May 9, 2024Indie Highlight
Monterona is a charming city building game by developer Slava Korolev. Similar in feel to games like Townscaper and Summerhouse, this game lets you build beautiful cityscapes while experiencing grandma’s stories. Unlock different buildings and decor as your progress through the game. And even explore different cities!
This is another one of those perfectly cozy games that has no goals and no pressure. You simply build winding streets, lush gardens, and tranquil canals to create a gorgeous city. Monterona features an uneven grid system so you have the freedom to build how and where you want. Unlock new buildings and objects to help further your creative ideas. And as you build and create, listen to stories about grandma’s hometown. You can even go visit other players’ creations and explore their cities by walking through the streets!
Monterona is coming to Steam at some point. There is no exact date listed. However, you can add it to your Wishlist now to keep an eye on it!
Apr 3, 2024Indie Highlight
I’m taking it back a couple of years for this one because who doesn’t love a good tycoon game in the same vein as RollerCoaster Tycoon and such? This time, though, you run your own music festival! Festival Tycoon gives you the design and micro-management powers to create and run your dream music festival right from the comfort of your home. Plant flowers, fix toilets, book shows, and sign deals to grow your music show into a great success!
Use ‘create mode’ in Festival Tycoon to design your perfect festival grounds. Start from a modest backyard bash and grow into an international success. Pick from a variety of biomes to set up in, and place stages as well as food options and bathrooms to appease your guests. Set up a killer lineup from different music genres like folk, rock, and techno with your limited budget. And don’t forget the sponsors. They can help fund your dream festival, but they come with high demands you must meet. Plus, your customers need to be happy in order to have a successful show!
Will you build a globally successful festival?
Festival Tycoon is available now on Steam and Epic!
Mar 7, 2024Indie Highlight
In Bloody Hell Hotel by developer Unfold Games, you play as a vampire who’s just woken up from a coma that’s lasted centuries. Upon waking, you find your grand estate is in ruins. You decide to renovate it and turn it into a functioning hotel! That’s no easy task, of course. Times are tough and resources are scarce, plus you being a blood-thirsty vampire isn’t exactly helpful with customer satisfaction. But none of that will stop you!
Beneath your estate is a crypt and cave system. They’re the perfect spot to forage, farm, and craft! Bloody Hell Hotel has customers that expect high-quality room service, which you can give them by gathering mushrooms, milking the undead cow, and collecting eggs from zombie chickens. Prepare tasty dishes for your guests and serve them to meet their satisfaction. Use your vampire powers to clean up the run-down estate. Then, upgrade, decorate, and furnish the hotel to make it more inviting for customers. Even hire staff to help you throughout the hotel. And if there’s a demanding guest you don’t want to serve, eat them! You’re a vampire, after all. Don’t forget to head down to the crypt to craft some weapons, and set out on a journey through the dungeons to earn some resources and upgrades for the hotel!
Bloody Hell Hotel is coming to Steam, but has no release date yet.
Don’t forget to check out Moonlight Peaks for more vampire fun!
Feb 8, 2024Indie Highlight
The once great city of Rome has fallen, and now you’re in search of a new land to restart life. Nova Roma by developer Lion Shield has you lead a small band of people who seek to build a new city called Nova Roma. This city is meant to be a bastion for all the good things the Roman Empire once was, but it’ll take work. Start from a tiny little village and work to build a bustling city.
Nova Roma is a building simulation at its heart, but you’ll also need to figure out how to harness the world around you. Build dams and aqueducts to control water for your city. Explore the world in search of necessary resources and ship them back home to use. Meet the many needs of your citizens by providing homes, entertainment, and more. Even choose to keep your urban sprawl in check or risk the wrath of the gods by taking over the countryside. Of course, you can build temples to those gods to appease them and ensure Nova Roma’s prosperity!
This gorgeous city-builder is coming to Steam this year. You can add it to your Wishlist now!
Want something a little more free-form and relaxing? Try Tiny Glade!
Feb 7, 2024Reviews
It’s February already, and that means it’s Steam Next Fest time! I’ve written about past Next Fest demos that I fell in love with here and here. This time, I’m bringing you an even bigger list of cozy games because this Next Fest is packed full of great ones. From interior design games, farming sims, and creature collectors, to gardening and diorama makers, there’s so much to see this time around. So, without further ado, here’s a whopping 10 different Steam Next Fest demos you need to try this month!
Make Room is a relaxing little diorama designer game. Use hundreds of different items to craft the perfect spaces in each environment. Set up a charming country kitchen, build a comfy reading nook, or design the coziest living room you can think of. You have total control over where items are placed, so you can make your interior design visions come true.
The icons in this game are SO small, but the item options and color choices are perfect for creating some great rooms. The sandbox mode is great for strictly creating on your terms. The objectives mode is easy and relaxed, even though you must build to certain specifications. And creating things on a smaller scale makes creating a lot less overwhelming.
Critter Crops is a gorgeously designed game where you play as Sylvie. She’s a newfound witch who’s been run out of her town because of her abilities. As Sylvie, you arrive on Mutter Island where you discover you can grow magical Critter Crops. These special plants can help you restore the island to its former glory. When you’re not farming, explore the lovely little island you now call home, gather resources, mine, and get to know the people you come across.
What a delightfully whimsical game! The art is very unique, and the crops are too. Raise creatures by growing crops that are very, very different from what you’re used to. The town and crops and creatures are all slightly spooky, which is perfect for the Halloween-loving player who dislikes actual scary things. The color palette and the music is super pleasing, too. Talk about a farm sim with a twist!
In Everholm, you play as Lilly, a young woman looking for her lost sister, Melanie. While out searching, you come across a mysterious portal that beckons you to the cute and cozy little island of Everholm. Weirdly, everyone there seems to recognize you, too, like you’re an old friend. So, embark on an adventure full of mysteries, magic, and relationships as this sim game is all about learning new skills and living together in harmony with others. Farm, forage, fish, raise livestock, and more.
Here’s another beautiful game. This time, it’s a lovely pixel art style game with a great story behind it. I like that your character actually holds a conversation with the NPCs, too. You’re not just subjected to a one-sided monologue. Plus, the NPCs exhibit some really great personalities through their speech. It’s clear this game was lovingly made.
Furnish Master is a relaxing interior design game where you furnish apartments, houses, commercial estates, and outdoor spaces. Use intuitive controls to place each piece of furniture and decor how you like it. Painstakingly choose color schemes and materials for your furniture to match the theme of each room. Even resize items so they fit perfectly in a space. As you complete spaces, earn money so you can buy new properties to continue decorating. You can also engage in story mode where you can buy properties across a single city. Even take on some challenges and puzzles in story mode to unlock new items.
Here’s another diorama-like interior design game, but this time has a far more complex system and more involved missions. Paint the walls to certain specifications, furnish a whole kitchen with specific items, and use your hard-earned money to decorate your own place or buy other properties. There was even a puzzle level in the story mode where you search a room for puzzle pieces and put it together. If the levels have that much variation, I think it’ll be a really fun game. Not to mention the furniture options are varied, there’s a pretty great placement mechanic that includes snapping, and the graphics are nice. This is great for folks who want a little more direction and a more involved interior design game.
Botany Manor takes place at a stately home in 19th century England, and you play as Arabella Greene, a retired botanist who lives at the manor. Spend your days exploring the different rooms of your historically accurate manor. Get to know Arabella and her career as a woman in science through your explorations. Discover beautiful gardens and sprawling countryside vistas as you take in the relaxing nature around you. Take care of a variety of plants by finding their seeds and planting them in the appropriate environments. Inspect newspapers, letters, paintings, and more to get a better understanding of the needs of your plants. Care for them and help them flourish by meeting their exact needs, and watch as your efforts are rewarded!
The visuals are just breathtaking in this game. They’re by no means highly realistic levels of art, but the designs of plants, the architecture, and the dynamic lighting work perfectly together to create such a charming environment. The manor grounds are to die for. I’d love to have my own home with a garden and orchard as beautiful as this one! Searching for clues on how best to grow the plants adds an element of fun beyond simple gardening. It gives you a reason to look around the manor, but also makes you feel like a researcher, which the character you play is! If you play nothing else on this list, play this game. It’s so worth it.
Welcome to Minami Lane! This lovely little life sim lets you build your very own street where you can decorate and manage shops. Build homes to attract villagers to your street. Keep them happy by beautifying the area with decorations, shops, and attractions. Build ramen shops, boba cafes, bookstores, and more. Each shop has its own inventory and effects on the neighborhood. Play missions for a challenge or sandbox mode to focus on the creative side of building.
This was such an enjoyable experience. There are goals and missions to complete, but they weren’t super high-stakes or difficult to complete. The overall graphics are gorgeous and soft and adorable. I love the Japanese-inspired architecture and street design. It’s nostalgic for me, and brings a sense of comfort. Overall, this game is perfect if you want a city-builder with more than just creative building.
Lightyear Frontier is the cozy farm sim set on an alien planet and uses mechs to farm! That’s right, you get to pilot your own fleet of mechs to get things done around the farm or go out exploring the gorgeous world around you. Build your new home and develop a flourishing farm by growing alien crops. Explore your surroundings and restore them by cleaning up pollution and clearing invasive weeds. Discover the secrets of the world, and do it all while playing solo or together with friends.
What’s better than a farm sim? A farm sim with semi-realistic art where you pilot a mech suit to farm and explore, of course! This is seriously such a fun concept, and the different advanced tools you have access to make things even more fun. Vacuum up some water or seeds. Use your spikesaw to obliterate rocks and bushes. It’s a very modern sci-fi take on farm sims, and I love it!
In Night Stones, you find yourself trapped in a dream in a world full of magic and a rich story. Upon waking, you find yourself still in this world and must discover the secrets of the world and find a way home. Explore the beautiful world of Mythica where you’ll encounter Night Stones. These stones will turn night into day, and vice versa, allowing you to meet new characters. Complete quests to gain new abilities that will help you to further your mission. There’s no combat in this game, but there are enemies you’ll need to outsmart to accomplish your goals!
This was such a short demo, but I loved it. Movement is smooth. Controls are super easy. The art is cartoony, but lovely. Animations looked great, too. All of it comes together to present such a good demo that makes me excited for the full game!
Kamaeru is an adorable farm sim where you farm, raise frogs, and preserve nature. Transform the surrounding wetland into a hospitable home for your amphibian friends. Meanwhile, feed, breed, and care for a variety of frogs. In fact, there are over 500 frogs for you to collect! You’ll need to figure out how to attract new types of frogs, then breed them together to unlock rare colors and patterns. Take pictures of your cute pals, and decorate the refuge to make the coziest little from rescue!
I loved the watercolor-like art in this game, and a comfortable creature collector. Playing is calm and easy. The frogs are adorable, plus restoring the wetlands is a fulfilling objective. Decorations are adorable and fun to place. There is a tic-tac-toe mini game to breed frogs together that adds a fun element, and there are more minigames mentioned to be coming with the full version. This makes me excited for the full version because it ought to be packed with a lot of great things to do.
Summerhouse is a relaxing building game. That’s it! Build structures on a small scale to create cute neighborhoods. Set your neighborhoods near the sea, in the middle of the city, or nestled in the majestic mountains. There are no rules, no goals, and no objectives to this game. The focus is purely on creative building. So, kick-back and relax with some building!
This one reminds me a lot of Townscaper. You just simply unleash your creativity and build, but instead of creating whole cities and villages, you’re creating houses, apartment buildings, or shops. The art is beautiful and relaxing, and so is the music. This is a great game if you’re looking to get creative without the constraints of missions or timers.
Jan 31, 2024Indie Highlight
Abyss: New Dawn is an upcoming cozy game from indie developer Aloya Studio currently listed on Kickstarter. The game is a charming farm sim and adventure game set in an enchanting world. You start your journey in New Dawn Land, the first floor of a 10-floor world. Each floor has its own ecosystems, climates, and landscapes. Embark on an adventure full of all kinds of fun activities. Explore gorgeous areas. Raise adorable creatures and useful pets. Gather resources and take on some intriguing challenges, and so much more!
Start your new adventure by customizing your character with cute clothes and other traits. Team up with friends or fly solo to create a flourishing homestead where you grow a variety of crops and take care of some cute farm animals. Abyss: New Dawn features 13 different crops already, with a stretch goal that will add more glowing plants and farm crops, as well as the ability to cook these items. There are also 7 different farm animals already in the game, as well as pets and dinosaur mounts who can help you with your tasks. You even need to build the town yourself. Once you do that, you’ll have NPCs move in at your request, and they can provide you with the necessary goods for your exploration.
When you’re not busy exploring and fighting bosses in the caves, take time to decorate your home in Abyss: New Dawn. You can create the perfect cozy interior for you and your friends to hang out in. Your friends can even contribute and place furniture they’ve earned into your home. Then, go fishing or bug catching to build up a cool collection to show off!
This lovely little game is currently listed on Kickstarter. The timeline there states a hopeful release for the end of next year, with early access coming before that. There are plans for launch on Steam, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox!
Solarpunk is another unique farm sim I think you should take a look at!
Jan 4, 2024Indie Highlight
Welcome guests to your cozy little inn on the shores of a beautiful lake in Alpine Lake! Build and decorate your inn. Explore the beautiful mountainous alpine region with a faithful companion. Help the local community, fish, and grow crops for recipes too. Don’t forget to entertain your guests to keep them happy!
Only your imagination sets the limit for your new inn. Take control and build your cozy business from the ground up. Literally! Create your ideal floor plan, build walls, throw on a roof, and you’re ready to get decorating. Engage with unique characters and their interesting backstories as they check in to your inn, and provide them with their own slice of heaven in the comfort of their own room. Then, explore the expansive alpine region available to you in Alpine Lake and uncover treasures and resources. Even take your adorable dog on a hike with you! Support the locals by sending your guests to their businesses. And grow your own farm, cook, fish, craft, and take photos in your spare time!
Alpine Lake is coming to Steam sometime this year!
Little-Known Galaxy is another farming sim with a different look to it!
Dec 20, 2023Feature
We’re another week closer to Christmas and I can’t wait! I love going around the neighborhood looking at people’s decorations. I think that’s part of why ACNH having lights in trees feels so satisfying to me. What else is super exciting about the Christmas season, is the new gaming systems and games you get! And with Steam Decks being fairly popular, what better way to celebrate the approach of the holiday with some gift ideas for that system?
The following list only features games that have been Steam Deck verified, to save the gamer in your life some troubles and heartache!
My Time at Sandrock is the long awaited sequel to My Time at Portia. And just like the prequel, this one takes place in a post-apocalyptic world 330 years after the Day of Calamity destroyed a lot of modern technology. You accept the role as a builder of Sandrock, a desert community. Gather resources to build machines, befriend locals, fight enemies, and lead the town to economic prosperity! Uncover the backstories for over 30 NPCs while you forge friendships with them. Complete side quests, play fun minigames, and even team up with a friend to play the game together!
APICO is a lovely game where you leave your boring city job and return to Port APICO, where you grew up, and return to your beekeeping roots. The APICO islands feature a set of lush, beautiful environments for you to explore. Each biome has its own breed of bees for you to discover. Gather resources to use in your studies or crafting. Make and sell Apicola (honey) and other beekeeping items you will discover. Play fun beekeeping minigames, without the stings! More importantly, breed different cross breeds of bees and discover 30 new species to help repopulate the APICO islands with. Plus, uncover the secrets of the islands while you explore.
I even have a review of APICO here, if you want more information!
Cornucopia offers the same comfortable features players have grown to love from the farming game genre, but in a lovely 2.5D pixel art style. You plant 52 types of fruit trees, 15 types of berry bushes, and grow 52 different crops, including their different artisan varieties. Sell crops or cook them up in one of 200 different recipes! There’s also logging, fishing, mining, and pet breeding to occupy your days. Also enter the pets into competitive races or use them to help you fight monsters. Then, kick back and relax with some crafting and decorating. Unlock furniture and decorations to turn your farm into your favorite getaway. Make friends with Cornucopia’s NPCs, too. Who knows, maybe one of the over 47 NPCs will catch your fancy! Romance them, go on dates, and unlock their romantic cut scenes. Even marry one, start a family, and decorate their room in your house.
Play as a simple journeyman blacksmith in While the Iron’s Hot. You’re looking to become a master blacksmith. This game features an exciting combat-free experience. Journey to the mystical lands of Ellian where you’ll meet a cast of quirky characters. Explore tunnels full of puzzles and resources. Master every step of the blacksmithing process. Smelt ore, turn metal into ingots, and shape them into useful items. Use your skills to repair machinery to open up new areas to explore. Craft equipment that helps you explore new regions. Even work hard to restore the defunct blacksmithing town of Stal. Revitalizing the village just might prove to Eillian’s artisans that you’re worthy of being a master blacksmith!
In Loddlenaut, you play as an interstellar custodian who has been hired by the spacefaring mega corporation GUPPI to clean up their mess. They’ve inundated GUP-14 with pollution, and want you to restore the planet. This is an open-world ocean adventure where you’ll get to explore this beautiful alien planet, along with the corporate ruins of GUPPI. You’ll find remnants of their buildings, ships, and machinery that have all sunken to the bottom of the game’s ocean. Use your bubble gun, clean up the trash, remove oil spills, and uncover clues about the past inhabitants. Unlock better gadgets to help you clean up different types of ocean pollution. Recycle the trash you collect and use it to craft items. Even befriend cute little axolotl-looking creatures called loddles!
Did you get a new Switch instead? Or perhaps you got one for someone and want some games to go with it. Either way, check out my list of 5 Farming Games for Your New Switch!