Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be stuck at home for one month, during a pandemic, as a twenty-one year old woman? One who’s struggling with balancing her new job, getting used to a new city away from her friends and family, and grieving the death of one of the most important person in her life?
A two-person team based in India and of PlayStation’s India Hero Project, imissmyfriends studio’s game Fishbowl is a heartfelt, slice of life, coming of age story told over a month. It’s a narrative driven marriage between stylistic hand drawn characters, inside a pixelated home with the heart of Life is Strange.
Alo’s list of reminders:
Fishbowl’s story and gameplay are intricately connected. It’s a narrative driven, visual novel where you play as Alo for one month, doing your best to get through the day. Alo is a budding video editor for Sitara, a popular ViDiYo streamer. After a week of working for them, a pandemic hits and you are stuck in your new home, by yourself for one month. To make matters worse, Alo is also grieving Jaja’s, her grandmother’s recent passing. Stricken with guilt of not being able to be there during her last moments, not being able to support her mom, and the inability to continue her passion of writing poems, Alo is hanging on by a thread.
The story is delivered through completing your every tasks: maintaining your home, your well-being, your social life (through video chats), working from home, and slowly unboxing all of Jaja’s belonging that was delivered to you. All the while you struggle with writing, your confidence, and Paplet, a wind-up fish that talks to you.
Doing all of them feels like a literal chore. The same action, day in and day out. Brushing your teeth, you need to go through each step: put the toothpaste on, brush side to side, brush up and down, rinse your mouth.
Doing the laundry, eating, staying hydrated; everything feels like a chore, a checklist. And as the days go by, the checklist gets longer.
Meanwhile, going through Jaja’s belongings, what should be a way to reminisce about the good times spent, all the happy memories, suddenly are twisted into bad ones.
Being in this home feels scary. Lonely.
Besides speaking to Paplet, a toy fish, Alo is able to speak to her mother, her close friends, her landlord and co-workers. Each one with their own stories, dreams, and worries.
This is where the writing becomes interesting, along with the choices available to you as you converse with them. Every action results in Alo’s happiness increasing and declining. Depending on where you are on the spectrum, some choices aren’t available to you at all. As if her current state of mind cannot even begin to fathom an alternate choice. The gamer controlling a character in me is frustrated that hunting for a collectible within the game forces me to click on everything. This means having no choice but to doom scroll Alo’s social media, lowering my happiness, because her current state of mind doesn’t allow her the willpower to put the phone down.
I hate it, but at the same time, I think about how often do I feel so tired, worn out, defeated, that I don’t even have the strength to play video games; that I spend hours mindlessly watching stupid shorts on YouTube?
Tuesday: I feel like a flower softly swaying
Meanwhile, the act of doing laundry, cooking for myself, and maintaining our home, while still presents itself with that same chore-like actions, felt rewarding (perhaps it’s because I saw Alo’s happiness gauge go up…WAIT, are they trying to tell me that I need to take of myself?!)
The devs, imissmyfriends, created an interesting narrative of how our mind works during these moments of stress. So much so, that when Alo gets a phone call as I’m about to walk into my bedroom to sleep, I didn’t even have the desire to answer and listen to the person on the other side (I don’t know if that was intended, but I literally just finished wiping my eyes off of tears and just wanted Alo to go to sleep. Then I get a phone call that I had no interest in reading lol.)
Much of the game centres around Alo’s relationship and memories of her Jaja. Opening up the boxes of her belonging, reminiscing about its contents, and talking about it with Paplet. During these moments is when things feels like her world is unravelling. Fishbowl isn’t meant to be scary, psychological thriller, but at times, I got shivers. With the art direction and sound effects, imissmyfriends did a great job making me feel unsettled, as Alo struggles with her memories. The feeling of confusion as Paplet forces me to have happy memories; the pull and need to write, even though we know that whatever comes out of our thoughts will bring nothing but sadness and the feeling of failure. It’s difficult to describe.
No matter what, you got through the day
Fishbowl is a game that moves slowly. With many words to read and to absorb with open arms. The one month of time spent is technically a quick one (the game can be finished in around 8hrs), but the actions necessary to get there feels like a chore. I got excited during the moments where I got to open Jaja’s boxes, do some video editing, and the moments where I got to speak to my mom, my friends and co-workers.
But you know what? That’s the point….I think.
There are moments where the game made me uncomfortable. I felt like there were things missing, inconvenient things, like knowing what day it was. I didn’t know unless I was working, or journaling at the end of the day. After reflection, perhaps it was on purpose as part of the narrative. But as a video game, played by a person who plays many video games, it created certain expectations, it was uncomfortable.
Fishbowl is a game that you need to accept with open arms and an open mind. A game that attempts, and at often times succeeds, in making you empathetic to Alo’s emotional state and perhaps even make you reflect in yours. They do this through their great usage of simple gameplay mechanics, art direction, sound, and music. It’ll make you happy. It’ll make you sad.
It’s a game that you need to be ready for in order to fully appreciate, if you’ll let it.
Fishbowl was reviewed on PS5 Pro. Gamer Social Club would like to thank the publishers and devs for the code.
Fishbowl launches on 2 April 2026 for PS5 and PC via Steam.
Will you be picking up Fishbowl? Let us know in the comments below, and join the Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!
