SIPBLOG: Team Carpybaras – 7/21/26

Team Carpybaras

By Jessica Zhang (Lead Artist)

Team Carpybaras hard at work with Barbara (mascot) overseeing.

What do you get when you cross a carp and a capybara…? A Fishy Missile!

Team Carpybaras is currently in the final week of development for our game, Fishy Missile. As we close in on the final couple weeks of SIP ‘26, I find myself reflecting on how far we’ve come since that first week at the end of May.

One of the things that’s kept us going has been the presence of our mascot, Barbara (the Capybarbara if you will). She serves as our emotional support during times of grave distress (like when a game breaking bug or art block stands in our way…) She also dons some pretty snazzy shades (provided by yours truly) whenever we go on break. At times she can even be found sporting a single tangerine balanced precariously on her surprisingly flat head. It’s hard to imagine what our team would look like without her guiding us through our darkest moments.

As the lead artist on Fishy Missile, my job is overseeing my fellow artists, Kath and Orlando, and ensuring all art assets created stylistically match the guidelines we’ve set for the game, and offering feedback to my team. I’ve also been working closely with the programming team (shoutout Max, Ray, and Brody) to ensure the artistic and programming sides of the game are aligning. Our audio engineer, Claire, has also been hard at work adding fun sound effects, voice acting, and music to make the game come to life!

In addition to the management side, I’ve also been plugging away at making assets myself over the past few weeks. My latest accomplishment was finally finishing the coloring of every single frame of the final cutscene of our game. I feel super grateful for the opportunity this program has given me to try new things, and expand my skill set, and get valuable experience working in a game development pipeline.

In addition to my art tasks, I’ve also taken on the responsibility of social media management for the past couple of weeks. Just last Friday the trailers for all three SIP ’26 games were posted, which you can check out here! Everybody has been working so hard on their games and we’re so excited to finally share them with the world! So keep an eye out this Friday, July 24th, for Licky Thief, Drop off Dragon, and Fishy Missile, launching on the App Store (iOS and Android)!