they needed.
Kate Hunter – No Small Games
No Small Games was provided with a Fishbowl preview key by Wholesome Games
About No Small Games
No Small Games is an indie game recap and review podcast brought to you by hosts Kate and Emily! They became friends while streaming on Twitch and bonded over their love of indie video games. In each episode of No Small Games, the two will discuss an indie game they both played independently. They’ll compare their experiences: the good, the bad, their most memorable moments of their playthroughs.
Learn more about the podcast and its hosts on the About page.