All posts tagged in Sandbox
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.
- Aug 7, 2024
Southfield, by Radical Forge, is a light-hearted farming sim with cartoony art and silly physics. The game takes place on the island of Southfield, which is no ordinary place. You’ll grow a variety of cartoony crops that have some chaotic effects. Customize and decorate your homestead to suit your tastes. Even automate your farm production for the best results!
You’ll need to learn to expect the unexpected, because the crops in Southfield don’t grow like you’re used to! They might bounce around, explode, play a tune, or even change their shape. Some might even float or shine a bright light, too. You can also combine crops to discover new outcomes, too. Complete quests by turning in crops and fill in your almanac with information you discover as your experiment with them!
Free up some of your time by automating your farm. Use trampolines, air cannons, and other toys and machines to create a production line. Then, go exploring and experience the fun physics of Southfield. Bounce around on mushrooms or flop around for some added fun. Just be sure to dust off your building skills and protect your crops. Night time brings Ruffians, who like to steal your hard work. Of course, you can also build your dream home, too. Build a simple wood farmhouse or go big with a stone castle. The sky is literally the limit!
Release Date
This funny sandbox farm sim is listed on Steam where you can add it to your Wishlist. Although, Southfield currently has no release date available.
- Aug 6, 2024
The name Farm Folks suggests this game will be just another farming sim to add to the list of all the farming sims out there. Don’t get me wrong, I love farming sims. They’re what I turn to at the end of a long day for some relaxation. However, developer Crytivo has made it clear that this game is far more than just your simple farming sim. In fact, it’s an immersive open-world sandbox game with adventure and RPG elements.
Experience an alternate near-future where clean energy reigns supreme and Solar Punk aesthetics are abundant. Resource management and automation have been seamlessly merged with the classic farming experience to create unique gameplay. It doesn’t stop there, though. There will also be the option to play solo or together with friends in several different modes. Relax after a long day with some farming or get together with friends to take on the PVE and PVP elements for a more exciting experience. But there’s even more than that!
Claim a FREE in-game item ahead of the games launch TODAY!
The amazing folks at Crytivo put Henry the myPotatoGames potato into the game in the form of a jiggly, adorable backpack! Claim yours for free today and redeem it once you start playing the game later on!
The Farming Experience
Yes, Farm Folks does have farming. In fact, there are over 100 different crops for you to plant and nurture. You can even breed crops to create hybrids. You can also raise a number of different animals to collect the products they make. Produce cheese from milk and knit sweaters from yarn made of llama fur to fulfill NPC orders. Form bonds with your farm animals to make them rideable and set out on grand adventures across the different biomes of the world with your trusty steed!
You won’t be stuck with the rustic, back-breaking farm work forever, though. Utilize the flexible conveyor belts and cargo drones to automate your farm’s production. Move product across the farm via the conveyor belts while you fulfill NPC orders remotely via the drones. As you progress, you’ll unlock new tools that will help you further create an automated mega farm factory paradise. You’ll also need to carefully manage your water and electricity to ensure all processes receive adequate power. The smoother, more efficient your farm is, the better for you.
Building and Adventuring
Perhaps the most exciting feature I’ve seen from Farm Folks is the immersive building mechanic. Not all games nail this experience, but so far this game seems to. You’ll be able to build your home from the ground up and create the exact space to suit your tastes. Place flooring, walls, furniture, and decor. Make use of the extensive customization options to not only change the color of floors and walls, but choose a gloss level, uneven paint application for a rustic look, and add crown molding or baseboards. Even pick the patterns and colors for your furniture to create the ultimate cozy home look.
You can build anywhere in the world, so set out on a journey to explore the unique biomes. Find the perfect place amongst the biome-specific flora and fauna, and meet new characters while you’re at it. The dynamic weather and seasonal changes bring life to the world around you. Even uncover the lore of the world through character interactions and quest lines. Meanwhile, you can explore to your heart’s content as there is no forced sleep mechanic! Explore the great outdoors or the local town at night to see the world in a different light (literally). Or just enjoy the fact that you can work through the night on whatever goals you have. Even uncover the lore of the world through character interactions and quest lines.
Game Modes and Combat
Farm Folks aims to be truly unique by integrating more than just simple farming mechanics and exploration. You’ll be able to tailor your gaming experience using flexible game creation settings. These settings will help you create the game to suit your play style. To further cater to different play styles, you’ll be able to choose from Peaceful Mode or Survival Mode. Peaceful Mode is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll have a cozy, relaxing experience playing the game where you’ll be able to build, decorate, and farm in peace. Meet new characters and even romance NPCs while you’re at it. There are no obstacles in your way!
For the players who enjoy more of a challenge, Survival Mode requires you to manage your hunger and health as you play. You’ll also be able to go ghost hunting, catch Phantoms, or participate in the time travel PVP competition. This competitive experience is called Extraction Mode – Finite, and the global map you’ve become familiar with transforms from the beautiful world you know, into a post-apocalyptic version of itself. For this competition, you can join forces with friends in order to change the destiny of the world. Collect important materials for future use as you run around a dynamic, player-influenced map where structures you’ve built will age and transform over time.
Release Date
If you’re as excited about this game as we are, add it to your Steam Wishlist! Farm Folks has no release date listed, but it is planned to come to other platforms like Xbox and PlayStation.
You can also check out their brand new website for inside scoop of whats to come!
- Jul 31, 2024
Calm Cove by developer mellow mind is a simple and cozy building game. You get to build your very own little island up from nothing. Get creative with how you design and develop the place. There are tons of possibilities for you to discover and the only thing standing in your way is you! There’s no stress, no objectives or management, and certainly no combat. It’s you, your imagination, and the island.
Design your island how you want, at whatever pace you want. Then, decorate each building to suit your plans. Want simple homes? Go for it! But if you want a house with pretty little window flower boxes and a bench outside to enjoy the day, you can do that too. As your Calm Cove town comes alive, you’ll have villagers move in. Take in the soothing sounds of nature as you watch your new residents explore their new home and just enjoy your hard work!
Release Date
You can find Calm Cove listed on Steam. There is a demo available, but the full game isn’t expected to release until next year!
Don’t confuse this game with Collector’s Cove, which is equally as cute and cozy!
- Jul 18, 2024
Play as an intergalactic biologist that finds yourself stranded on a desolate planet in Critter Garden. You’ll use your science and gardening skills to restore life on this dusty planet by rebuilding ecosystems. Collect Critters and explore the planet to find the lost parts of your ship, too.
Critter Garden focuses on rebuilding the ecosystems of this desolate planet, and to do that you’ll need to take care of the Critters you find. Collect a variety of different Critters and balance their needs to keep them happy. If they’re happy, you can breed them to help restore their population on the planet! Each Critter has a specific diet and some of them will eat other Critters, while others will feel anxious with predators nearby. Even discover new Critters through evolution, too.
Breeding Critters isn’t all you’ll have to do, though. Critter Garden gives you tools to design ecosystems and seeds to plant in order to grow nine different biomes. Carefully manage space and resources in order to achieve success with your Critters’ happiness, of course. And as you progress through the game, you’ll get to play different minigames with your Critters to overcome obstacles. You’ll also slowly uncover the mystery of what happened to turn this planet into a wasteland.
Release Date
Critter Garden is coming to Steam sometime soon. There is a free demo available right now, too!
If you like creature collectors, don’t forget to take a look at Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge!
- Jun 14, 2024
Thank you to Prideful Sloth and CULT Games for this early access copy!
Go-Go Town is an adorable city builder and management game where you’re the mayor. Your job is to plan, build, and prosper! Rise through the ranks as you surpass other towns as a prime tourist spot. Turn the rundown town from not to hot by cleaning it up and building things people want to see. Food stalls, knick knack shops, and beautiful parks all make for a fun experience for visitors. There’s a little more to it than just building things people want to see, though. Being mayor isn’t easy!
What’s New
The first time I was given the chance to play Go-Go Town, it was a simple and limited playtest that barely scratched the surface of the game. This time, there’s so many new features and cool additions to the game that it’s like playing a whole new thing! There are new areas to explore, upgrades and progression that didn’t exist, plus fun cosmetics.
You now start the game with a humorous and easy tutorial that walks you through how to play while setting up a simple story behind why you’re suddenly a mayor. You can access the information via your in-game phone at any time, too. Then, you’re set off on your own to explore town and do almost anything you want. You are limited in what you can build until you unlock more things. However, you can build something and move it any number of times you want with ease. So it’s easy to redesign if you change your mind!
As the mayor in Go-Go Town, your prime objective is to restore the town. To do that, you’ll build interesting attractions to lure in visitors. To do that, you’ll need construction materials! Go mine some stone to turn into bricks, and cut down trees to turn into planks. Eventually, you can automate those jobs by hiring some of your new inhabitants. As you progress further through the game, you’ll be able to automate just about everything from farming and fishing, to courier services and trash pick up. In order to progress, you earn EGO points you can use to unlock more options. You’ll get the chance to have town decorations, upgrades to farming, fishing, mining, and forestry, as well as new home types, shops, and more! Progression is easy, but still satisfying.
What Else Is New
Your handy in-game phone now has several apps to help you manage your town, too. The tourist tracker lets you know if any of the visitors are unhappy so you can fix the problem. The calendar shows you what time trains arrive, but also lets you schedule your leaderboard challenges. These challenges can be scheduled once you’ve bought every EGOTech currently available, and completing a challenge increases your town rank, unlocking more EGOTech to buy. Challenges are pretty easy to complete, and can be rescheduled with no negative outcomes should you fail. My first challenge needed me to earn 100 coins (which will happen through your shops), build some shops, and build a few lamp posts. The leaderboard app shows you how your town ranks amongst other towns. Keeping an eye on your apps will help you learn how to progress, but also lets you see how far you’ve come!
The potential new residents that show up in Go-Go Town now require you to meet some demands before they’ll accept an invite to move in. That means you’ll need to pay a fee, build something specific, or even just give them a high five! You can then assign them to a specific home and give them a job. Hiring residents will help you automate the town and take some tasks off your plate. If you’re getting overwhelmed, though, you can close the train station to visitors. This lets you restock shops, redesign and redecorate, build, clean up the trash and spills left behind, or even explore the new areas and biomes in peace! Of course, you won’t earn any money, but that’s an easy trade-off for momentary peace.
While you’re designing the town, don’t forget to give yourself a redesign! Visit the little kiosk next to the train station to change your hair, facial features, and clothes. As you find loot throughout the world, they’ll be sent to this kiosk. So, you can change clothes and add fun accessories like heart-shaped glasses. There are even a variety of hats to choose from, plus different baskets to carry your stuff in.
Overall
Go-Go Town is such a great game. It’s exactly as chill as you need it to be since you can close the train station, but even then, it’s not an overly demanding or hectic game. The art is lovely. The music is perfect and not overwhelming. Being able to decorate and manage a town makes for a cool concept, but with the addition of the progression tiers, it’s a super engaging game. There are an almost endless list of possibilities for your little town, too!
There is a new demo available for the current Steam Next Fest, too. Even more exciting is Early Access drops on Steam June 18th! That’s just next week. So, if you haven’t already, add the game to your Steam Wishlist to be notified when it’s live.
- Jun 6, 2024
For those who are unfamiliar with this adorable game, Gourdlets is a sandbox city builder. It has no goals, no missions, and no end game objectives. You’re simply the architect of the world, building for little creatures called Gourdlets. Don’t worry, though, they’re chill and will love anything you make for them. Build a village, town, city, or whatever! It’s up to you to decide how to lay out the buildings and water features. Include cafes, lighthouses, parks, and much more to create the perfect living spaces.
And now developer AuntyGames has announced a release window for the Steam version of the game! We can expect this lovely game some time this summer, and packed full of new features. Gourdlets now has our tiny little friends sleeping, doing laundry, making toast, and much more. Plus, there’s an idle mode where the game will sit at the bottom or side of your screen. Browse the internet or do work as your city creation does its thing in the background! There’s even a new demo available now on the Steam page for players to check out.
Release Date
Again, Gourdlets is set to release on Steam at some point this summer. Plus, the demo is available on the Steam page for you to try. You can also find the game on itch.io!
Tiny Glade is another free-form building game that I recommend you check out!
- May 16, 2024
Step into the darker side of cozy with Dystopika by Voids Within. This game is a sandbox city builder, but instead of the light and fluffy kind, it has a more somber atmosphere. Inspired by cyberpunk and wanderlust vibes of cities that never sleep, you’ll create exciting cityscapes. Place buildings and giant electric billboards. Use holograms and traffic lights to create your perfect dystopian metropolis. Much like the rest of the cozy city builders, this darker version features no goals, no time limits, and no pressure. So, if you’ve been looking for a game with more gloomy, shadowy vibes but no pressures, this one’s for you!
Release Date
Dystopika is set to release on Steam sometime this year! You can play a demo now, and also add it to your Wishlist.
Fabledom is a more wholesome city-building experience if you prefer that!
