Jan 10, 2024
Moonstone Island is an open-world creature collecting life sim full of adventure and encounters. You move to an island in the sky as part of your village’s traditions to set out learning alchemy. Aside from alchemy training, you’ll befriend people, explore hundreds of procedurally generated islands, farm, brew potions, and tame spirits!
On your adventures, you’ll meet a host of new people whom you can befriend. Work to become a member of the community, but listen to your heart, too. Some of the NPCs are dateable. So, go out on some fun dates and perhaps even fall in love! Travel via balloon, broom, or glider to Moonstone Island’s hundreds of unique islands featuring different biomes. On those islands you’ll discover secrets and find over 70 types of spirits to tame. There’s even dungeons you can challenge to earn upgrades and treasures. And when you’re not out and about, take some time to relax at home where you can customize everything, as well as build your own little farm.
Ready to set out on a new creature-collecting adventure?
Release Date
You can find Moonstone Island on Steam now. A Switch version is expected sometime this year!
Take a look at Autonauts and While the Iron’s Hot, too!
- Jan 10, 2024
Homestead Arcana is set in a stunning world where deadly Miasma threatens life. You play as a farmer witch who settles on the land that this mysterious Miasma corrupted. Spend your days discovering the secrets behind the appearance of the Miasma, as well as caring for your farm by planting and harvesting crops. Then, heal the land of the deadly mystery plaguing it.
Explore areas of Homestead Arcana that are covered in the dangerous Miasma to go toe-to-toe with deadly creatures. Learn why the Miasma came about, but also find fun new things! Venture into the corrupted land to find new plants, seeds, spells, and recipes. You might also find some useful knowledge along the way. Prepare those spells to ready yourself for your toxic adventure.
Release Date
Homestead Arcana is currently available on Steam and Xbox!
If you’re looking for more witchy games, check out Witchy Life Story, Spells & Secrets, and Grimoire Groves.
- Jan 4, 2024
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!
Release Date
Alpine Lake is coming to Steam sometime this year!
Little-Known Galaxy is another farming sim with a different look to it!
- Jan 4, 2024
Inspired by classic tabletop roleplaying games, Baladins is a choose your own adventure perfect for all skill levels and ages. Set out on a quest as one of the Baladins: the cook, the luxomancer, the dancer, or the pyro. Their quest? To entertain the masses, of course! Wander from town to town to fulfill this mission as you make choices that will shape your story.
Each character brings their own unique set of skills to the table, and you can further improve them by making choices and picking up items. None of your decisions are inherently good or bad, but every single one shapes your outcome. And if you prefer to play with others, you and up to three friends can play together online or locally! Plus, whether you play solo or cooperatively, Baladins offers gameplay that you can complete at your own pace. And of course, there’s a dragon!
Release Date
Baladins is coming to Steam this year!
Ages of Cataria is another choose your own adventure!
- Jan 4, 2024
In Peachleaf Pirates, you find yourself washed ashore on a mysterious, quirky island paradise. You have no memory of what happened or how you got there, but the island has a lot to offer you. Split your time between exploring and homesteading. Discover that there’s more to your new island home than first meets the eye in this quirky point-and-click RPG!
Spend your days solving puzzles and getting to know a cast of goofy characters as you work to help the locals save the Peachleaf tree. Evil threatens the life of the tree, and it’s up to you to save it. You’ll also plant and harvest a number of crops, but Peachleaf Pirates doesn’t make farming painless. Greedy little goblins will steal your precious crops, and the tropical climate makes plants prone to diseases. So, keep an eye on your farm! You can also raise some fantastic creatures on your farm, like bees, hens, and bizarre dinoflies. Then, delve into the jungle temple dungeon to collect treasures and fight enemies.
Release Date
Peachleaf Pirates is available now on Steam!
Be sure not to confuse this game with the lovely romantic otome game Peachleaf Valley!
- Jan 3, 2024
Sprout Valley is a cute farm sim where you step back from the busy city life to live out a low-stress life farming. Play as Nico, the sweet little cat character who just wants to live a peaceful life. Gather resources to improve your island life. Plant and harvest a variety of crops. Explore neighboring islands to collect resources and encounter random shops. There’s even some fun NPCs for you to encounter and get to know!
Story, Audio, and Visuals
Sprout Valley is a pretty simple farming sim. There’s about 15 hours of story gameplay to play through, and it’s mostly farming and resource gathering. This isn’t a deep, story-rich farm sim like Coral Island, Stardew Valley, or Wylde Flowers. There is no exciting lore to infer or theorize about. What you see is what you get.
And I *love* that about this game. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the deep story games, too. It’s just that sometimes you want something simple; something that’s easy to pick up for a few minutes to play, then put it down to continue later down the road. And that’s what Sprout Valley is. It’s perfect for casual gaming. Its focus on farming and resource gathering lets me just mindlessly grow crops or harvest fruit, then go about my day as normal.
Plus, the pixel art with its great color palette that isn’t too bright or bold is one of my favorite aspects. Paired with the audio that isn’t super memorable, but doesn’t overshadow anything, it’s a good combination. I enjoy playing Sprout Valley when I’m winding down for bed because it’s simple and easy to play, look at, and listen to. There’s no tension to raise my blood pressure, or spike my adrenaline and wake me up. Just chill music with some chill farming to relax me.
Controls
The controls, on the other hand, are less than ideal. Sprout Valley seems to rely heavily on players having prior gaming knowledge, and especially prior farming sim/exploration knowledge to get controls and the idea of the game down. There isn’t really a tutorial and purpose right out the gate. Unfortunately, not everything feels intuitive. So even having played farm sims prior to picking up this one, it took time for me to figure out and get used to the controls.
Crafting isn’t too bad, though. Sprout Valley even has multi-crafting, which a lot of games lack. You can select the number of items you wish to craft at the crafting table. However, ordering multiple items is a pain. There is no multi-ordering with a few clicks. You have to repeatedly click to get to the number of items you want to order. You want 100 carrot seeds? Click 100 times! Less than ideal, and slows down your dreams of creating that massive flourishing farm, but not game breaking.
Final Thoughts
Despite the weird controls and lack of multi-ordering, I’ve really enjoyed Sprout Valley. It’s the perfect casual game. It’s adorable, relaxing, calming, and doesn’t have frustrating fishing mechanics or minigames. Nothing is overly complicated or too in your face. It’s laid-back and so cute.
I give it
You can find this adorable game on Steam, Switch, Android, and iOS.
- Jan 3, 2024
What’s better than taking part in a journey and grand war to fight for what you believe in? Running the only diner in the galaxy after that war to make tons of money, of course!
The Diner at the End of the Galaxy is a gritty diner management game where you’re trying to build a successful diner business. The galaxy has been reduced to rubble and ruin after an apocalyptic war. And things are tough after a war has reduced the world to nothing, but there’s still riches to be had! Set on the last civilized planet in the galaxy, you’ll turn an abandoned outpost into a bustling gathering place for all sorts of unsavory clients.
Smugglers, mercenaries, space pirates, scheming nobles and merchants all need a place to meet and do business, so build the perfect establishment for that. The Diner at the End of the Galaxy lets you build grand dining halls perfect for customers. Plan out appropriate kitchens to keep up with business. Even set up a garden where you’ll grow exotic plants to use in recipes. You can also hire literally anyone who walks in your door. You’ll want to hire the best of the best to cook the food, serve customers, care for the garden, and craft things, of course. Even engage in some complex politics and forge alliances or rivalries with powerful factions.
Will you help an ambitious leader with their vision, or will you stand in the shadows and pull the strings?
Release Date
The Diner at the End of the Galaxy is currently listed on Steam, where you can add it to your Wishlist. However, there is no release date available.
World End Diner is a cuter diner management game, if that’s what you prefer!
- Jan 3, 2024
From the same developers who made No Place Like Home and Fresh Start Cleaning Simulator comes Captain Pawsome! Instead of cleaning up the world, you play as a cat who captains a ship and fishes for a living. This 2D cozy game focuses on fishing, managing your own shop, and upgrading your ship. What’s better than sailing the high seas full of adventure and fish?
Start your sailing adventure by customizing your cat captain. Pick from several cat breeds, as well as fur patterns to create your purrfect captain. Then set sail across the beautiful open seas to fish for a variety of critters. Even take on the mission of cleaning up the debris and garbage from the ocean! And don’t forget to collect the resources you can find in the ocean. You’ll need those to upgrade your ship. Captain Pawsome also focuses on managing your own shop where you sell your fish for profit. There are even some intriguing townspeople to get to know!
This is a cozy game full of charm and adventure.
Release Date
Captain Pawsome is available now on Steam! There’s even a demo to try out before you buy.
Catch and Cook: Fishing Adventures is another fishing-focused game! There’s also DREDGE, a spooky fishing game.
