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RHEA GUPTE

@rhea.gupte

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i make video games with my ♥︎
play fishbowl on PS5 & Steam
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living a little dream
⋆｡ﾟ⋆｡ﾟ☾｡⋆𐙚 ̊ ⋆˙⟡⋆
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sowing memories like seeds ⋆˚✿˖°

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Fishbowl won the award for Best Art Direction at the India Game Developers Conference last week! While going up on stage will never not feel awkward to the both of us, it made me think back to our very beginning. You may know that we’ve both wanted to make indie games since over a decade but why we chose to make pixel art games has a special story.

A long time ago, before any of this began, I accidentally discovered Prateek’s old blog from when he was fourteen/fifteen years old. It was full of the most beautiful pixel art animated gifs. They were so smooth and so full of life, I became a fan! ^_^

I knew that was the art I wanted to see in the stories we tell.

From that day, to seeing the first steps our main character took as an animated sprite, seeing the characters I wrote, thought about and sketched out become real smiley-crying-full-of-life faces, from witnessing the full game come together bit by bit, it has been the biggest honour of my life to be an art director to the brilliant pixel artist and animator that I see in Prateek.

And though he may say, he has a long way to go, and I know he will go so, so far, he did draw the entire game, by hand, pixel by pixel, after a fifteen year gap from having pixeled, all of sudden, because we decided to start making an indie game in the pandemic.

I’m so proud of the amount of thought we put into the colour palette, the lighting, our characters, every pixel you see on screen, the additional storytelling done through backgrounds, objects and details, the number of versions rejected and tweaked to move towards what we wanted, revision after revision, to make everything come together cohesively and endearingly.

This win feels like a reminder of all that went into it and all the ways in which we worked together to make this happen, one pixel at a time ₊˚⊹ ᰔ by @rhea.gupte

Still can’t believe our video game was on Polygon! (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈) I remember this day when Prateek and I chatted away with Deven a few months before release day, reminiscing on our journey so far. I’m sharing a few excerpts from this article. It talks about all the special things that make up Fishbowl through Deven’s keen lens and thoughtful questions. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time @lil_kombucha Thank you always @wholesomegames @popagendaco @polygondotcom for this! ₊˚⊹ ᰔ by @rhea.gupte

Once upon a monsoon with these three precious sweet treats. Lucky for the laughter, the rain, the wait, the waves, the dancing, every one and three AM, every moment hugged and shared.

ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵) @harshayjha @purneetha hope you dance today listening to this song ˖ ݁♬⋆.˚𝄞

Photos by all four of us ✦ ݁˖ by @rhea.gupte

MAKE OUR PIZZA AND EAT IT TOO ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ by @rhea.gupte

A life of care. One of careful consideration, graceful movement, abundant solitude, quiet joy, contentment, soft dreams, delicate aspirations, hope like a roaring wave, hands to hold tight, arm in arm, swinging, skipping over tumbleweeds and wildflowers, continents and reveries, breathing in the mud, blooming to the sky, again and again and again. by @rhea.gupte

Last year I was very lucky to be invited to present the award for Emotional Impact at The Indie Game Awards alongside some of my favourite people in this industry (˶ˆᗜˆ˵) Long before I started making video games, I LOVED indie games. Handcrafted personal stories which imparted life lessons, laughter, a space for resonance and a gentle holding hand through life’s toughest challenges felt precious to me. What a delight to be able to present this award to a category of games which have moved me to tears. Thank you so much @themiketown, @mrkstep @bec2bec for having me! Congratulations @yona_unltb and @kodanshagamelab for this award and for making this heartwrenching, hopeful and impactful game about a topic that is very close to my heart! ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ໒꒱ by @rhea.gupte

Fishbowl is nominated at the Gamescom Awards in the Games for Impact category. It is truly surreal and unbelievable to see Fishbowl up there with all these brilliant games. Back in 2023, we showcased the demo of Fishbowl at Gamescom thanks to our game engine @gamemakerengine who invited us to be at their booth 🖤 This year, we return to the event having released our first game!!! It’s truly beyond our indie game dream come true. Holding each other in joy, teary eyed, big smiles. Our little game is reaching hearts and gently holding them together, that’s exactly what we wanted to make. Thank you for this recognition @gamescom Awards 🥹🥹

Update: We didn’t win but being nominated was beyond a dream! 💭 Thank you so much for all your wishes and kind words 🫶🏽🫶🏽 by @rhea.gupte

Little moments at home ˙✧˖°📷 ༘ ⋆｡˚ Strawberry cake on Jiji’s plate ♡

Colouring in @tanyabahl_’s beautiful art sheets, a soothing, mindful transition activity for me between work and home chores (˵◝ ⩊ ◜˵マ

Dipping myself in Mary Oliver’s magic every once in a while ✶⋆.˚

Was waiting to start reading this book and here we finally are, ready to be a sponge, ready to soak up every word (๑>◡<๑)

Prateek and I playing the Neverway Prologue @coldbloodinc, so excited for this game to come out ˖ ݁♬⋆.˚𝄞

My wardrobe looking sharp and cozy and organised as ever, I have been planning and indulging in a little pet project around it which I’ll be sharing soon ୭˚. ᵎᵎ｡🧷𖦹°‧

Serving skincare routine ‧⟡ ݁₊

Home reset things coming together make me feel delighted, been working on this bit by bit ✩°｡🧸𓏲⋆.🧺𖦹 ₊˚

Writings on hope from a late afternoon: Every single book I have read about authoritarian power and dictatorship has shown me how the goal of the oppressor is always to curb hope, to make people feel lost, stuck, helpless, powerless in their plight. Hope is a thing to be harvested, to be searched for in darkness and crevices, to be found in friends. Hope is what has kept many struggles going, what has kept people together, what has given movements joy, resilience, longevity. Arundhati Roy once spoke about joy as a militant thing. As something to be practiced with discipline. Hope, I feel, is the same.

Gave myself the gift of time to do adult ballet lessons once a week since Fishbowl released. It’s been one of the best decisions and I am hoping to graduate from my pretty ankle socks to canvas ballet flats soon (˶ˆᗜˆ˵)

Work in progress on my work desk setup, still a long way to go, but slowly and surely it’s coming together just the way I had in mind ★ by @rhea.gupte

Tokyo Game Show 2025 diary entry! ✶⋆.˚

I kept a short, daily work diary while Prateek and I made Fishbowl. It makes me feel like that period of my life would have gone away from my memory in a complete blur had I not kept one. Now I have reminders of that time, what it felt like, what each day brought along.

It is not a log of the entirety of everything that went on during any given time, but it helps shape memory, the rhythm and flow of the days, what made them special and challenging and magical.

It has already given me back so much, I can’t imagine giving up this practice. A gift, a time capsule, a part of time kept safely.

When I look back every once in a while and read these entries, they become reminders, a film playing before my eyes, a memory of the mundane, the unbelievable, the routine, the daily, archived in a form of raw, unfiltered and unedited storytelling that, in my opinion, holds many answers to how a life was created. It humanises accomplishments, failures, the ordinary, the repetitive, in a way that not much else can, gently, day after day after day. by @rhea.gupte

This is a @rinoaskyes appreciation post! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) ‹𝟹

Back in 2023, Sam was my first ever meeting via Meet2Match at BitSummit, during my first ever video game conference, in my first ever visit to Japan. In a sea of firsts, (and much nerves), my chat with Sam felt like meeting a friend. We talked about Fishbowl, her podcast with @ariefjohan and our unique struggles while making a video game in South Asia and South East Asia.

At LudoNarraCon 2025, I was delighted to collaborate with Sam on this wonderful panel that
she hosted during the event. (Thank you much @sarahhana for giving us your blessing for it. Thank you @chriswulf and @fellowtravellergames for having us!)

We discussed “Unbound-likes” a genre made up in an episode of the @20mpodcast inspired
by @togeproductions and @mojiken’s heartfelt game, A Space For The Unbound. Our panel was about games that utilize themes of memories, home, a sense of belonging and the surreal to embark players on deeply personal journeys.

Sam, me, Juan, and Scott discussed how memories and the surreal intersect as the foundation of our games. (Our full video is up on Youtube)

Cut to 2025, Tokyo Game Show, we got to sneak in a walk in the moonlight after dinner and chat about life, our dreams and all the things we want to do. Sitting in a park and chatting away leisurely during one of the busiest weeks is one of my favourite memories of Tokyo Game Show. (Our time at this event would not have been the same without you, Sam! Thank you!🪽་༘)

We also got to collaborate with her on the PR for Fishbowl’s launch in Korea, China and Japan via Neon Noroshi. It was such a joy to work with somebody as dedicated as her and who also knew us and our intention behind Fishbowl so well. Forever grateful!

And last but not the least, I was in awe playing her game Meet Me At Shinjuku Station a couple of weeks ago AND Prateek and I also got a very special peek at something she has been cooking lately. It already has FULL my attention.

So proud of her, her many talents and her drive to make this industry a better, safer, more inclusive place ❀ by @rhea.gupte

What a joy it is to be able see the colours in the world. Dive into lush green corridors, dream under the pale blue sky, dip my feet in the melody of the sea, dance in a field of red, pink, yellow, violet, float on purple clouds, lose myself for a moment in expanses of white, orange, plum, strawberry, cherry. I want to see all the colours in the world, I want to read all the stories that exist, I want to write about them all in the tiny notebook I keep with me ★ by @rhea.gupte

For my video game Fishbowl, I wrote over 110,000 words. They came from the flesh, from memory, from laughter, love, friendship and tears. From mornings spent pouring over poetry years ago before the light of the sun could reach the corner from where I wrote. My partner and I started working on Fishbowl in the middle of the lockdown, when the world was closed off to us. Many of our personal emotions, struggles and thoughts were adapted into a fictitious form for our characters and the story of hope that we wanted to tell. As the world opened up, the two of us continued on in our studio making the game. It took us five years to make Fishbowl. Every part of the making process has been memorable and dear. As our debut game we learnt everything while we shaped, moulded and created it, often out of the unknown and uncertain. Every opportunity we got to step out in the world felt like coming out of a long underwater swim. This trip to Japan last year in the middle of our most intense production schedule felt like being transported into a different world. While stacks of to-do lists, playtests, edit after edit after edit awaited us back home, for now, for this time, this was our wallpaper, my little wardrobe for the week and the radiant view from our window. by @rhea.gupte