All posts tagged in Sandbox
Mar 8, 2023
Create Castles and Transform Forgotten Meadows
Tiny Glade is a beautiful little builder game from indie developer and publisher Pounce Light. With its free-form building mechanic, the game is intended to be a purely relaxing creative outlet. So, there is no resource management, no goals, no combat, and no wrong answers! Just sit back, build some fancy castles and turn some abandoned meadows into incredible architectural scenery.
The game offers a unique building chemistry, too. Tiny Glade features a gridless building system, but also lets players watch as each brick and roof tile is assembled. You don’t need to painstakingly place each piece yourself. Simply draw a path where you want it. Click and drag to place a fence or wall. Want a path to go through a wall? An arch will appear. Want your walls higher? Just drag the top of it higher! And if you drop the wall lower, arches will turn into fences for you.
Tiny Glade looks to be a wonderfully dynamic sandbox, making it perfect for experimenting with builds. There are no wrong answers, after all. Did you build something you don’t like? Changing it is easy! Accompanied by a cozy soundtrack, lighting that changes with the time of day, and other small, cozy details, there’s a lot to love in the game. Ivy adorns buildings, fireflies light up the night, and adorable little sheep roam the meadows freely. Tiny Glade is the perfect little world to escape to.
Coming Soon!
Tiny Glade is currently in development, but will be coming to Steam eventually! There is no release date available a this time. However, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist now to keep up to date on it.
Gourdlets is another cute building game with no combat, no objectives, and no management!
- Feb 9, 2023
Raise and Breed Bees
While we’re on the subject of honey and beekeeping this week (check out Honeymancer if you haven’t), let’s take a look at APICO! Leave your boring city job and return to Port APICO, where you grew up, and return to your beekeeping roots. This cute pixel graphic game is a laid-back beekeeping simulation with breeding, some exploration, and you’ll even learn how to conserve bees.
The APICO islands feature a set of lush, beautiful environments for you to explore. Each biome has its oven breed of bees for you to discover. Gather resources to use in your studies or crafting. Make and sell Apicola (honey) and other beekeeping items you will discover. Play fun beekeeping minigames, without the stings! More importantly, breed different cross breeds of bees and discover 30 new species to help repopulate the APICO islands with. Plus, uncover the secrets of the islands while you explore.
APICO supports up to four players in online co-op, so grab a friend or two and get to beekeeping together! And if you run out of game content, the developers suggest modding the game, though it seems they’re still adding updates to the game. January 30th, 2023 saw the addition of butterflies! Either way, it sounds like APICO can be as simple or as versatile as you’d like to make it.
Available Now!
APICO is available now on pretty much all platforms. You can find it on Steam, Itch.io, the Humble Bundle store, Epic Games, Utomik, Nintendo Switch, and Playstation! You can also try out the demo on Steam.
You can also check out Bee Simulator for more bee fun.
- Jan 26, 2023
Design, Grow, and Nurture Your Garden
Welcome to Garden Life, where you are in charge! The goal of this realistic sandbox game is to build the garden of your dreams. There’s no magic or miracles to it, though, and it’s all up to you to plant and nurture your garden. Use the appropriate techniques, the correct tools, your creativity, and a little bit of elbow grease to create a flourishing paradise.
Take the time to learn the needs of your plants. Each one will need different types of care, like fertilizer and pruning. And don’t forget to water! You’re not alone in Garden Life, either. You’ll be able to fulfill the requests of your friendly neighbors, who will reward you with new tools, fun decorations, and even new plant varieties. Take those new plants, and the ones you’ve grown, and experiment with them. Create new hybrids and beautiful variations to further beautify your garden.
Garden Life implements a grid-free placement system, so players really are in control of the design of their gardens. There’s no snapping to place, and fighting against a grid system to create your vision. It also uses a specially developed procedural growth simulation technology. Every plant in your garden is unique, but will also easily adapt to its environment.
Release Date To Be Announced
Unfortunately, the beautifully crafted Garden Life has no publicly available release date. You can add it to your Wishlist on Steam, though. Developer Stillalive Studios also lists the game as being developed for Xbox and Playstation consoles, though the store pages for the game aren’t available yet.
For more gardening fun, check out A Garden Witch’s Life or Witchy Life Story.
- Jan 11, 2023
Garden and Customize Rooms
In Garden In, players will get to garden to their heart’s content. The objective of the game is to just grow a variety unique and beautiful plants. Pick from a variety of different pots, throw some soil in it, and plant a seed. Each plant will require different things in order to grow, like clay or rocky soil, but each one wants your time, love, and some care in order to grow and flourish.
You can also create hybrid plants. Take a larger hybridization pot, put in two compatible seeds, and see what you get! Try to discover all the different hybrid plants to fill out your herbarium. Plus, you’ll get to customize your plant rooms to fit your personal aesthetic and mood. You have control of the colors of the room, and the backgrounds can be changed, too. Arrange your plants, change the color palette, and set whatever mood you want for each room.
With no timelines and no quests or goals to complete, Garden In! is the perfect game for the casual gamer. It’s also a good game for the creatives looking to just relax.
Coming Soon!
Garden In! Will be available on Steam in about two weeks, on January 26th! You can add it to your wishlist to receive an email when it releases.
For more gardening fun, check out Garden Paws, A Garden Witch’s Life, or Strange Horticulture.
- Nov 16, 2022
Relax and Build
City building games certainly aren’t a new concept. We’ve even covered a few of them, like The Colonists, where you control a fleet of robots who do your bidding. Harvest resources, refine them, and use them to build your city. There’s also Before We Leave, which has you rebuilding settlements on the surface of the earth and eventually colonizing space. You’ll have to manage your resources, build, and harvest crops. SimCity is also a popular one where players have to make certain decisions to keep their citizens happy while building up the city. Gourdlets stands slightly apart from the rest.
Gourdlets is a cute city builder by developer AuntyGames promises to be even more relaxing. There are no tasks to complete, no resources to gather or refine, and no citizen requests to meet. It’s simply a delightful little sandbox city builder perfect for those who want the creativity of a city builder without the pressure of tasks and requirements.
You start the game with a railroad, a small piece of land, and a bench. It’s up to you to grow the land and make it the city you want to see. You can lay down several types of terrain, like grass, sand, dirt, and snow. There are trees, flowerbeds, and even fences to use for decoration. And of course, there are a few different homes you can place. Design and build the wonderland of your dreams in this charming pastel sandbox, and watch as the Gourdlets move in and live their little lives. What will you create?
Available Now
Gourdlets is available now to play for free on itch.io. It is also coming to Steam, but currently has no release date available. You can add it to your wishlist, though. You can also follow the developer, AuntyGames, on Twitter for updates, or read the comments on itch.io for information on updates, as AuntyGames is active there too.
For another city builder, check out Biz Builder Delux!
- Oct 16, 2022
Explore And Find Your Way Home
For all of you who loved the opportunity to create chaos in Untitled Goose Game, and those who just love cats and their antics, this game is for you. Play as a cute black kitty with a big personality and a lot of curiosity in Double Dagger Studio’s Little Kitty, Big City. You’re lost in the big city and have a choice. Do you explore this new and wonderful place, or do you try to find your way home?
Take your time to explore the city. Create havoc and leave some chaos in your wake. Dive into trash cans, knock potted plants off their ledges, and so much more. Meet stray animals on the streets and become friends with them. Find different adorable hats to wear. Little Kitty, Big City is a tiny open world sandbox game, so how you play and explore is up to you!
As if the game description isn’t cute enough, check out the official trailer below. It’s adorable on its own and makes me wish the chaos-creating kitty adventure game was available now!
Coming Soon
Unfortunately, there is no release date yet, and as their Steam page says “Cats don’t have deadlines.” However, Little Kitty, Big City will be released on Steam and Itch.io when it does come out!
If you haven’t heard of Untitled Goose Game, check it out here. It’s a fun time for all. And for more kitty fun, check out Snacko.
- Nov 12, 2019
This stealth game with a simple premise and slapstick humor created by House House, has recently become an internet sensation, memes and all. I have been following along Untitled Goose Game’s journey since 2017 and have been preparing myself to honk at, annoy, and steal from all of the townspeople. Thanks to the developers, I was able to play a copy on the Nintendo Switch and I was not disappointed.
The idea for the game started out as a joke and has evolved from there. It seems that everyone can relate with similar stories of their encounters with unpredictable geese. They don’t seem too menacing, but approach one the wrong way and expect to be chased. There’s just something comical about how they waddle and House House has captured the goose’s movements and actions quite realistically.
You’re a Mischievous Goose, Not A Malicious Goose
Even though the goose’s antics never get too out of hand, some people were hesitant on being horrible to lovely people minding their own business. However, to a certain extent, the game allows you do decide on how to accomplish goals, via a to-do list, so you get to project some of your own personality into the goose. The classical background music also cleverly reacts to your steps and antics which made me feel encouraged to follow through with my plans. Well, not so much plans as let’s just throw everything everywhere and see what happens.
Every character is faceless and there is no dialogue but they’re still so emotive. They’re all just living out their daily routines until you come by and give them a hard time. I actually enjoyed returning to the same areas again and seeing the townspeople putting their items back in their place and fixing things I might have broken. This way I don’t feel as guilty because nothing you do is permanent. No harm, no fowl. It also allows for you to do things over and over again, like a true sandbox game.
You can and should purchase Untitled Goose Game on the Nintendo Switch here, or on Epic Games Store here.
- Nov 9, 2019
Little Big Workshop is an adorable simulation and strategy game developed by Mirage Game Studios and Published by HandyGames (THQ Nordic division). The game released on October 17th, 2019 on Steam which you can purchase here, for PC or Mac, for only $19.99! Manage your workers, stations, machines, and create awesome toys and items to expand your factory. Moreover, it’s almost as if you get to manage little workshop elves, Santa’s helpers, which makes this the perfect game to play this holiday season!
About Little Big Workshop
Imagine a magical factory, appearing right in your living room. A carefully planned masterpiece, where diligent workers throw together anything customers want. Rubber ducks and dressers, drones and electric guitars, scooters and other wonderful goods can be created from many different materials and sold for hard cash – cash you invest right back into your factory to get more machines, more workers and grow your business. In Little Big Workshop you become a factory tycoon!
Real Factories – Made FUN
You are the Big Boss and it’s time to take charge of your very own tabletop factory. Organize the factory floor, manage your workers, purchase machinery, and design efficient production lines – all within the time-limit and to your client’s satisfaction!
An Open-Ended Sandbox-Experience
Take it easy, it’s a sandbox-experience where you think, ponder and poke at things until you get it to work the way you’d like. Supply products to clients and an ever-changing market, as you produce over 50 unique product types, built from multiple parts and pieces – all of which can be created with different materials and production methods. No two factories should ever look the same.
Tiny Hands, Big Dreams
Start out with just a small workshop and expand to a desk-filling factory. Unlock ever fancier machines, add even more production methods, and most of all, more room. Soon enough you’ll be running multiple production lines, producing hundreds of advanced products each day, and watching with joy as your cute workers do the actual work.
Key Features
- Four unique industries fully simulated
- Focus on practical problems, not on values, economics, or logistics
- Organize all steps of the production on a blueprint
- Factories grow as you unlock more desk space
- Day/Night-cycle with simulated working time
- Take care of your workers! Work them too hard and they may turn on you
- Cute model-town art-style
In the mood for more holiday shopping? Check out my article here: Nintendo Switch Perfect Gift Guide.
