Day 159 - How Fish is Made
SPOOKY MONTH!, Horror, Short and Free ·
Sam’s Take:
We can sit here all day and pretend we wanted to do a spoiler-free review yesterday because we didn’t want to spoil character dialogue, or specific themes of the game. We can pretend that we needed a full second day to discuss the up-or-down choice presented in How Fish is Made and what it says about our own inevitable death.
But let’s be honest, there is only one reason we decided we had to do a spoiler free day.
It’s because of the fish-tounge-eating-parasite-electro-swing-musical-dance-number:
HOLY SHIT
Can you imagine how evil it would be if we didn’t at least give you a chance to be surprised by that? The grainy wormy visuals, the low-poly parasite shakin’ his lil bug-ass, DO FISH FEEL PAIN?! Unbelievable.
The slow flopping through dark industrial rooms creates a solid oppressive atmosphere for sure, and the themes of choice paralysis, while often funny, are cold and overbearing. For all its fishness, How Fish is Made makes you feel small in ways not dissimilar to contemplating the scope of the universe or the relative brevity of your own life on a universal scale. The developers knew exactly how long to leave you in this cold before livening things up with a quick dance number. The themes are still there, slimy visuals, lyrics about being buried and all that, but it’s an entirely new presentation. It’s a late-mid-point change up that gives the player a surprise boost of energy right when you might be tired of slow depressing flopping.
Everything I said yesterday is still true. I think this game’s theming, characters, and atmosphere add up to a shockingly cohesive experience for such an obviously silly game, but you need a little sauce to go from “good game” to “I’m sending this to all my friends”. There is nothing saucier than this dance number, hot damn.
Recommend: Still yes
Replay Percentage Chance: Probably done for now
Time Played: 30 more minutes
Skeeter’s Take:
Honestly, I think Sam is right. The Parasitic dance number was largely the reason we decided not to spoil yesterday - the surprise of it in the middle of this wacky miserable fish-flopping simulator is just too good.
However, I do think that by interacting and playing this game yourself, you are enhancing the themes at play here. It’s not something you have to experience first hand to understand, but the game wants to shine a light on the player and make them look at themselves. I think there is a very clear idea the developers had in mind. I think they left it esoteric and vague enough that most anyone can understand the general themes and apply it to their lives.
I do think that what Sam said yesterday about the main theme of having a community that is going through the same troubles you are is largely correct. I’m going to try to focus on the choice presented itself: UP or DOWN. Much like life, I think art is interpreted through each individual’s world lens, and everyone will get different things out of the same media (a game, in this instance). I really like media and art that is able to achieve something that has a clear message, but can be debated and discussed. Basically, I think everyone is going to get something different out of playing How Fish Is Made. Everyone is going to connect with it in a different way and there’s this sense of not caring about being understood directly. To me, How Fish Is Made is more focused on creating the atmosphere and conditions of the themes they are trying to get across, and letting that do the talking.
Alright, enough of the tangential nonsensical pondering of how people can interpret things differently than other people (I know, I’m a visionary).
I’m here to talk about TWO THINGS:
UP
OR
DOWN?
As we discussed yesterday, throughout this game you as the player are presented with a choice of UP or DOWN?
Well, it’s more of a threat of a choice until the end, but every other fish you come across in this impressive iron maze is struggling with the same inevitable decision of UP or DOWN. You are not informed as to what this decision is or what it will result in, but every fish treats it like it is the most important decision they will have to deal with in their life. You, as a player, are led to believe this same thing. I got caught up in the community propaganda that I too would have to make this UP and DOWN decision, and that there was a right and a wrong answer. I bought into the importance of this decision and even made my choice early on - I was going down. I didn’t care what I was told along the way - the “upchads” could try to dissuade me all they wanted. I was a “downcel” from fishy birth and I was about to see that through to the end:
Here’s the thing about the UP/DOWN decision that permeates every corner of this game - it doesn’t matter. Just like a Telltale game, there is an illusion of choice, but the choice doesn’t matter. Nearing the end of the game, you meet with a fish in “an imposing room” who acts as a fake information dump. Do you remember the Star Child from the Mass Effect 3 ending? He appears and vomits a bunch of exposition on you (at least in the extended edition). He’s almost a Deus Ex Machina for exposition - shows up at the last minute to save the writers from certain doom (didn’t work lol).
Anyway, How Fish Is Made is the antithesis of this trope. The fish in the imposing room? Sure, he asks you a bunch of fancy questions to get you to reflect on your choices, but it turns out - he’s just another fish. He doesn’t know anything more than you do. He’s in the same boat of having to face the same decision as you and every other miserable fish in this hell.
I believe this is the main idea How Fish Is Made is trying to drive home. There are choices to make as you go through life, and those choices can be tough. Other people can have different opinions and ideas on how to answer those questions, but ultimately - nobody really knows what lies on the other side of UP or DOWN corridors, and nobody knows what lies on the other side of life.
The very end of this game feels like a personal note from the developers:
I think this drives home the point Sam was making yesterday. These final words paint a picture of a sort of self-fetishization of one’s self-pain, and the realization that those feelings don’t make you special. There’s a sort of catharsis displayed in this realization of a community that spawns out of this choice.
I think it’s pretty incredible that How Fish Is Made manages to fit humor, horror, fish, and larger themes of existence all into a neat 30 minute package.
Whether it’s a gritty industrial labyrinth of a fish processing plant or a giant water-logged rock floating through space, we all have to face the unknown (however it might choose to manifest). But hey, at least we can face it together.
Recommend: Big Time Rush
Replay Percentage Chance: Cheetah Girls
Time Played: Jonas Brothers
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