Face Your Reality: The Game That Challenges Your Everyday Life

While many video games serve as a portal to distant, fantastical worlds, Fishbowl demands a different kind of immersion—one where reality is inescapable. Developed by imissmyfriends.studio, this narrative-driven experience began as a pandemic-era project and approaches the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown with the meticulous detail of a period piece.

It isn’t the first title to address the global shutdown, but it is one of the rare few that swaps grand sci-fi metaphors for the raw, lived-in anxiety of daily life. The game offers a grounded meditation on social withdrawal so visceral that some players may hesitate to revisit that mental space. Yet, Fishbowl anticipates that hesitation; it doesn’t want to keep your trauma tucked away in a dusty corner, but rather invites you to unpack it with care.

The story follows Alo, a young poet struggling with a creative drought, over the course of a transformative month. Having recently moved to a new city for a video editing role, she finds herself severed from her support network just as an unnamed contagion forces the world into stasis. Compounding this isolation is the recent passing of her grandmother—a loss Alo has yet to fully process. This collision of grief and global catastrophe leaves her spiraling, fighting off panic attacks while attempting to establish a semblance of a routine.

Alo’s environment is as cluttered as her mind. The entire game is viewed from a top-down perspective of her cramped apartment. The title is a dual metaphor: it refers both to her “roommate”—a talking toy fish that attempts to suppress her darker thoughts—and the suffocating nature of her living space. She exists within a pixelated tank, where the repetitive cycle of doomscrolling on the sofa mirrors a goldfish circling a plastic castle. It is a hauntingly familiar sensation for anyone who spent the lockdown years confined to four small walls.

Adding to the physical and emotional weight are the numerous boxes sent by her mother, filled with heirlooms and memories of her late grandmother. These boxes literally obstruct Alo’s movement. The longer she avoids the tile-sliding minigames required to unbox them, the more difficult it becomes to navigate her home. In Fishbowl, the path toward a “new normal” requires a literal unpacking of grief.

Image: imissmyfriends.studio / Wholesome Games Presents

Through this clever visual language, Fishbowl functions as a domestic life simulator centered on building a ritual amidst chaos. Initially, the sheer volume of daily maintenance feels daunting. Tasks like brewing coffee, watering wilting balcony plants, or doing laundry are executed through simple button prompts. Completing these chores incrementally improves Alo’s mood, slowly coaxing her out of a depressive state. Conversely, the player can choose to neglect these responsibilities, allowing the gloom to persist.

Alo’s emotional state influences her interactions during video calls with friends and family. The game refrains from judging the player; there are no “wrong” endings, only an acknowledgment that recovery happens at different speeds for everyone.

Finding a rhythm is the key to stabilization. Players might find themselves recreating their own real-world survival strategies from 2020: showering, breakfast, plant care, then logging into the “work” minigame—a color-matching puzzle that simulates video editing. While the mechanics themselves are modest, they successfully weave a narrative of perseverance through repetitive, mundane action.

Image: imissmyfriends.studio / Wholesome Games Presents

Connecting with the outside world via screens provides the secondary layer of gameplay. These interactions provide a window into how others are navigating the crisis—from livestreamed charity events to the frustrations of quarantine-breaking roommates. Some conversations with Alo’s mother are heavy and may dampen her spirits, but the game emphasizes that these difficult connections are vital to preventing total isolation.

The core of the experience, however, is the intersection of the pandemic and personal bereavement. Processing the loss of a loved one through a FaceTime eulogy is a unique trauma that Fishbowl captures with poignant accuracy. It speaks to the countless individuals who had to mourn in solitude, denied the physical comfort of a shared embrace.

As Alo finds the strength to open the boxes cluttering her home, she unlocks non-linear fragments of her past: birthdays, moments in the family shop, the onset of her grandmother’s illness. These memories are a volatile mix of joy and pain. Even the happy recollections can trigger surreal panic sequences, often causing a mechanical “backslide” in Alo’s mood meter. It serves as a powerful reminder that healing isn’t linear; it’s a messy, exhausting balancing act.

With an eight-hour runtime, the game can occasionally feel overextended. The repetitive nature of the minigames may eventually induce a sense of cabin fever—a meta-commentary on lockdown life that might be too effective for its own good. Some of the dialogue also leans toward the overly sentimental, occasionally bordering on Young Adult tropes.

Image: imissmyfriends.studio / Wholesome Games Presents

Alo’s journey as a writer provides the game’s most profound lesson. Each day, she can attempt to write poetry, but the effort often ends in failure and a mood penalty. Yet, the choice to keep trying—to sit at the desk despite the inevitable frustration—becomes the player’s most significant act of resistance. Failure is expected, but giving up is the only true defeat.

Every in-game day concludes with the same poignant reminder: “No matter what, you got through the day.” Fishbowl isn’t just about survival; it’s a celebration of showing up for yourself when the world has stopped turning. If you can wake up to face the next set of challenges, you have already won.

Fishbowl arrives April 2 on PlayStation 5 and PC. This review was conducted on PC via a pre-release code provided by Wholesome Games Presents.

Source: Polygon