Alongside your childhood friend, leave your busy city life and mundane 9-5 workday behind as you seek out the adventurous life on Snacko Island in Snacko by developer Bluecurse Studios! Things didn’t quite go as planned, and you find yourself washed up on shore after a storm. Luckily, you and Mikan are safe and have been found by the last local living on the island, Nobu. Everyone else has abandoned the island looking for better opportunities. Except Nobu, who is happy to have a pair of young cats to join him in daily life. 

In fact, Nobu shows the two of you the ropes for farming and general living on the island. And together, you’ll restore Snacko Island to the bustling little piece of paradise it once was. Run your farm where you’ll grow 12 different crops and raise cows and chickens. Demolish old buildings and rebuild with various shops and homes to attract newcomers. Hire shopkeepers, create 200+ pieces of decor to liven up the place, and create a peaceful town. Get to know 26 unique characters from shop-keepers to just plain neighbors looking for a slice of relaxing island life. Even explore 4 different biomes where you can collect resources and encounter mysterious shrines for a dose of adventure! 

Sweet and Sassy Fun

Snacko has been the cutest, most wholesome cozy game I’ve encountered so far. The story is simple, but sets you on a fun adventure to restore a town. The color palette for the environments are gorgeous. The biomes are so pretty and unique. Plus, the character designs are just lovely. I’m glad to see other cat characters appear, but also really enjoy the variety of animals you see. Dogs, a horse, birds, and even a penguin are all possible characters you’ll encounter. Each one possesses their own personality, too, which livens up the island. And they all come with their own personal style so homes across your island will be different, too! It all makes for such a good variety in every aspect of the game.

There is a lot of sass thrown into the game, though. A LOT. Some dialogue between you and the characters is full of sass. Some item descriptions are sassy as all get out and I LOVE it. The jokes and sass are funny without being overbearing or making a character seem rude. It also mixes things up a bit, so nothing is overly saccharine. I’ve really enjoyed discovering the different fish to see their descriptions because of the developers throwing in some incredible lines. I can’t get enough of the writing in the game. 

Classic Coziness, but Different

I love farm sims. I’ve played so many already and have so many more on my wishlists that I’m drowning in farm sims. So what makes Snacko different from your standard farm sim? Aside from the great bits of humor, building your town and having full control of that is a start. Not only do you remove existing rundown structures, but you collect resources from them that help in the rebuild. Then, you can place homes and stores and decor where you want within the town region to create your dream space. So, you’re not limited to simply decorating your own home or farm space. You’re free to create your dream town and it’s so much fun! 

What I also enjoy that sets the game apart is the use of shrines. They’re fun little challenges you can take on at your leisure and give you a change of pace. Complete a shrine the first time simply to complete it. Then, you can take on the shrine as many times as you want to achieve the fastest completion time. That’s right. The shrines turn into speed run challenges for when you’re looking for a little more challenge and a little less laid back. Even better, though, is that the shrines are totally optional. So, if you’re not interested, or like me and just not great at speed running, then you don’t need to do them! You get rewards for completing and finding chests in the shrines, of course, but there’s no fear of FOMO here as they contain items you can get some other way. It’s a perfect system! 

Final Thoughts

Snacko’s character creator is fun, too. I mean, creating your own little cat character? Nothing more fun than that. Plus, the developers implemented a great tutorial phase where you read about the thing and then do it. Nevermind you can always access the tutorial pop-ups from your bookcase so if you forget something, you can relearn it. And the fishing mini game is one of my favorite in any cozy game. It’s simple and easy, but still has a slight challenge. Exploring the different biomes is fun. Taking on shrines for a challenge is great. Raising fuzzy cows and fluffy chickens is my definition of cozy. So, overall, the game is so wonderfully fun that I would recommend it to any and all cozy gamers. 

I give it:

You can find Snacko on Steam now. Nintendo Switch and PlayStation releases are planned!