All posts tagged in Simulation Game
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 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!
- Aug 28, 2024
Horticular is a relaxing gardening game with a magical twist. Developed by inDirection Games, this beautifully vibrant game begins with you being magically summoned by garden gnomes. They want you to restore a garden that was abandoned by its previous caretaker. So, take on this huge task, but at your own pace, and build a lush garden to be proud of!
You have total creative freedom to turn this garden into whatever you want. Use hundreds of unlockable surface types to create biomes with different terrain. Plant tons of different kinds of flowers and plants. Even place fun decorative items like pillars, planter boxes, and more to create your dream garden. Of course, you want to build the garden in a way that it’ll attract creatures! Each critter has requirements before it will move in, though. So, plan accordingly and soon your garden will overflow with plants and animals!
You also need to maintain the magic of the garden in Horticular. Animals will become unhappy, the garden will decay, and you’ll see corrupted agents sent by your nemesis show up. With the help of the garden gnomes and your abilities, though, you’ll be able to prevent all of that. There are also garden upgrades you can purchase. These upgrades will increase your skills and unlock new items. And while each playthrough will be different, no choice locks you out of upgrades. You’ll be able to unlock everything every time!
Release Date
You can find Horticular now on Steam!
Like gardening? Try Botany Manor!
- Aug 21, 2024
Snacko is a super adorable farming sim where you and your friend venture to Snacko Island in search of a new life away from the hustle and bustle of the city. When you arrive, you find the island a little run down and empty. In fact, there’s only one resident who’s kind enough to get you settled into a new home. From there, it’s up to you to restore the town and the rest of the island. It’s not just some island, though. It features a deep, rich past full of mystery that you also get to discover!
Run around the idyllic island collecting resources, fishing, exploring, and farming. There are 4 distinct biomes for you to traverse, each with their own unique items to collect, plus 4 different shrines to encounter. You can fish up over 20 different types of fish across the island, as well as grow 12 crops and raise cows and chickens for produce. Then, restore the town! Use resources to rebuild the ruins of buildings. Set up a grocery store and other shops to revive the scene. Invite different characters to join you on the island, too. Those shops will need workers and people to sell to! There are 20+ different NPCs you can encounter, and a system in place to make re-inviting villagers easier so you can befriend everyone!
Quests and Villager Overhaul
There’s already some great stuff in Snacko. Being able to save during the day and sleeping wherever you can using beds and sleeping boxes you’ve placed. Talk about stress-free exploring! Of course, there’s a ton more in this lovely little game, but an upcoming update promises some equally exciting things. Buckle up for a lot of improvements and changes!
First up is the restriction on villagers. You can now have everyone all at once! The blueprint shop and other recipes are no longer all unlocked at the beginning. MIAO will act more like a guide, nudging you in the right direction of progression instead of unlocking everything. In fact, there’s now quests you must complete to unlock them. Some of these unlocks happen through Guild quests. However, you’ll encounter several different ways to unlock new dye recipes, cooking recipes, and crafting recipes. Of course, the Guild function is brand new too! Each Guild has its own representative(s) that possess their own personalities and will communicate with you through quests and deliveries. Some of the reps even have mini story arcs for you to experience.
Villager quests have also been overhauled in Snacko, and there are new ones added to the mix. These quests will unlock recipes like Guild quests, but also unlock new shop items. Plus, you can get to know your villagers more through these questlines! Villager dialogue pools have also been overhauled to make more sense and give you a chance to see them all. For example, Rejka will no longer be confused when you speak to him in the morning while dating. The idea is to move away from the mundane cycle of talking, gifting, and repeating to build a relationship. The developers want to give you more options to build your bonds, which is great!
UI Changes and More
There have been some UI changes for expanded dark mode, which includes a new quest and UI to accompany it. Dark mode has been expanded beyond the dialogue boxes, which is great for those of us who prefer less brightness. Dark mode tones down some of the bright green grasses and shiny blue waters. And I think the developers achieved a great balance without sacrificing the beauty of their art and color palettes!
Crafting recipes can now be tracked on the Snacko HUD just like quests. No more second guessing what you just read or keeping a thousand sticky notes all over your desk like me. Simply track the crafting recipe like you would a quest for better efficiency. You can even pin the recipe to match the quantity of items you want to craft. So, if you want to make 3 softwood lampposts, pin the recipe for 3 to track the total resources needed. You can also buy basic resources from the shops after they’re closed now, too.
Now you can charge your sword into a dash function. The dash can be used mid-air to achieve a type of pseudo flying. The distance you travel is dependent on the charge amount, but if you string smaller dashes together, you’ll stay airborne. The pickaxe can bounce you around, too. When you’re mid-air, like from a jump, you can use the charged pickaxe to bounce off things like cliffs. So, fly around or bounce around town for a fun new way to travel!
Release Date
This Town & Guild Update for Snacko is live now! So, hop on and get familiar with all these cool new features! You can find this absolutely adorable game on Steam.
