Fishbowl Review – Loss Has Never Felt So Real

Part of PlayStation’s India Hero project, this ambitious title about loss and dealing with loneliness has finally arrived for us to experience like never before. This simple yet hopeful pixel adventure shows us the pain people go through and how much worse it gets when they are all alone.

Released on April 2, 2026, and built by a two-person team at imissmyfriends Studio, Fishbowl is now available on PlayStation 5 and Steam. Released at a pocket-friendly price, you may also pick it up at the launch with a 10% discount if you hurry. And if you’re ready to discover more about what Fishbowl has to offer, then here is the official review of Fishbowl at Gameffine.

Silence that’s painfully loud

Fishbowl isn’t your dystopian society-esque humanity at stake due to a capitalism-type situation; it is as basic as the story of your neighbor next door, who had to leave behind her home all alone to find a better life in the big city.

You play as Alulu, often called Aloo, a small child from a small town, who is interning for a YouTuber-run production house as a junior editor. Fresh out of college, Alulu has many hobbies and many memories to bring along to her new home in the big city from her childhood, but unfortunately, she brings an extremely painful and recent memory along as well. Aloo lost her grandmother recently, who played a pivotal role in her upbringing and perspective on life. Almost everything that Aloo does, she does it because of her teachings.

Making things worse, not only does this kid have to deal with it all alone, but a covid-like situation is taking place inside the game, which has her locked in her house for an entire month.

When life decides to suddenly snatch away something your entire life was built around, it’s normal to lose one’s own footing to stand tall, and that is exactly what our protagonist is facing at this time.

Alulu faces a lack of clarity and therefore has lost the love for writing. She struggles and scratches out every word she writes. Her diary is missing a lot more pages than it is supposed to, because you can find the sheets crumbled in the dustbin.

Will Aloo find her closure? Can she pick up the pen again? Will this child thrive all alone in this big city? It’s now up to you to find out.

The Pixel Perfect Life Sim

Pixel art games have a life of their own and have the ability to keep you hooked for hours. Fishbowl takes up that tradition well and has brought an extremely well-polished narrative with Aloo’s childhood.

Every day, you wake up and get to do almost everything you would do if you were locked inside your house. The detailing is down right from brushing and hygiene to cooking and coffee. Since you live in an accommodation provided by a relative, an aunt, who has generously given you a huge condo to live all alone inside. Taking the opportunity of space, Aloo decides to have all the belongings from her grandmother sent to her so she can find closure.

When the items are finally with her, Alulu’s life is now juggling between survival, job and unpacking memories from her childhood.

Getting the groundwork done, the only way to get things done is by simply interacting with any items and performing a combo. When doing your job of video editing, you’re put up to do a simpler version of Tetris and simply slotting items to their respective positions. Skill-wise, even a child on their first time with a controller can finish the game. Unfortunately, while it’s a good decision for accessibility, I never really had a lot of fun with any of the mechanics, nor did they feel rewarding.

All in all, Aloo is a suffering child with very low morale who needs to be brought up day by day. Doing that feels comforting, and checking off everything that you can do in a day is also exciting for the first few days. But Aloo will sometimes face nightmares or setbacks that can bring her mood down naturally, which reduces her mood bar way too much for you to bring it up in a day. This honestly makes no sense when you’re around the 15th day and somehow have maxed out your mood. There is no reward for doing all tasks in a day, and no punishment to sleep without literally even doing one task in a day. The only real effect inside the game that is affected by mood is more dialogue options.

As a game, no matter how polished, beautiful, and smooth it works, it really lacks the narrative pacing and has put me to sleep twice before I can even reach eight hours with the game.

After a period, I was just spamming basic tasks so I could explore only the story and memories of Alulu.

The presentation itself is flawless, with the game design making the voice inside her head look and feel extremely horrifying. This had me set up with anxiety and eagerness to face this mysterious dark side of the game, which also ends up feeling too drawn out.

Spending 16 days trying to write only to scratch it out just feels too much and unrewarding for spending too much time with other chores and keeping morale high.

All in all, the game is fundamentally programmed with perfection, but it is plagued by the pacing and lack of any rewarding minigames or mechanics.

Sky full of Stars

There is a lot to adore inside the game. Using pixel art and making it feel so real to life, which almost feels unreal. There is depth in writing, and the character building will make you feel attached to all the side characters Aloo talks to. The cozy apartment has much to explore, and as you go later in the game, you unlock even more things to do and see. Aloo’s childhood memories almost feel like GBA Pokémon games and hit right at home with perfectly executed background scores inside the game. Fishbowl really hits the feel with its design and writing.

Real Talk

Fishbowl is an extremely well-executed pixel art narrative about a child facing loss and adulthood in the worst conditions possible. You journey along her story, overcoming the grief one memory at a time, all the while handling your daily life, job, and remorse. Unfortunately, the pacing feels too slow for things to open up, and once they do, it proceeds to get even slower to reach the end. But for the quality, writing, and depth the game has to offer at a perfectly priced price tag, this is definitely a must-play for any story enjoyer.