Don't rush to the answer. Wander the hand-drawn silence and bring the fish what it wants.
A free Japanese point-and-click puzzle game, played entirely with the mouse, set in a hand-drawn, black-and-white, picture-book-surreal desert world. From a first-person view you wander the scene, examine what is there, and solve short, escape-style puzzles by finding items and dragging them onto where they belong, gathering the things a lonely fish trapped inside a bottle wants. A run is about twenty minutes, with no time limit and no puzzles that lean on language, sound, or color, and the artwork and music are all original and hand-made. Made by the Japanese doujin creator pickee under the name makina game, in the lineage of Igyou no Machi no Annie. It already supports English, yet this free, short doujin gem is still largely undiscovered by the wider West.
Published 2026-06-27
01First, the one feeling
- You are handed a black-and-white, hand-drawn desert that reads like a page torn from a strange picture book, and the only verb you have is the click, so the work is not reflexes or reading but looking: noticing what sits slightly wrong in the scene.
- Somewhere a lonely fish waits inside a bottle, wanting something, and you wander the surreal town to find an item and drag it onto where it belongs, every puzzle solved by the eye and the hand alone, with no language, sound, or color cue to lean on and no clock to push you.
- Because a full run is only about twenty minutes and asks nothing of you but attention, you sink into its quiet melancholy, and the last thing you bring the fish closes the loop so cleanly that you reach to go back and click every corner you walked past.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You love the Igyou no Machi no Annie taste of a hand-drawn, black-and-white, picture-book-surreal world you explore entirely by mouse, solving its puzzles by looking and dragging items where they belong, all carried by original, hand-made art and music
- You want a short, self-contained point-and-click, escape-style puzzle, about twenty minutes, with no time limit and no puzzles that depend on language, sound, or color, just observation and logic toward gathering what a lonely fish in a bottle wants
- You want a free Japanese doujin gem the wider West has barely found, Very Positive at 99 percent, that already supports English
Not for you
- You want action, fast reflexes, or a long campaign; this is a short, slow, click-only puzzle of looking and dragging, about twenty minutes with no time limit, so the appeal is the quiet, not challenge or length
- You expect a big, already-popular Western title; this is a free Japanese doujin short made under the name makina game, brief by design, and still largely undiscovered abroad (about 28 percent of reviews are English)
03The roots of this taste
99% positiveonly 93 reviews — yet almost no one has found it
For the Fish in the Bottle Buried gem
A free Japanese point-and-click puzzle game, played entirely with the mouse, set in a hand-drawn, black-and-white, picture-book-surreal desert world. From a first-person view you wander the scene, examine what is there, and solve short, escape-style puzzles by finding items and dragging them onto where they belong, gathering the things a lonely fish trapped inside a bottle wants. A single run is about twenty minutes, with no time limit and no puzzles that lean on language, sound, or color, so it plays the same in any tongue, and the artwork and music are all original and hand-made. Made by the Japanese doujin creator pickee under the name makina game, released June 2026. Very Positive at 93 reviews and 99 percent. It already supports Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, and Korean (about 28 percent of reviews are English), yet this free, short doujin gem is still largely undiscovered by the wider West.
Give it your first passIgyou no Machi no Annie The origin
The origin of this taste: Igyou no Machi no Annie, a freeware point-and-click adventure created by Qpic, the officially recognized Physics Research Club of Kyushu University, and distributed on the Japanese free-game platform Freem in 2020. Set in a hand-drawn, black-and-white, picture-book world of misshapen figures, it is played entirely by mouse: you click through a surreal town and solve its puzzles by examining each scene and dragging the items you find onto where they belong, all carried by original, hand-made artwork and music. For the Fish in the Bottle is a clear heir to that taste, made by pickee, who wrote the scenario and designed the characters for Annie: it keeps the same monochrome hand-drawn surrealism, the same all-mouse point-and-click solving with item drag-and-drop, and the same original art and music, but moves them into a short desert tale of bringing a lonely fish in a bottle what it wants, making it its own creature rather than a clone.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- Igyou no Machi no Annie Root
- For the Fish in the Bottle You are here
- Read-and-build games another taste