All posts tagged in Fantasy
Apr 25, 2024
Pixadom is an upcoming cozy 2D pixel art social game. This cute game will be fully browser-based and takes inspiration from classic retro games like Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda, but also draws inspiration from the ever popular Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. This community-driven game set in a colorful fantasy world will be full of fun activities to try out with your friends!
Explore the different areas of the Pixadom world and take in some pretty sights. Go shopping for new character customization items, as well as visit a cafe, hang out at a nightclub, and visit other shops. Play mini games with friends to socialize and have fun. Attend weekly events with your friends and make new friends through interacting. You can also battle monsters! The road map promises even more fun activities like fishing, gardening, pets, quests, crafting, mounts, player housing, and boss fights.
Release Date
Pixadom is currently in early development, but does release progress updates so you can follow along on their Youtube channel or website!
Utopia No. 8 is an upcoming social MMORPG and so is Galactic Getaway!
- Apr 25, 2024
Potions: A Curious Tale follows Luna, a young witch, as she becomes a potions master and learns some important coming-of-age lessons. Growing up is hard, and being a witch is harder, but as you play as Luna, you’ll encounter an enchanting story full of vibrant characters. With your sharp-tongued familiar, Helios, by your side, set out on an adventure to explore a magical world around you.
Journey across the 7 different biomes of Potions: A Curious Tale in search of necessary ingredients. Work on your potions mastery by brewing over 100 unique potions. Then, take your potions with you as you set out to solve a variety of puzzles using your wits and those potions. You’ll also come across enemies you must engage in combat, but it’s more than just a simple fight. You’ll need to use your brain and strategize the best way to reach victory. Use your potions, but also your environment and even other enemies to defeat your opponents! And wherever your adventures take you, you’ll learn some really important life lessons like adults aren’t always right, respect is earned, and not all advice is good advice.
Release Date
You can find Potions: A Curious Tale on Steam now! There’s even a demo available.
If you like potion-based games, try Magical Mixture Mill, Alchemist: The Potion Monger, and Potionomics.
- Apr 24, 2024
Mushroom Musume by developer Mortally Moonstruck Games is a charming, but slightly spooky child-raising sim. Think Princess Maker or Volcano Princess, but instead, you’re raising a mushroom girl! As the story goes, there’s a lonely Recluse who has the overwhelming desire to raise a child of their own. One day, the strange Witch of the Woods wanders by and overhears the Recluse’s wish. She has a twisted sense of humor, though, and gifts the Recluse with a pot of dirt. That pot of dirt turns out to contain a mushroom daughter!
Your job is to guide the Recluse through life as a parent. Parenting a human is no walk in the park, and as Mushroom Musume shows, parenting a mushroom isn’t either! Your choices shape her future and what type of mushroom she becomes as an adult. She’ll make her own choices, too, like angering the fae or falling in love. You’ll even unearth a vast fairytale world through your adventures. Collect memories, colors, music, and more in the Mushroom Almanac. Replay the game to discover all the possible endings, too!
Release Date
Mushroom Musume is set to release on Steam in Q4 of this year!
- Mar 14, 2024
Spirittea is a cozy life sim all about helping out mischievous spirits. Developed by Cheesemaster Games, this relaxing sim is perfect for anyone looking to branch out from the usual farming sim. You play as yourself with some customization options, and you’ve just moved to a tiny town in what feels like the middle of nowhere. It’s generally a peaceful town, but the spirits have become restless and lost now that the townspeople have stopped worshiping them. It’s up to you to not only restore the bath house to give the spirits an outlet, but you’ll need to track them down and solve their problems, too!
Overall, It’s an Enjoyable Game
I’ve followed the development of Spirittea for a while, because as much as I love farming sims, having something different in the cozy game category is great. Plus, I love the idea of living in a rural Japanese-inspired town and running a bath house for spirits. It’s like my own personal Spirited Away without the consequences and bad guys.
The game starts with you meeting all of the townspeople, much like every other life sim out there. This time, though, you have Jan the dog to show you around. Speak to Jan and they’ll lead you to the villager, instead of aimlessly wandering around the town looking for people. It was an enjoyable way to force you to meet everyone and get a chance to see the town as you do it.
Being able to sleep at any time of day to advance the day by a few hours, or all night, is seriously one of Spirittea’s best assets. Sometimes you don’t want to open the bath house. Instead, you want to go fishing and catch some bugs, but you also want to do it at night. So, hop in your cozy bed and advance the clock! It was great when I was just done with the day and wanted to move on period.
Throw in the spirits with their different storylines and histories, and Wonyan being a sassy bit of comic relief, and it’s an intriguing game overall. Each of the spirits shows up in their own way, and requires some type of help that differs from the last. Plus, they look unique and have some great dialogue of their own. The character designs are done well, so everyone looks different from each other and easy to distinguish. The town is easy to navigate and explore, too. Everything together makes for a delightful experience.
There Are Some Cons, Though
As much as I enjoy Spirittea, there are some problems with the game. I thankfully didn’t encounter any bugs or glitches, so I suppose these are more gripes than anything. However, there’s definite room for improvement in some aspects.
My biggest issue is the map. It sways. When you open it, instead of the landmarks, houses, and trees being stationary, the sway and bounce to the music. It was a motion-sickness dilemma that posed a problem throughout my whole play. Plus, trying to find someone in the apartment building can be difficult because the sprites stack on top of each other so it’s hard to distinguish who is who. And if you’re at the apartment trying to see if your target townsperson is there, your marker is huge and covers up a good portion of that stack.
I enjoyed Spirittea’s addition of mini-games, and that they were unique. There was no carbon copy with a slight difference. I initially picked the hardest song possible in karaoke and wondered why it was SO hard, until I realized my mistake. The controls for that mini-game are great, though. My problem was with the fishing mini-game. You move your thumbstick the opposite direction instead of in the direction of the circle you want to select. It’s not very intuitive, and it wasn’t very cozy to have to stop and struggle every time I fished. Worse was the drinking mini-game not telling you anything about how to play or what controls to use. You just have to figure it out. Good luck!
Final Thoughts
I would still recommend Spirittea to cozy gamers looking for something different than the usual farm sim. It really is a delightful game, despite some of the issues. The storyline is unique, the characters are fun, and the visuals are nice. I really enjoy running my own bath house, too. It was simple and easy, and just overall fun!
I give it:
You can find Spirittea on Steam, Switch, and Xbox!
- Jan 24, 2024
If you aren’t familiar with Blue Oak Bridge, it’s a farming sim set in a fantasy world full of magic and unique creatures. You’re washed up on the shores of Eloria with no memory of what happened to you or even where you are. The townspeople are more than happy to welcome you into their charming little village and help you get on your feet. Not everything is quite as peaceful as it seems, though. Trouble is brewing and you find yourself smack in the middle of it all.
Story and Characters
The overall story and delivery of the story in Blue Oak Bridge feels a little less than cohesive. You wash up on the shores of a foreign land with no memory of what happened. You’re integrated into the town and find yourself in the middle of solving problems that none of the locals seem to want to solve. There’s no really compelling argument made for you to be doing all that work. You just… do. Games need a reason for you to be the one single handedly taking on the burden of restoring things for it to be engaging.
Otherwise, the characters are cool. They’re varied in appearance and personality, while still feeling like they belong to the same community. The character designs are pretty unique for both their portraits, map icons, and overworld sprites. It adds flavor to the game that you don’t always see. They also have fun dialogue when you talk to them. However, the NPCs do talk in a dialect akin to Simlish, and it’s fairly obnoxious to listen to. I would have preferred them to not be voice acted with the nonsense language.
Controls and Gameplay
Blue Oak Bridge is ultimately clunky in its controls. Movement is odd, and aiming your farm tools appropriately is borderline luck based. Trying to water a pad of crops is even worse. It’s like the sensitivity is turned up on the mouse and you’re trying to click at a very specific spot. The watering outline jumps around wildly until you find that exact sweet spot. The nice thing is there’s a strafe button to make using the hoe and planting easier.
The map is clunky. It’s difficult to see what a building is. The character icons show the area they’re in, but not where in the area. So, you can see if a character is in town, at the beach, in the woods, etc. However, you can’t see where in each of those areas they are. That’s fine outside of town, but in town, it can be a real hunt to find who you’re looking for.Their icons also don’t pop up with their name, so you better memorize what their icons look like, and they’re designed differently than their portraits or sprites! Map doesn’t even show your location, so you’re forced to learn every bend and curve of every area, especially the town, which isn’t laid out in a grid pattern. All of these elements just make using the map more of a headache than it needs to be.
Blue Oak Bridge also has some weird glitches that don’t break the game, but make it a little less enjoyable. Fish can glitch out and totally disappear as they’re coming for your hook. And if the body of water is situated at the bottom of the screen, your toolbar covers up a lot of the fish. Thankfully, the fishing minigame is easy and laid back and doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out (looking at your Stardew Valley).
Visuals
Overall, Blue Oak Bridge is pretty. Your farm plot is nice and big with gorgeous grass textures, several different kinds of trees, wild flowers, and a river. It’s a cozy, idyllic little piece of land perfect for starting a farm. The other areas of the fairly small map are nice, too. The mines have different “themes” every 10 levels, and some of them are borderline ethereal. I loved the lighting and overall feel of some of the mine levels. The beach areas are nicely done too, as is the swamp. All three areas feel appropriately beachy or swampy. The snowy mountain area is very small, and doesn’t contain much besides a house, pond, and snow. Plus, the animals are adorable, there’s some really nice decor, and the town looks great.
So, What is Good?
Outside of the character designs being unique, and the graphics being gorgeous, the story being cute, and fishing actually being relaxing, there’s some other stuff that Blue Oak Bridge got right. A lot of what this game got perfect is in the little things like chores. It seems to me the developers looked at all the farm sims out there and improved on certain aspects.
Naturally, you start out with different tools like the axe, pickaxe, watering can, and hoe so you can work on your farm. The watering can doesn’t need to be refilled. Just water away. Drown your crops if you want to, but you won’t be running to a well to refill! Of course, using tools costs stamina, much like every other game out there, too. And surely we’ve all been there when we’re mining rocks and just completely miss the rock we wanted to obliterate. Well, in this game, missing your mark doesn’t cost you stamina. It’s great to not be punished for your goof ups!
Blue Oak Bridge also doesn’t waste your stamina when you’re reached 0. Many farm sims will have you pass out and start the next day with less than full stamina, but not this one! Once your stamina reaches 0, that’s it. That’s where it stays. If you try to perform an action that costs stamina when you’re already at 0, the action just doesn’t happen. There’s no wasting stamina and no overdoing it! Both made the game that much more pleasant.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Blue Oak Bridge isn’t a bad game. It’s pretty and has some unique things to set it apart. It also appears the developer is still working to add to it, which is great. I just didn’t connect with the story or felt the desire to track down characters to get to know them because the map is so obnoxious. Poor controls make things difficult, too. I want to love this game, as it feels like it has potential, but falls short in my eyes.
I give this one
You can find Blue Oak Bridge on Steam.
- Jan 24, 2024
Tavern Manager Simulator from developer One More Time focuses on rebuilding, expanding and improving a tavern. You take over an old, abandoned tavern in a fantasy kingdom town with the goal of restoring it to its former glory. Take a hands-on approach with the restoration by clearing away debris, wiping up cobwebs, and cleaning up lingering dust. Buy new furniture and decor to make the place inviting, but don’t spend all your money at once. You need to buy food and drink supplies to run the tavern!
Not only are you in charge of renovations, but Tavern Manager Simulator has you in charge of cooking and serving customers too! Order quality ingredients, then turn them into tasty meals for your patrons. Chop up some steaks and grill them over an open flame. Toss some veggies in a cauldron to make a delectable soup. The more you cook, the better your skills become. Just make sure you practice proper time management. Your patrons expect beer and food as fast as possible, and your profits depend on their happiness.
Run your tavern successfully and you just might become world-famous!
Release Date
Tavern Manager Simulator is coming to Steam very soon, with a projected release date as Q1 of this year! You can find it now to add to your Wishlist.
If you enjoy management games, take a look at this list of some other great games to check out. You might also like The Diner at the End of the Galaxy.
- Nov 15, 2023
Did you ever watch Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away and think to yourself “I’d love to run a bath house for spirits”? What better way to get to interact with the fantastical and wonderful, after all. Well, now’s your chance! Spirittea offers that opportunity. You drank the Spirittea and now can see all of the different spirits that are causing trouble in town. Humans have stopped worshiping and leaving them offerings, so they’ve become lost and purposeless.
Your job in Spirittea is to find those mayhem-causing spirits and help them solve their problems! They’ll only become paying customers of the bathhouse once you’ve helped them. This might involve getting the spirit a bowl of spicy noodles, digging up their long-lost treasure, or some other task. You’re also in charge of running the bathhouse, so you’ll need to keep it running smoothly. Sweep away cobwebs, provide clean towels to customers, collect used towels, and keep things dry and organized. Provide tasty meals for your customers while ensuring their bath water is heated to their preferred temperature. And make sure you plan carefully. Some spirits dislike each other, so sit them apart from each other, while placing friends together for best results!
When you’re not busy running your mountain-side bathhouse, be sure to talk to the townspeople of Spirittea. They each have their own unique personalities and schedules, as well as hobbies. Plus, many run the local shops which will be helpful in decorating your home. The shops can make a variety of furniture to fit your interior decorating tastes. Make your simple house a cozy home fit for you!
Available Now
Spirittea release November 13th, and is now on Steam, Switch, and Xbox!
Japanese Rural Life is another relaxing sim game! Set in the Japanese countryside, you farm, fish, and spend time with your pet.
- 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!
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