All posts tagged in Building
Dec 13, 2023
In As Far As The Eye, you play the role of the wind guiding the Pupils as they journey to the center of the world. It’s your job to manage their resources, their buildings, and their whole lives. Direct them to a bigger and better life in order to make it to their destination while surviving life and the rising waters that threaten them. Ensure they survive and thrive!
The roguelike tribe system gives As Far As The Eye a fresh feel each play through you take on. Plan out the route the Pupils will take to reach the center of the world. Not every route spells disaster, but each one holds its own special discoveries. Explore and search points of interest along that path to discover long lost treasures, and even meet allies along the way. And before you head on to the next spot, harvest resources, build your mobile village, and stock up on necessities!
As Far As The Eye reminds me a lot of dotAGE, which I absolutely loved. They both lack enemies, and instead pit you against random events that threaten the survival of your people. You overcome these events by preparing your people, in this case the Pupils, appropriately. Instruct the Pupils to conduct research that will improve their skills in agriculture, crafting, scientific and mystical arts. You’ll also want to improve your Pupils through the job system, as well as upgrade buildings for better results.
Will your Pupils survive?
Release Date
You can find this charming game now on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch!
The Wandering Village is another beautiful nomadic base-building game!
- Nov 30, 2023
The planet has become hostile to humans, but they persist despite natural disasters and harsh living conditions. Your job in Synergy is to develop a thriving city while facing those natural disasters head on, making choices that will affect your people, and meeting the needs of those people. You’ll need to explore, analyze your surroundings and things you find, and experiment!
Analyzing your environment will be necessary for survival in Synergy. You’ll learn information about the plants and other elements of the world that will help you survive. This information will help you obtain new resources, as well as providing safety for your people. Plus, your new knowledge can help you build a more sustainable city suited for the environment, thus improving survival odds. You’ll also be able to assign jobs to your city-dwellers, like research! Their research will help further your goals of building a thriving city. Even exploration parties will help you discover necessary information.
Your choices matter in this strategy city-builder, so be sure to choose wisely!
Release Date
Synergy is coming to Steam at the beginning of 2024! You can currently add it to your Wishlist to keep up with it, though.
If you prefer brighter colors or pixel graphics, dotAGE is a great option for survival city-builders!
- Nov 29, 2023
Have you been looking for the next great tycoon-type game? You know, like Zoo Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon where the focus was on using your creativity to build parks, while keeping guests happy. Perhaps one without puzzles or roguelite elements. A game that gets back to the roots of the genre and is just purely a tycoon game? Tavern Master might be for you, then! This is a cozy medieval management game where you’re in charge of building, maintaining, and running your own tavern.
Tavern Master equips you with many different tools to help you create the perfect business. Craft impeccable layouts and choose from any number of walls, flooring, fences, and stairs to build your tavern. Add decorations for a personal, cozy touch, too. Be sure to include a kitchen and rooms for guests to stay overnight! Arrange enough tables and chairs, plus light sources, to attract customers. Hire staff to run the kitchen and serve guests, and optimize the workflow. Customers will only wait so long!
What will your successful tavern look like?
Available Now
Tavern Master is available now on Steam!
Perhaps you’re looking for more of a life sim? Then checkout Circadian City, Little Sim World, or even Paralives!
- Nov 23, 2023
Are you looking for a cozy idle game that doesn’t involve leveling up fighters to defeat bosses and enemies? Garden Galaxy might be perfect for you, then! This relaxing little game is a unique sandbox idler where you take time to craft your ideal landscape.
You start with a blank canvas of a few white tiles, and a mysterious looking pot. Every few seconds in Garden Galaxy you’ll have a cute little flame-like visitor pop-up for a visit. Click them to earn a coin. Then, feed the coin into the mysterious pot to earn a reward! The pot will spit out cute decorations like lanterns and planters, helpful piggy banks, and terrain tiles. Rearrange the terrain tiles and decorations as you please to create a beautiful garden space. You’ll even be able to change the background color and the time of day to achieve the perfect aesthetic.
Take a moment to embark on a chill and creative journey with this pretty little idle game!
Available Now
You can find Garden Galaxy on Steam now! There’s also a demo available so you can try out the game first.
Spirit City: Lofi Sessions is another cozy idle game worth taking a look at!
- Nov 22, 2023
Solarpunk is a first person game that you can play solo or together with friends. While it is an open-world crafting survival, it’s also a cozy adventure full of resource gathering, building, exploring, crafting, and farming. Harness the power of sunlight, water, and wind to automate your homesteading processes.
Take advantage of the modular building components to build the home of your dreams. Build your floor plan from scratch by placing each floor tile. Set up walls, windows, doors, and roofs to complete the plan. Add stairs for a multi-story set-up! Solarpunk also has a variety of decorations for you to use to create the coziest home possible. Then, you can place farm plots to grow your own fruits and vegetables to consume. Each crop satisfies a different amount of hunger, so growing a variety of them can be useful. You can also trade your bounty to the merchant for other goods.
Don’t forget to build your own airship so you can explore Solarpunk’s numerous sky islands. You’ll find caves, mountains, lakes, and rivers across the world. Different resources can be found on different islands, too. Or if you’re more of the farmer type, raise and breed different animals. Treat them well, and those animals will reward you with resources! There’s no exploitation here, only coexistence. So be sure to provide them with enough food, water, and space.
Coming Soon
You can find Solarpunk on Steam where you can add it to your Wishlist. There is no official release date listed yet.
Loftia has some promise for a cozy MMO, also with solarpunk elements like harnessing alternative energy sources!
- Nov 16, 2023
The Tenants is your opportunity to build the rental property empire of your dreams! You’re in the driver’s seat of your new career, so you get to decide everything. Test your investment skills in order to earn money. Take risks or play it safe by finding the best bang for your buck. Then, choose who you rent to. Perhaps the aspiring musician will make a good tenant. Or even build a welcoming gaming haven for a group of gamer friends.
Just be prepared to deal with the various situations The Tenants has that will pop up between neighbors! How you react to things will have an affect on your gameplay. Deal with annoyed neighbors, and even problematic neighbors that might require police intervention. There’s more to it than just managing your tenants, of course. Take time to expertly design and renovate each of your rental spaces. Refresh the paint, redo the floors, and outfit the place with lovely furniture. The better the space looks, the more it’s worth!
Available Now
You can find The Tenants on Steam!
Perhaps checkout Dwarrows next!
- Nov 15, 2023
Are you looking for a simple town building game that lets you just craft a city without the pressures of choosing the details for everything? Townscaper is for you, then! The game is described as “more of a toy than a game” and offers a simple, casual experience. Pick colors from a color palette, then place buildings on an irregular grid. Create winding walkways full of tall, colorful apartments, or sprawling seaside shanty towns. Experiment with placing buildings and watch the underlying algorithm spawn arches, stairs, bridges, canals, and more! There are no objectives. There’s no real gameplay. Townscaper is just a relaxing building sim that lets you set your creativity free.
Available Now
You can find Townscaper in Steam, Epic Games, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Switch, and Xbox!
Tiny Glade is another relaxing, free-form building game without any objectives!
- Oct 11, 2023
It’s Steam Next Fest time again! Last time, I found five cute and cozy games to play and wrote about them here. This time around, there are 10 games I thought fit the bill. These games are a fairly wide variety, so hopefully you’ll find one you love, too! One has combat, but the rest are perfectly relaxing and stress-free, so perfect for kicking back for some fun. If you haven’t tried any of these demos yet, I suggest you do it!
Bug & Seek
First up on the Steam Next Fest list is Bug & Seek! Once the lifeblood of the town, as well as the center of its economy, the Insectarium now stands abandoned. Someone stole all of the bugs and displays in the dead of night one day. Now, it’s up to you to restore the Insectarium, and even solve the mystery of the Great Bug Heist! Catch over 175 real-life types of bugs. Use those bugs to fulfill requests, as well as restore the Insectarium to the once fantastic bug display it used to be.
This demo was much shorter than I expected, and left me wanting more! With its charming pixel graphics and simple gameplay, Bug & Seek promises to be a perfectly relaxing game.
Coming this year to Steam!
Cupid Island
Cupid Island is a cute life simulator all about bringing together couples and nurturing their blossoming relationships! You play as a Cupid, and it’s your job to explore the human world and make couples. Once coupled, you can bring those humans to live on Cupid Island where you’ll collect their Love, Joy, and Passion which will help expand the island. Build and customize absolutely everything from your own home to the looks of your couples. Farm, fish, dance, and even play soccer in your down time. And who knows, maybe you’ll find your very own true love!
This was another short Steam Next Fest demo that I really enjoyed. It’s adorable, charming, and just so positive. It definitely will give you the warm and fuzzies!
Coming to Steam January 2024!
Vexlands
If you enjoyed Forager, give Vexlands a try. You’re a lone survivor deep within a cursed land and you need to explore the world by unlocking surrounding tiles. You do this by gathering resources that appear around you, sell them, and use that money to unlock new tiles. Those tiles will reveal more resources, loot, dungeons, monsters, and even disasters! Unlocking a tile also cleanses it of the mysterious curse surrounding it. Craft gear to help you in your adventures, and even build your very own home base with decor. You’ll also unlock the ability to raise animals as you grow your home base. There’s even cute hats to collect!
Coming soon to Steam!
Manitas Kitchen
In Manitas Kitchen, you play as Trexito, a Tyrannosaurus who has a dream to make pizzas! Your short little arms make that difficult, though. Under the supervision of a tiny, rude boss, however, you’ll gather a team of other dinosaurs to make up a kitchen full of the best cooks. With a humorous crime drama narrative, you’re sure to have a ton of fun with this one. You’ll learn to make pizzas and get to unlock new recipes as you buy ingredients from the store.
I found this Next Fest demo to be quite a bit of fun. You get a little bit of story and a little bit of gameplay to get a peek into the whole picture. I did find Trexito to feel a little slow, and the movement felt a little clunky. However, this one seems like it’ll be a ton of fun once released!
Coming to Steam and PlayStation this year!
Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley
Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley is a charming game with a classic storybook art style. It’s easy to play and easy to navigate with a compelling storyline. You play as Snufkin, who’s returned to the valley after a long winter, only to find a series of parks has popped up. These parks ruin the natural beauty of Moomin Valley, and Snufkin’s determined to get rid of them all. Explore the beautiful valley as you remove ugly signs, knock over unsightly statues, and dismantle grotesque park fencing. Complete puzzles and gain friendly help using your trusty harmonica. Even sneak around park patrols to restore the beautiful valley to what it once was!
I loved this demo. It’s an absolutely gorgeous game. I felt like I’d been dropped down into one of my childhood storybooks. Plus, it’s easy to learn how to play. It’s perfect for relaxing after a long day, and great for adults and kids alike!
Coming to Steam and consoles early 2024!
Nom Nom: Cozy Forest Cafe
Ever wanted to escape city life and run a cute, cozy little cafe out in the woods? Now you can in this Steam Next Fest demo, Nom Nom: Cozy Forest Cafe! This game is a relaxing cafe management game where you complete simple rhythm minigames to bake tasty treats. Serve a variety of adorable animal customers, and even talk to them while they enjoy their food. Even decorate the cafe to your liking with different wall colors, flooring options, windows, signs, and more! You can also design custom t-shirts to give away to your customers as a thank you.
This demo was WAY too short. I got to experience a single customer, made one item for that customer, and decorated the cafe with a few options. I wanted more! What was there was so, so cute, though. Definitely keep your eyes on this one!
Coming to Steam soon!
Time to Morp
Time to Morp is like Pokemon meets automated machine production, and I’m all about it! You’re in charge of building up this planet, starting with making use of the cute little creatures name Morps. Build them suitable enclosures, and feed them different materials to watch them transform and produce resources! Explore a vibrant, colorful world in search of new Morps, new resources, and exciting new biomes. Then, settle in and build a network of pipes, pumps, wires, tubes, and more to create an automated system. Use it to feed your Morps, or direct them where to go, and more!
This demo was a lot of fun. The colors are super vibrant, but work really well within the game. The Morps are fun to take care of, and exploring is interesting with the wild variety of terrain and plants. Plus, the people you interact with are quirky, which makes for fun dialogue. This game doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Coming to Steam early 2024!
Horticular
Next up on my Steam Next Fest list is Horticular! You’ve been magically summoned by gnomes to restore a garden that’s seen better days. You’ll engage in a fantastic world where you have total creative freedom. Build and expand your garden. Use hundreds of unlockable surface types to create lush grasslands, lavish pond habitats, and ornate rivers. Decorate with a variety of items and plants, too. Create inviting habitats to attract back animal friends in order to restore the ecosystem. Just be sure to maintain the magic elements as magic will help you with unhappy animals, garden decay, and corrupted agents sent to sabotage you!
I really enjoyed this demo, too. It was relaxing, even though there were objectives to complete. There wasn’t a rush to complete them, and I could rearrange and redo my garden however I wanted. Plus, the sheer number of items promised in the full game, just makes me more excited. This will be the perfect game for designing gardens!
Coming to Steam soon!
Chill Town
Chill Town promises to be a soothing blend of idle game and life sim. And really, it reminds me of ACNH, but people instead of anthropomorphic creatures. You run around collecting resources on a beautiful island. Catch bugs, visit the shops or town hall, fish, farm, and tame cute creatures. Unleash your creativity in build mode and create your perfect home using a variety of different decor items. Even add your personal touch to the outside of your home with benches, light posts, and more. Even take care of your very own furry friend!
This demo was super cute. You got to interact with some of the townspeople and get an idea of what they’re like, while learning how to fish and collect items. I’m thinking this will be a great alternative to players looking for more ACNH-like games!
Coming to Steam soon!
A New Leaf: Memories
A New Leaf: Memories is an adorable new farming sim where you wake up on a mysterious beach with no memories of how you got there. The mayor has graciously gifted you a plot of land, and the townspeople helped equip you with the necessary tools. Grow a number of fruits and vegetables on your farm, and sell the produce or use them to cook fun recipes. Explore the island to find a network of caves where you can gather resources. Even take a moment to fish in the different bodies of water found across the island. Plus, raise farm animals, complete quests and build relationships, befriend an adorable cat or dog, and decorate! You’ll be able to customize your look, as well as change your clothes. And of course decorate your home to create a cozy escape from farm work!
I’m sure we’ve all been eagerly awaiting A New Leaf: Memories, and thankfully they released this demo during this Steam Next Fest, because boy was it adorable. The demo shares just the basic first steps, but it was beautiful to run around and explore. Plus, the plot of land you get for your home is massive! I can’t wait to see all of the fun farms people create!
Coming soon to Steam!
