Drawquarium lets our creativity be the focus of an increasingly AI world
The thing about indies is that they can take chances. They can act on ideas, unfiltered, based solely on a premise, on a feeling, without having to wear the burdens of corporate creative hierarchy.
In 2026 that hierarchy is pushing us at light speed into the use of artificial intelligence and generative creation. Many of us who are artists or consider ourselves creative can feel at a loss (trust me when I say we’re not, and shouldn’t be, but I’ll save that for a later conversation).
That’s the basic idea behind upcoming indie game Drawquarium and its stunning, sweet, and on the nose trailer. The project is a cozy aquarium sim in which we create our fish(es) and watch it live on our desktop. It can be a wallpaper too, if we always want to see it. (And we should!)
The developers encourage drawing the creatures using their built-in interface, but if we’ve had something we’ve already doctored up from years past then that would be fine too. The fish can live, interact, be decorated, and more, all within this little space.
Drawquarium sounds like a joy, but what’s got me and many others so invested in it is the trailer that the team created for its launch date announcement. With AI taking over, many of our projects have been put aside. The trailer asks us to separate the generated art from our actual human art, come back to it, and celebrate it in fun ways.
It’s wonderful. It’s the trailer of the year.
Drawquarium, developed by Kaleb Lechowski, releases on Steam (PC) on Friday November 13th.
