All posts tagged in steam
Apr 24, 2025
Thanks to Mudita Games and RedDeer.Games for a copy!
Pilo and the Holobook is a colorful adventure game that takes place in a far-away galaxy. You play as Pilo, the adorable fox. You’re an apprentice explorer teamed up with a scientist who dreams big, and together you set out to document the wonders and mysteries of the universe. Your teacher, Professor Chiron, has fashioned a handy notebook called the Holobook where you can record your adventures and useful items by turning them into stickers!
Explore gorgeous hand-painted planets as you document the cool, the incredible, and the weird things you come across. Turn just about everything you come across into a sticker and see what all you can collect. Even solve some mysteries along the way, but most important of all, you need to figure out how to defeat the Tar! It threatens life in this galaxy and has driven away the inhabitants already.
Can you defeat the Tar and collect all the stickers?
Sticker Collecting Fun
Unfortunately, Pilo and the Holobook is a short game. I spent around 5 hours wandering through the lovely worlds collecting everything I could get my hands on. Those short few hours were some of the best, most relaxing hours I’ve spent in a game in a long time. Not once was I bored and ready to move on, either. I was totally consumed by this cute game, and wish I had more!
There aren’t many characters in this game, but each one has such a unique and fun personality. The dialogue between Pilo and Prof is witty and hilarious. The overall storyline is absolutely heartwarming, too. The galaxy was once inhabited by people, but the Tar’s terrible presence has made each planet dangerous, so they fled. Those who stayed paint such a lovely picture of what once was that you can’t help but feel sympathy and jump in to help.
Of course, the stickers are the best thing. There’s no combat or fail states in Pilo and the Holobook. It’s just easy, relaxing sticker collecting and mystery solving. Even better, is that you could use your brain and reason out what ought to be a sticker and what may not be. Or, you could play like I did, and mindlessly shoot the Holobook at everything! Either way, gameplay was so laid-back and easy to get into. That’s part of what made the game so enjoyable. It’s easy to pick up whenever. Plus, the ending is so satisfying!
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a short game to dive right into, this is it. There’s a time and place for the longer, more all-consuming games out there, and sometimes short little 5 hour games are the perfect palette cleanser. I can’t recommend this game enough. Plus, there’s a free demo on Steam so you can try before you buy! Absolutely go pick up Pilo and the Holobook, though. It’s worth it!
I give it:
- Apr 23, 2025
From the creators of Sticky Business, comes Ritual of Raven, a cozy story-based farm sim set in a magical world. Different traditions of magic live side by side in this adorable little game. There were once grand plans to open portals between worlds, but the ritual to open those portals went terribly wrong. Everyone involved in the ritual lost something precious to them and the portals began producing random new arrivals. You became victim to such a portal and were tossed out the other side of one, where you met the local witch. This witch, Sage, deems you perfect to help her with her quest and off you go to search for her companion Flutterstoop!
Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this new place. Your cheeky raven companion will accompany you as you settle into your new home and get to work. Make friends with the Ritual of Raven cast of unique and quirky characters. Each one has a different backstory for you to hear about. Plus, you can trade valuable ingredients with them! Care for a flourishing herb garden, too. Use your magical abilities to collect and enchant Arcana Constructs to care for your crops. Harvesting by hand ruins the magical properties of the plants, after all.
Best of all is you can unleash your creativity to decorate! You’re in a brand new land, and it’s important to find a sense of belonging. The best way to do that is to personalize your home to suit your tastes. Visit Pistachio’s to pick up all the decor you could possibly want. Then, decorate your homestead, your garden, and even the town!
Release Date
While it has no release date yet, Ritual of Raven will be coming to Steam and Nintendo Switch! Add it to your Wishlist now to receive notification of its release.
- Apr 16, 2025
Full-blown games with great graphics, fun mechanics, and in-depth storylines are great. They’re what take up the bulk of gaming, cozy or not, and offer some incredible experiences for everyone. However, you sometimes just want something scaled back. Something to play for a few minutes at a time while you work on homework or take a break from your work-from-home job. These 10 mini desktop games are perfect for that! They sit at the bottom of your screen (some can sit vertically down the sides, too) and run in the background while you do your thing.
Rusty’s Retirement
Rusty’s Retirement started it all for me. This was the first cozy bottom-of-your-screen game I encountered and it’s the perfect one to start with if you love farming sims. Start out small and grow your tiny farm piece by piece. Rusty will work while you’re busy, farming, caring, and gathering crops. You can even employ worker robots to help speed up the process, too. There’s also a Focus Mode to slow down crop production if you feel things are moving too fast while you’re busy with other tasks. This makes for an even less distracting game!
Bao Bao’s Laundromat
If you prefer a business-based game over a farm sim, then try Bao Bao’s Laundromat instead! This one doesn’t sit as tiny on the bottom of the screen as others, but it will sit in the background and continue playing as you work on other tasks. In this cute game, you help Bao Bao open a laundromat and turn it into a bustling mega-business. Install washers and dryers, buy land to expand, hire different types of pandas, and more. Relax to the excellent soundtrack and set the Focus Timers to assist you with study or work sessions. There’s not much better than a gamified productivity tool.
Tiny Vending Machines
Here’s another business-based mini desktop game. Tiny Vending Machines is about building your vending machine empire. Buy and manage a variety of vending machines. Stock them with products like drinks, candy, ice cream, fruit, fast food, salads, soups, and so much more. Keep your machines stocked as customers will show up randomly to make purchases. Upgrade the vending machines to increase their capacity. Their highest upgrade fully automates them, too!
My Little Life
Take a life sim and make it tiny, and you get My Little Life! Watch as your little character leads their life as you complete work. They’ll choose a career based on what they’re good at, and their paychecks increase based on their skills within that career. You can then spend their hard-earned money on items to decorate their home with. You can even recruit more people to play with and build separate homes for everyone, or make one mega mansion. It’s an idle game, but you have some fun choices to make!
Desktop Cat Cafe
Desktop Cat Cafe is another adorable business-based mini desktop game. This time, you get to design your dream cafe and serve cute cats. Design the outdoor cafe using hundreds of decor options. Unlock 150+ recipes to serve in your cafe. Serve tasty items like cannolis, bubble tea, and matcha cake. Automate the business by hiring some cats so they can serve customers while you’re busy with work. Happy customers means more money, after all.
Cozy Littlequarium
Cozy Littlequarium takes relaxing aquarium building to the next level by putting it at the bottom of your screen and letting you care for it at your own pace! Study, work, or even play other games while your aquarium hangs out at the bottom of your screen. Purchase a variety of tropical or freshwater fish to stock your tank. Decorate with a number of different items to create a peaceful, natural, vibrant, or magical look to the aquarium. You can even breed fish and discover new types to fill out your compendium!
Deskquarium
Deskquarium is another aquarium idler, but it sits comfortably in the corner of your screen. Choose which aquarium type you want, and get to work filling it how you want. Pick from different kinds and colors of fish. Decorate the tank with fun plant life or rocks. There are even different water pumps to simulate a real aquarium build. Play around with your options to create our favorite aquascape and let it hang out on your desktop for some relaxing vibes.
Ropuka’s Idle Island
Ropuka’s Idle Island is described as a “playable sticker”. It’s a small little game that sits anywhere on your desktop. On that tiny island is a cute frog who spends his days cutting the grass that grows constantly. Watch Ropuka cut the grass day in and day out, and watch him take naps, too. Then, use the grass as currency to upgrade his tools or buy decorations to make the island super cozy. You can change the color of the grass, add bushes and plants, decorations, and more to make things super cute!
Whimside
If you prefer creature collectors, then Whimside is the perfect bottom-of-the-screen game for you! Explore the tiny world of Whimside and adventure through some enchanting environments in search of Whimlings to capture. You can also breed Whimlings to get hybrids. Each biome you encounter has its own secrets and rare breeds to capture. Use decorations to create your very own Whimling paradise and have your favorite creatures live there. These Whimlings will keep you company throughout the day while you get work done!
Tiny Pasture
Tiny Pasture is last on our list, and also another idler that has to do with animals. Cozy up with a variety of adorable animals like red pandas, deer, rabbits, alpacas, and more. Feed them, interact with them, and watch them grow on your screen. Put up a Mystery Curtain in the pasture and choose two adult animals of the same species to breed them and get more cute babies. Also buy magical items to help you care for and clean up after the animals to keep them happy and in tip top shape! You want them to keep you company while you work, after all.
- Apr 11, 2025
Have you ever dreamed of fighting evil by moonlight, having magic powers and cute outfits, or just healing the world around you? Pretty Sweet Healing Guardian lets you take on that special magical girl role! Customize your very own character with fun hairstyles that are reminiscent of your favorites. Then, take on the job of local Magical Girl in a cozy little town full of people in need and beautiful pastel scenery. You’re in charge of helping the locals find balance in their lives by aiding them in overcoming problems.
The people’s emotions need balancing, and you’ll do that by ensuring you have the appropriate amount of candy magic! Pretty Sweet Healing Guardian is a light management sim, so you’ll need to be sure you have the inventory necessary to care for the townspeople. Visit the candy store to stock up on different candies, and start each level with what you need to succeed! As you help people, you’ll earn hearts that can be used to upgrade your powers and new locations to visit.
Can you help everyone in this nostalgic magical sim?
Release Date
Pretty Sweet Magical Guardian is coming soon to Steam. Add it to your Wishlist to be notified of its release!
- Apr 3, 2025
Remember those awesome Polly Pocket clamshell toys? You know, the ones shaped like a quilted heart or a flower or there was even a shell shaped one. They were tiny little scenes, like a living room on top and a park on the bottom, with tiny little people to play with. I loved those toys and had several growing up, which makes Tiny Garden such a perfect mix of cozy and nostalgic! Except, this game has a fun farming and puzzling element to it instead of being purely for your imagination.
This stress-free game is all about chilling out with some gardening and decorating. Grow a variety of vegetables, flowers, and more. Each plant has its own unique mechanics for you to learn, too. Once you harvest your plants, trade them for decorations to create your very own unique space inside the clamshell toy. Tiny Garden has no time-limits and no fail states. Simply garden and decorate ‘til your heart’s content!
Coming to Steam
I’ve been waiting for Tiny Garden for a while. The demo was really enjoyable, and just left me wanting the full game. Thankfully, it finally releases on Steam April 8th! That’s just next week, so be sure to check out the game, Wishlist it, and grab it when it’s ready!
- Apr 2, 2025
In Piece by Piece, you inherit Grandpa’s beloved repair shop and take on the role of fixing the precious antiques of your neighbors. Piece together beautiful bells, cheerful toys, and so much more in this casual puzzle game. Each forest friend you encounter will have something new for you to repair. But that’s not all there’s to do in this adorable little RPG!
You can also grow berries in your garden to create your own paints. Create new items to sell for a profit. Even use your paints to make them unique. Plus, you can decorate your cute little shop in Piece by Piece. Place fun rugs, counter runners, and cozy pieces of furniture. Most important of all, though, is keeping your floors clean, the fireplace lit, and the cookie jar full to keep customers happy and returning!
Release Date
Piece by Piece does not have a release date listed. You can find it on Steam, where you can Wishlist it to be notified of its release. There’s also a demo, which I highly recommend. It’s adorable and just enough of a taste to get you hooked!
- Mar 20, 2025
If you’ve ever fantasized about running your own bookstore, daydreamed about how cozy and comfortable it is to languish between shelves full of books. Then, check out Book Bound! You run a charming little shop in a bustling city. You start with an empty canvas and through hard work, can build your dream store. Decorate with your favorite aesthetic and stock the books you think your customers will love. See where you can take your tiny endeavor!
In Book Bound, you can choose from a variety of decorations like standard wooden bookshelves, to lush plants and comfy armchairs. You can even decorate the shop based on different book genres like Sci-Fi, Romance, Fantasy, Thriller, and Non-fiction. And you’re free to place your decor wherever you wish. There are no set spaces to place your shelves or art! Then, pick the books you want to sell to customers. Sell at least one of each genre to unlock fun bonuses. You can even design your own books and advertise your business around the city!
Release Date
You can find Book Bound on Steam now. There’s even a free demo available so you can try before you buy!
Tiny Bookshop is another great book store game to check out!
- Mar 19, 2025
Step into the role of train conductor in cozy train-based life sim Locomoto! In this adorable game, you explore the countryside in your modest little train. You’ll get to discover some beautiful landscapes while you serve customers and deliver goods. Help each passenger reach their destination in comfort. Clean up any messes they make, too. And of course, tend to your train so it can continue running!
You also get to decorate your Locomoto train. Paint the outside of each car to suit your tastes. Wallpaper the insides and furnish the passenger car with comfortable seating to give your passengers a cozy experience! You can even expand your train by adding more passenger cars so you can serve even more customers. They’ll even reward you with friendship and their unique stories, so make sure you get to know everyone!
There is currently a free demo available on Steam for this cute game, and I recommend grabbing it! It was such an enjoyable little snippet. Getting to explore a new world, getting to know the NPCs, and just having a different type of gameplay was refreshing!
Release Date
You can find Locomoto listed on Steam. It’s expected to release sometime this year, but has no specific release date listed. And don’t forget! You can add the game to your Wishlist to keep an eye on it and be notified when it’s available.
