ChillTown is the perfect game for cozy gamers looking to fill that ACNH void. Leave behind the hustle and bustle of your old life and take on a new role on a chill little island. There, you’ll be tasked with improving amenities, building homes and finding new residents, decorating, and more! Even hop in a sea plane and go explore other islands to gather resources unique to each biome. Even catch critters called Pals, use your net to capture bugs, fish for a variety of creatures, and start your own farm. There’s plenty to do (with more on the way) in this relaxing game, but if you ever need to step away, just set the idle function to fish or farm for you! 

This Is Such an Enjoyable Game

I am not the best decorator. You won’t find me building the most elaborate or creative places like you might see across the internet. I’m also not exactly an achievement hunter who needs to complete every possible thing, either. But I still love games like ChillTown. I take satisfaction in discovering new fish and bugs to donate to the museum. Exploring the different islands you can travel to and finding new fruits and veggies to grow back home on my farm is one of my favorite things to do. I also really enjoy that there are Pals you can collect. Blending creature collecting with cozy life sim is a lovely way to draw in different gamers. Plus, the different Pals are cute! 

There are some issues I’ve come across that could use some changing, though. ChillTown lets you customize your own character with some cute hairstyles and a few cute clothing options. However, I’d love to have more options. There’s not enough choice for players to really show off their own personal styles. You can get available outfits from a shop, so you can switch between them and you aren’t locked into one outfit, at least. Aiming to dig or water crops is a bit tricky, too. It takes some finagling to get the correct spot as the aiming is finicky. However, there’s some great things too, like never having to refill your watering can. I can’t express how much I hate having to get more water after splashing a couple of plants! That’s not all this game has to offer, though.

What Makes This Game Stand Out

There are so many cozy games out there, that it’s easy to get fatigued with the choices and sameness. However, ChillTown does some great things that set it apart from other games. My favorites being the save button and no stamina. There’s no forced sleep to save mechanics; something that plagues cozy games and really shouldn’t be included anymore. It forces players into either rushing through a day, going to sleep early and not even bothering to finish out the game day, or rely on the previous save and losing the day’s progress. None of that is cozy or comfy. Having a save button, though, is an excellent choice. You can save anywhere, any time. No running home to flop into bed. Just save and leave the game! You CAN sleep, though, but all that does is skip time. 

No stamina drain should be commonplace now, too. Unfortunately, it’s another mechanic that’s generally included in cozy games that often just annoys people. It feels like an artificial way to slow players down, when having a better progression would be fantastic. ChillTown doesn’t use a stamina bar or stamina drain, so you can go break rocks, farm carrots, or fish all the fish you want. Your tools do have durability, though, so when that reaches zero, they break and you need to buy or craft a new one. I’m not a fan of this method, either, but the tools in this game last far longer than I expected so it’s not a deterrent to playing or enjoying the game.

There are a few other small things ChillTown does that elevate the quality of life just ever so slightly to make playing more enjoyable. The first is that shops are open 24/7. I can go to town square and buy tools or gardening supplies any time. The second is that you can speed run and skip conversations. On a first playthrough, this isn’t necessarily great, but on your second or third run, skip them! The last one is that you can walk through the tomato stakes after planting them! You don’t need to strategically plant them on the outside edges of your garden so you can access each plant and still get out of the garden. You can just walk through them like they don’t exist. And this little detail, out of all the others, really made me happy. No fighting through my garden to get to every plant now!

Look Forward to Even More Fun Updates

The developers of ChillTown just released the 1.0 update earlier this month, but they’re not stopping there. With the last few updates, the ability to sprint has been added, a museum has made its home on the island, the town now has seasonal festivals, and free placement mode was added. Which, shout out to the build mode in this game. I talked about it specifically over here, but it’s just so easy to use and allows for some fun decorating. Really, between the great build mode and the large number of decorations, your imagination is truly the limit! 

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this game. And the developers are eager to listen to players’ problems and desires. They push bug fixes regularly. They’re also present on the Steam discussion boards taking notes from posts (as well as responding to them). So, there’s hope that ChillTown can become an absolutely incredible game where you’ll sink hours upon hours of your time into. If you like games like ACNH, get this one. You’ll love it. 

I give it

You can find ChillTown on Steam now!