Chelsea
Sep 5, 2024
In Shinehill by developer Peach Bite, you play as a spy who has been assigned a tough new job. You arrive on an unfamiliar planet where you suddenly replace one of the residents. The trusting locals mistake you for a new neighbor and treat you with kindness by giving you a house and plot of land. From there, the rest is up to you!
Spend your days on this supposed island paradise becoming a champion fisherman. Or start a farm on your plot of land and tend to a variety of crops. You can even cook up some delicious meals in Shinehill and go exploring abandoned dungeons across the island that hold secrets. The real question is, what made your command turn their eyes toward this planet? Is there something shady going on and it’s up to you to figure out? Perhaps! Get to know your new neighbors. Help them out and learn their stories. Maybe even make friends, or become more. One of your new friends might actually be a threat to everyone else.
Release Date
You can find Shinehill listed on Steam now. There is a demo available and it’s expected for a full release in September!
- Sep 5, 2024
Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure, developed by Massive Miniteam, blends automation with real-time strategy aspects for a unique adventure set in a beautiful fantasy world. In fact, this game is perfect for players who want to dive into automation games, but also great for automation veterans looking for something fresh. Explore a gorgeous procedurally generated world. Build massive automation networks to enhance productivity. And also get to know your townspeople and helpful little Sparks.
Sparks are the little creatures who follow you and help you out in your adventures. Take them across the unique biomes of Oddsparks to encounter some unusual enemies. Or stay at home and optimize your designs by giving your Sparks logistical instructions. Eventually build a thriving village for yourself and your townspeople to live in. Complete quests from your villagers to unlock new buildings. Also, unlock new customizations for your character to make them unique, too!
Release Date
You can find Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure on Steam now. It’s also coming to Xbox and PlayStation soon! So, get ready for an exciting adventure full of automation and fun!
Autonauts is another cute game that uses automation!
- Sep 5, 2024
Aeruta is a unique action adventure game where you also run a bakery! In this world, bread is slowly becoming a distant memory. Then one day, the main character Chaya triggers an explosion by accident. She’s been living in a rundown town where she’s been tasked to help restore the bakery alongside the owner, Effie. And the explosion in the oven released the unmistakable scent of delicious bread!
Now, you’ll set out, playing as Chaya, to return bread to the daily lives of the village. Set out on a grand adventure to explore this beautifully designed side-scrolling world. Use weapons to fight enemies and collect resources. Then, use those resources you’ve found in Aeruta to experiment with different bread recipes. Sell your delicious breads in the bakery to earn money for its restoration. Build new places in town and watch as unique characters move in to repopulate the once floundering town!
Release Date
You can find Aeruta on Steam now!
This cute game reminds me of Cuisineer, another cozy action roguelike that focuses on managing a food establishment!
- Sep 4, 2024
If you love cats and casual city builder games, then look no further than Katsl! Developed by Kofka.games, this adorable little sandbox game takes place in the island town of Katsl, a curious place inhabited only by cats. There, you can unleash your creativity by building up that town and creating the purrfect haven for your furry friends. Each cat even has their own story to discover!
Katsl doesn’t require you to plan, organize, gather, or schedule your builds. Simply just click to build block by block. Create sweeping castles and humble abodes. Get to know your residents, too. Each one has their own hopes, dreams, and personalities. You can even help them achieve their dreams as your work to become their friends. So, build a beautiful town and care for your new furry friends!
Release Date
Katsl is planned to release on Steam at some point. There is no release date listed, though.
Check out Tiny Glade for more cozy building.
- Sep 4, 2024
Thank you to Broccoli Games for a copy of this lovely game!
Coffee Caravan by developer Broccoli Games is a wholesome and cozy cafe management game. Think PlateUp!, but with a pastel color palette, you only serve variations of coffee, and there are difficulty levels that affect the whole game. Start your coffee-making adventure with the smallest trailer and basic equipment. Serve a variety of different customers in order to earn money. And experience an enjoyable, but sometimes challenging cozy game with a roguelite element!
This charming game puts you in charge of running your very own, albeit tiny, coffee shop. You start your journey with the smallest trailer possible and with the basic necessities like coffee beans, a grinder, coffee pot, sink, and cups. As you complete levels and earn money, you’ll be able to access the shop to buy upgrades to your equipment, new equipment and helpful items like counters, and add more coffee recipes to your list. If you successfully complete a whole run from start to end, you’ll receive a larger trailer, too! Plus, there are decorations you can buy that offer useful buffs and you have control over how your kitchen, seating area, and decor is set up. So, organize the kitchen to best suit you, and serve some coffee!
The Coziest of Coffee Management Games
I love everything about Coffee Caravan. No, seriously. The start menu is relaxing and easy to navigate. The background music is chill, but upbeat. I enjoy the pastel aesthetic and the faceless character design adds a charm to the game. Being able to select recipes, organize my space, and decorate is a lot of fun too. The choice of easy, normal, and hard difficulties is perfect for different days. Some days I want the easy game, some days I prefer the challenge of hard difficulty. So, I have a save slot for each one!
What I’d never thought I needed was a roguelite element to my cozy games, but I love how it plays out in this one. No game will play the same as your roadmap will be different each time. And how you choose to play one map may differ from how you play others. The unique way this game lays out level choices adds freshness, too. You can choose from a laid-back level, or maybe visit the shop. Unless you prefer the challenge of a more hectic day, then choose that one and then hop on over to a bonus stage that might reward you with a new item, extra money, or even be a chance at another shopping spree at the shop. Or you’ll earn new customers or conditions to play through.
Roadmap
That’s not all that this game will have, though! In fact, the developers have just released an update for players who use macOS. This release also sees the addition of some great QoL updates like being able to switch the item in your hand with the item on a customer’s table! So, no more running to an open table or counter to free up hands. Just switch them out! There were some missing icons on recipes that have been added in, as well as a new confirmation for deleting a save on a gamepad. Then there were some optimizations to make the game even better.
The lovely developers have also release a roadmap that gives a general idea of what they’re working on and what to look forward to. First was the macOS release, which is to be followed by improvements for the Steam Deck, and the launch of a Discord server. Their goal for this summer is to release the Ice Cream World update so you can serve delicious, frosty treats instead of coffee. Plus, you get to look forward to new character accessories for customization and Russian and Korean localization. Later on this year, with no release date determined, Coffee Caravan will see the addition of Endless Mode for greater challenging fun, cat pets for you to enjoy, Twitch integration, Freeplay mode, and a new demo.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it’s a great little single player game. Play on whichever setting you prefer, and experience an ever-changing game with fascinating roguelite features. There’s also tea service you can unlock, and coming with the free summer update is ice cream! It’s a perfectly cozy game, or make it as challenging as you want, if you prefer that. Coffee Caravan really aims to provide a varied gameplay experience and they achieve that! I can’t recommend this game enough to the casual gamers out there.
I give it:
You can find Coffee Caravan on Steam now!
- Sep 4, 2024
Captain your very own greenhouse starship in Kohlrabi Starship by developer Whimsical Wolff Games. Begin your space-based journey on a mysterious planet where you’re searching for rare plants and animals that are close to extinction. Bring what you find back to your home planet in an effort to restore the ecosystems there. Turning the vast deserts of home into thriving, lush biomes won’t be easy, of course. You’ll also need to work on repairing the starship, gather resources other than plants and animals, make money, and forge friendships with other people you encounter!
As you explore the stars, choose which plants and animals to bring onto the ship. Carefully introduce the plants to different environments to see which one suits it best. Breed the endangered animals you capture to impact the ecosystems you’re trying to restore. You can even terraform the desert to turn it back into a green paradise. Plus, you can breed the perfect pet to follow you around. Want a cute little kitty with pink fur? You can do that!
Of course, you’re not alone in Kohlrabi Starship. Take time out of your busy exploration schedule to meet a cast of diverse characters. Help them out with some tasks and forge friendships with them. You may even find love in one of them! And you get to decorate your starship to suit your tastes. Collect and build furniture, change the flooring, and place useful pieces of technology to help your mission of restoring your planet. Whatever you do, you’re bound to have an excellent space travel adventure!
Release Date
Kohlrabi Starship is coming to Steam some time soon. Add it to your Wishlist to receive notification of its release.
Little-Known Galaxy is another cute space-based exploration game with fun farming!
- Sep 2, 2024
Cozy gamers everywhere should be keeping their eye on Critter Cove as it’s shaping up to be an incredible game. However, if you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s a beautiful open world life sim where you’re given the big job of restoring the island. It was once a bustling tourist destination, but now it’s nothing more than a run-down town with trash strewn across the beaches. Can you bring the island back to life?
Start your new adventure by customizing your own character. Create a human or animal, reptile or mammal or some kind of hybrid! Critter Cove doesn’t limit you to any singular preset. In fact, if you want a parrot head with the tail of a cat on the body of a human, you can do that! Then, set out to earn dubloons by attracting tourists to the island. Use that money to upgrade buildings and install new shops or attractions to increase the tourist rating. The higher the rating, the more tourists that will visit, the more money you’ll make, and the more you can build and upgrade. It’s a win-win situation all around. The tourists aren’t the only people, or creatures, you’ll come across, though. Rescue Critters across the world and move them to your island. Build them homes, provide jobs, and become friends with them.
In Critter Cove, You’ll rescue the Critters by going out and exploring the post-apocalyptic world. Take your trusty, but run-down boat out to different islands to discover even more than new friends. Explore ruins and uncover relics to house in the Museum of Mystery. Find treasures, exotic resources, and go diving below the waves to explore shipwrecks, too. Or stay at home to craft unique items from the trash you collect. Turn your farm from desolate to a flourishing oasis of crops. Your freshly grown produce can help improve the tourist rating, too! So work hard and see how your island turns out.
The Demo
The demo offers a great view of just how fun the game will be. The NPCs you encounter on the daily are unique and possess their own personalities. The dialogue is sassy and hilarious, too. Critter Cove scratches that town building and exploration itch left behind some of the other great cozy games. Plus, it’s absolutely gorgeous. The world is a vibrant post-apocalyptic landscape and a is lot of fun to just observe. Even the quests are fun because the dialogue and the characters are well-written. It’s overall one of the best demos I’ve tried out, which makes me even more excited for the full game!
Release Date
Critter Cove is set to release September 10th on Steam, with releases on PlayStation and Xbox early next year! Try out the demo and see for yourself how great it is. And don’t forget to Wishlist it!
- Aug 29, 2024
If you’re unfamiliar with Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, it’s more of a productivity tool than a game. However, it’s the perfect cozy experience for getting work done with some gaming aspects. With the perfect lofi soundtrack playing in the background, you get to customize your character with a variety of fun clothes and hairstyles. Then, make your space the coziest possible place you could be by changing the furniture, decorations, and wall colors!
Set your character to do different things in their room while you get real-life work done. Sit by the fire, chill on the bed, sit at the desk to get some virtual work done, or sit at the large window and contemplate the view. Choose the time of day, the weather, and other background noises to create the perfect setting for you to get some tasks done. Create to-do lists, set a pomodoro timer to get work done while also taking breaks, track habits, write in the journal, and earn experience. As you play, you can discover different adorable spirit companions that will accompany you in your virtual cozy room. And you can pet them!
The Update
This new major update adds so much more to the already great Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, and I’m excited! First up is item previews. When choosing a new item, you can preview it on your character or companion before buying it. Which is perfect for new clothing and companion options (though the devs have left those a surprise).
There’s also a new activity for your character to engage in, and that’s gaming! What’s more perfect than cozying up on the bed with your console and playing an equally cozy game? Well, sitting by the fire to game, perhaps. Use your MON-ki Portable to do just that, or sit at the desk and play on the computer instead. This update will allow you to adjust the productivity tools, too. Scale them and reposition them how you see fit to make the layout suit your tastes and needs. But perhaps the most exciting of all is the addition of a new spirit companion! APE-bit is the mascot of the MON-ki Entertainment company, and is the perfect companion to accompany you in your gaming sessions.
The Spirit City: Lofi Sessions update doesn’t quite end there, though. You’ll get a whole bunch of new room customizations to experiment with, too. There are new desks and chairs to create your favorite study area. Add decor to the right side of the desk now, and make it even more personal. Choose your favorite side table, and decorate with a new Spiritdex skin or decor items. Plus, there are more bed covers and headboards to choose from, hanging lights to light up the room with, decor that can hang from the beams around the room, and new chairs for relaxing in front of the fireplace.
Release Date
If you didn’t already love Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, then now’s the chance to start with this incredible update. The update is OUT NOW, so get started now with improving your productivity and enjoying soothing lofi beats by finding the game on Steam – at the time of publishing this article, the game is on sale as well!
You can also check out my review of it here if you’re interested!
