An Entry by Ollie Leal and Hannah Konings

Warning: this entry includes spoilers for How Fish is Made. If you are looking to play the game yourself and don’t wish to spoil anything, it is a short < 30min game and you’re welcome to come back after playing.

Basic Game Information

Developer(s): Wrong Organ

Publisher(s): Wrong Organ / Critical Reflex

Platform: Windows

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Genre/Subgenre(s): Indie, Narrative, Horror

Gameplay Video: How Fish is Made Full Playthrough / Longplay / Walkthrough (no commentary)

How Fish is Made revolves around a single question; up or down. No context is given, yet a decision must be made. The game features a sardine that navigates the workings of a machine and meets other fish who challenge its resolve, choice, and belief. Each interaction is designed to sow doubt and make the player question their decision; be it through a contrasting opinion, forcing a confirmation, or general statements that reap insecurities. Although the initial decision, be it up or down, the player is given a chance to change their minds with each interaction leading up to the only choice that really matters, their final choice.

From Game to Reality: Why the Making of Fish Matters

The Effects of Horror - Hannah

How Fish is Made was a truly unique experience for me. Never before have I felt genuine fear/discomfort while playing a game; my actual played horror game list isn’t all that long (i.e., Outlast, Alien: Isolation, Phasmophobia), but I have engaged with enough various horror content in the form of video essays, playthroughs and movies to believe that I have a fairly strong resistance to getting scared. How Fish is Made does come with a trypophobia warning, one that I had taken lightly due to being unaware of the whole extent of my fear. Upon reaching the later half of the game the walls gradually become plagued with large circular discs littered with tiny holes that were filled with what looked to be eyes. The first time I noticed it was through the corner of my eye as I was wandering down a corridor, instantly making me freeze. Steeling myself for what was to come, I pressed forward only to have more and more of those discs appear. A cold sweat formed and the only way I could continue was to turn the camera down and flop my way over to the next fish. As an experience it certainly stands out as it, although unpleasant, has allowed me to understand the depths of my trypophobia and have a better understanding on how people experience fear.

How Fish is Ate - Ollie

How Fish is Made was not a game that inspired much horror in me, but there was one scene that truly got to me. For most of the game I was progressing through a grotesque pixelated machine, while this made me uncomfortable it did not truly give me a feeling of horror. That was until the musical cutscene triggered upon talking to a parasite that had taken over another sardine's tongue. This cutscene showed graphic depictions of fish and parasites, often showing fish meat wriggling around due to a parasite still alive in a fish's flesh. The scene made me disgusted with the thought of live parasites still being in the fish that I eat, and managed to make me feel a fear that extended beyond just the scope of the game. The scene managed to have such a strong impact on me because there was a stark contrast to the usual visuals of the rest of the game in this cutscene. This scene used real life clips, overlaid with characters dancing in the usual pixelated artstyle of the game. The change in style really hammered this moment into me making it the focal point of my experience with the game.

As someone who eats fish regularly, this game managed to plant the fear of a parasite being in my meal just from one scene alone and has really made me cautious of how I cook and prepare my seafood meals. I can't think of any other game that has managed to use horror in a way that continues to scare me well after I am done playing. Through this, How Fish is Made truly managed to unsettle me in a way I hadn't realized a video game could.

Experiencing Horror as a Fish: An Academic Analysis

A Decision with Unknown Consequences

The entire experience of How Fish is Made is defined by the uncertainty it forces players to feel throughout their time with the game. This uncertainty comes from the main task of the game, the looming decision of whether the sardine should end their journey by going up or down. The setting of the game being a machine seemingly processing the sardines found within it, combined with the name How Fish is Made places the doubt that the point of the sardine’s journey may simply be to become processed into food (McGrath 4:44-5:36). Without any solid meaning being given to the central decision of the game, a mounting feeling of uncertainty grows as no answers are revealed, only made worse by the unfamiliar environment and implication of the journey that the sardine finds itself in. This feeling of uncertainty pushes players to continue on their journey in the hopes of finding any answers that may explain why they must make the decision forced on them and what the outcome of their choice will be (Power 1036).

As the player continues through the game they will find more questions spawning from the new sights and characters they encounter, with none of their original questions being answered. The uncertainty seems to only mount as the end of the game inches ever closer, leading players to be filled with a sense of dread as to whether they are making the right choice in going up or down. This causes a struggle for many players to make a choice, as they stall in the hopes of delaying the uncertain end to their journey, naively searching for some answer or information they have missed (Costikyan 91). Eventually as the sardine reaches the end of its journey the player must make the final choice, to go up or down, without knowing what the outcome will be. The fear of fate being outside of a person's control slowly seeps into players as they realize the lack of power they hold to make any difference in the outcome of the story (Simmons 243).

Perhaps the uncertainty of the game is truly a comfort for the players. Afterall, the fate of the sardine may be much worse than whatever the players could ever imagine and some might consider it a mercy that the true meaning of the sardine’s journey is kept uncertain (Simmons 241).

Fish Out of Water

Surrounded by metal walls, rusted and cold, anyone would feel out of place. It is not a place one would expect to find a fish, yet How Fish is Made puts the player in this exact environment. This disregard of the natural order creates an unsettling environment which can cause feelings of fear or discomfort (Mastrocola 94). Through sound design and the developers’ characteristic pixelated, “dark and unnervingly organic-looking walls” further create an unnerving environment (Geikhman). The later portion of the game features amalgamations of eyes questioning the player, “do you deserve it?” and “will you be able to live with it?”, before going on to make cryptic statements, “you’ll be back” and a simple “weak” (“Mouthwashing's Lesser Known Prequel: How Fish is Made” 4:14-4:22). These questions that aim to weaken the player’s resolve, with words that some may find in their reality, combined with the use of a third person perspective allows players to form an attachment with their character which then emphasizes the vulnerability they may feel on behalf of said character (Gantz 38).

While it is expected for a horror game to include a distressing environment at some point in its playtime, it must also immerse the player in order to create a successfully horrifying experience. How Fish is Made has done this, not only through its literal representation of the player character being a fish out of water, dropped into a machine from who knows where perfectly reflecting how players feel going into the game, but also through the underlying narrative; how many are trapped serving a company that is only taking from society or as Wolens puts it, “it’s about, well, the system, man, and the little doomed roles we all occupy within it”. This idea is further reflected when players are afraid of their environment which allows them to feel like a victim (Simmons 244), allowing the fear of being unable to stray from the predetermined path to merge with reality as “the natural instincts begin to stir’ (Gantz 39).

As such, it is through the unspoken narrative and unnerving game design elements that How Fish is Made is able to satisfy the requirements, outlined by Mastrocola, that a game needs to meet in order to create meaning from horror; an investment to player character through narrative, feeling of immersion, and for the player to feel like the victim in the game’s events (90).

Citations

Costikyan, Greg. Uncertainty in Games. MIT Press, 2015.

Gantz, Matan. Analysis of the Horror Genre and its Implementation in Video Games. 2019. TH Köln University of Applied Sciences, PhD thesis.

Geikhman, Yuliya. “Creators Behind 2024’s Viral Horror Hit Have A FREE Steam Game You Can Download Now.” Screen Rant, https://screenrant.com/how-fish-made-free-steam-game/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2025.

Power, Christopher, et al. “Lost at the Edge of Uncertainty: Measuring Player Uncertainty in Digital Games.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 35, no. 12, 2019, pp. 1033-1045. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2018.1507161.

Mastrocola, M. Vicente. “Horror Ludens: Using Fear to Construct Meaning in Video Games.” International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, edited by Xiaowen Fang, Third International Conference, 23rd HCI International Conference, 2021, pp. 89-98. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77277-2_7.

Simmons, David. “Bringing … Uncertain Geographies Under … Control?” Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming, by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm, 1st ed., Routledge, 2021, pp. 241-252. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9780367713065.

Thon, Jan-Noel. “Playing with Fear: The Aesthetics of Horror in Recent Indie Games.” Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020, pp. 197-231. https://doi.org/10.7557/23.6179.

Wolens, Joshua. “How Fish is Made is the most disgusting horror game I’ve ever played, and it perfectly captures 2024.” PCGamer, https://www.pcgamer.com/games/horror/how-fish-is-made-is-the-most-disgusting-horror-game-ive-ever-played-and-it-perfectly-captures-2024/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2025.

“Mouthwashing’s Lesser Known Prequel: How Fish is Made.” YouTube, uploaded by PlayItEssays, 24 Nov. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KEpE8JKxVk&t=2s.

“The Terror of Not Knowing - How Fish Is Made.” YouTube, uploaded by Connor McGrath, 31 Jan. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOamdh5OWJ3U.

AI Disclosure & Appendix

No AI was used in the writing of this entry.