Fishbowl is a story-driven experience that depicts themes of isolation, grief, and imposter syndrome. Developed during the COVID pandemic, when separation and loneliness felt relentless, Fishbowl explores these themes as you begin working from home as a video editor for a huge social media star.
Meet Alo, a 21-year-old who just secured a new job but, within an instant, is forced to begin working from home, with parallels to the worldwide quarantines quite apparent. Unfortunately, Alo is going through her own personal and emotional issues, recently losing a loved one, and that grief begins to fester as she finds herself severed from human connection.
The Fishbowl demo does a fantastic job of setting the scene for Alo’s story-driven journey, with one of the key gameplay elements paired perfectly with the narrative. Alo receives boxes of belongings throughout the adventure, which were previously owned by the loved one she lost. These instances provide puzzles, which are similar to reorganising your inventory in Resident Evil, as Alo sorts through these items, leading her to rediscover treasured memories from her childhood. The demo only included one of these puzzles, but it helped to add an interesting gameplay mechanic while also allowing me to further understand Alo’s fragile emotional state.
Alo will also video call her friends and family throughout the story, with the developer imissmyfriends.studio stating these interactions will have “branching conversations” and “diverse characters”. Alo’s video editing work provided an additional mini-game, where fast-moving coloured blocks travel across the screen and must be matched up with corresponding colours. The mini-game I played reminded me of a simple form of Guitar Hero, but also the short puzzles found in another story-driven adventure that I adore, To the Moon.
Fishbowl’s visual design is gorgeous, delivering a hand-drawn pixel art style that is similar to Unpacking. As players will be exploring and interacting with Alo’s apartment throughout the majority of the experience, it’s great to see that the apartment itself will deliver striking visuals to pixel art fans. While I have only experienced a short section of the soundtrack, I absolutely loved it. Similar to the Coffee Talk series, the soundtrack includes lo-fi music, creating a serene and calming atmosphere, emphasising the beautiful pixel art style.
I love story-driven experiences, and Fishbowl was one of my favourite games from PAX Aus. It delivers a coming-of-age story with themes of loneliness, sadness, and anxiety, which help make Alo’s story very relatable. As a console player, I was also excited to see that Fishbowl is coming to Steam and PlayStation 5, with a free demo currently available on both platforms. Do yourself a favour and check out Fishbowl, because it has the potential to become one of the best story-driven indies in recent memory.
