April Grove casts you as a rookie forester in a serene, enchanted forest. Your task is to chop trees, gather logs, and uncover the secrets of a woodland community. This retro-inspired game blends life sim, exploration, and light RPG elements in a Game Boy Advance-style pixel-art world. With no enemies, timers, or pressure, it’s all about setting your own pace.

In this game, you’ll trade logs for gold, which you can spend on upgrades like better axes, necklaces, or food buffs that tweak your playstyle. Each swing earns XP, leveling your woodcutting skill to tackle bigger trees and unlock new forest areas. You can also choose a male or female character, customize your gear, and interact with animals for varied outcomes.

Here’s what Steam reviews are saying:

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You play as a sorcerer from a forbidden line of horticultural mages, returning to your family’s abandoned castle in Chandley village. Here, gardening isn’t ordinary: you’ll grow everyday plants like runner beans and turnips alongside mystical ones like thunder-calling taran. Your goal is to restore the castle’s tangled grounds by placing garden beds, decorations, and cozy spots, nurturing both mundane and magical plants from seed to harvest.

The game’s open world is alive with uncanny spirits and old powers in which you’ll also meet a cast of various villagers, each with their own stories. Evening activities include reading ancient books by candlelight, cooking new recipes, or drinking tea with the god in your chimney. However, the world follows the Covenant of the Hearth: lights go out at night, and the Mara, otherworldly beings, rule the darkness.

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In this sequel, you’ll also design your own peaceful island and create a colorful home for the Gourdlet characters. However, this is all upgraded by multiplayer, where players can visit friends’ islands, build side-by-side, and chat.

The game adds a new fishing mechanic, letting you cast lines to catch various fish. You can then spend your earnings on cute accessories, buildings, and decorations, personalizing your island until it feels like home. While Gourdlets Together is a standalone game, it builds on the success of Gourdlets, which has a “Very Positive” 93% rating on Steam from 1,579 reviews.

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In Heidi’s Legacy, you play as Adèle, a young woman leaving city life for the peaceful Swiss Alps, seeking a simpler purpose. Each day starts with morning light and your goats, ready for your care. You’ll guide them through meadows, and in return, their milk and wool become resources for crafting goods like cheese, wool clothing, herbal remedies, and wooden carvings.

These creations can be traded or shared with villagers, strengthening your bonds and helping rebuild their homes and lives. Every choice shapes your relationships and the village’s future, with branching dialogue. Additionally, you’ll forage for herbs and mushrooms and fish in calm waters. As you aid the village, new abilities unlock, making it easier to climb rugged cliffs or leap across gaps, opening up hidden areas.

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Forget The Sims and Inzoi for a moment; Small Spaces offers a different kind of creative gameplay. Jokes aside, while it’s not as advanced for structural building, it provides a charming and cozy interior design experience. You’ll fill pre-made spaces and rooms, selecting furniture, decorations, and layouts to optimize limited areas. The game looks amazing, and you unlock more items as you play. Early Access currently includes three room styles, ranging from industrial to Japanese, along with a shop to acquire new items.

Simple building process

When I mention “progress,” it means completing client requests for each of the nine apartments. These are loose objectives, like adding a workspace or a cozy reading nook. Clients might also ask for specific items, such as a sofa, a TV, or even a painting collection, to earn stars that you use in shops. The biggest plus is that there’s a huge catalog of furniture and decor, ranging from beds and sofas to plants, kitchen utensils, and sewing accessories.

Items are placed using a simple drag-and-drop interface, with options to rotate, paint, and adjust them for tight spaces. A “snap-to-grid” system ensures precise placement, and a one-click painting tool handles walls, floors, and surfaces. The game emphasizes modular design, letting you create clever solutions like loft beds or foldable tables to maximize functionality. You can even fit objects inside each other, such as an oven in a cabinet or a stove on top of it.

You can personalize spaces further with indirect lighting, plants, or wall art, creating unique layouts like open-plan kitchens. My biggest complaint, however, is that while redesigning apartments with different styles adds replayability, the lack of a sandbox mode at Early Access launch limits freeform creativity. You can’t truly make your own small spaces and homes from scratch, essentially forcing you to complete the game before fully enjoying all unlocked items.

“There’s a huge catalog of furniture and decor, ranging from beds and sofas to plants.”

Cozy and relaxing, though it has some bugs

Small Spaces does have its share of bugs. For instance, I got stuck in a doorway when switching from top-down to first-person view, and opening doors felt clumsy. Another bug I encountered involved items getting stuck, making them impossible to properly select and delete. Beyond the bugs, some players might find their PC struggling with the game’s graphics as the 3D-rendered apartments are richly detailed, with realistic wood grains, fabric patterns, and metallic finishes.

While highly advanced and realistic, there’s also some visual clutter, such as odd lighting on flat surfaces. The UI also feels clumsy; when you delete an item, you’re not returned to the menu of clicked objects, forcing you to re-click and scroll, which is a bit annoying. Finally, there’s a day and night cycle, but I couldn’t find a way to change it automatically.

Let’s be honest, the progression system feels sparse; you can unlock everything rather quickly, in about two hours, without much effort. While there’s no story, the Early Access version shows great potential for future additions, from a larger catalog of objects to even modding possibilities, which might allow players to add their own creations.

“While highly advanced and realistic, there’s also some visual clutter.”

Worth it if you’re fan of cozy games

If you’re not into cozy games or want more than just decorating, this game isn’t for you. Its gameplay is purely relaxing and engaging, offering a satisfying creative experience for those who enjoy spatial design. In the end, Small Spaces is totally worth it and fun to experiment with. It could truly become a proper hidden gem if it fulfills all its Early Access plans.

Review copy provided by the publisher

4.2

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It’s an understatement to say the demo version is a big disappointment. It’s quite limited, offering only one item per building category. Though the development likely doesn’t cost much, the demo isn’t a true reflection of the game and is playable until the end of Steam Next Fest.

Have We Ever Had a True Croatian Cozy Game?

Let’s start from the beginning: you choose a map, only one was available, set amidst forests and mountains, where you’ll build a cozy little cabin. It’s interesting that before starting, you can select specific object categories to unlock, like painting, fishing, or other interests, with items and structures color-coded. Of course, core items like walls and decorations are always available. Afterward, you build within a clearly marked grid area.

Log Away lacks tutorials, but honestly, you don’t need them. All you need is your creativity and emotion to bring your vision to life on the fields. Some might wonder, “What’s the point of this game?” The charm lies in relaxation, soothing music, and the rustling of leaves and nature, creating a full zen experience. To make it easier, you can switch between free camera and first-person views, and decide whether to see the roof or walls. Once you have an idea and arrange everything, you’ll find you can interact with objects, like opening windows or even petting a dog.

Object categories include furniture, decor, wall elements, plant embellishments, and more. Like Tiny Glade, it features a day-night cycle. Log Away already looks impressive and beautiful, with noticeable detail on every object and a tangible natural beauty in the river. Personally, I found decorating the interior more fun due to its experimental options, while the exterior felt quite sparse. Sadly, I’m not sure why, they didn’t need to unlock the whole game, but at least two items per category would have been enough. As it stands, you’re quite limited in options and can’t do much.

For Those Who Love Relaxation After Other Games

As is typical for such titles, a photo mode is available, letting you create your own screenshots. Additionally, you can switch visual styles, like from modern to pixel art, with the full version promising even more options. Of course, this won’t appeal to everyone, but for a good photo – why not? On the other hand, the soundtrack features tracks inspired by western, country, and blues genres, composed by Chris Haugen, and it’s truly impressive.

Building in this game is very straightforward. You can quickly rotate items, and some can be stacked, like placing a lamp on a cabinet. You have plenty of freedom to choose where and how to place objects, ensuring you’ll find something to your liking. You can even change colors, so it’s not all just brown.

So, if you enjoy decorating by the fireplace or watching a dog fit into the environment you’ve created, Log Away is definitely for you. Just don’t expect something grand, as cozy games generally don’t demand much interactivity but offer plenty of relaxation and creativity.

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Pixelshire developer KappaBits wrote on X that they were suddenly removed from the Steam backend, losing control of their own game. They’re now taking firm action to end the partnership and reclaim 100% ownership, promising that both the game and its players deserve better.

“I can’t say more at the moment, but when the time is right, I’ll speak openly about how we ended up in this situation — and about the state of the game at launch,” the developer said in the comments. This hint at deeper issues has sparked speculation about the publisher’s role, and we might soon learn more about what’s happening.

Pixelshire is a cozy farming simulator with a pixel art style, launched earlier this year to negative reviews due to bugs, ignored demo feedback, and some players calling out KappaBits for taunting responses to criticism. A planned Switch physical release was also postponed indefinitely, reportedly beyond the developer’s control.

The developer’s determination is clear, but the road ahead is tough with legal and logistical challenges. Regaining Steam backend access, renegotiating rights, and rebuilding player trust will need openness and strength. KappaBits’ promise to eventually share the full story shows a commitment to accountability, which might either restore the game’s reputation or fuel more controversy.

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Dice ‘n Goblins is a first-person turn-based and dungeon-crawling RPG that places you in the role of Gobby, a goblin knight navigating trap-filled dungeon to find a safe haven for her people. With its unique dice-based combat that draws inspiration from tabletop RPGs, charming hand-drawn art, and classic grid-based exploration, the game aims to blend luck and strategy in a cozy yet challenging package.

Cute cartoonish graphics

Having already played the demo, I had some expectations for the game’s official release, but its 10 interconnected levels with grid-based movement, reminiscent of titles like Legend of Grimrock or Etrian Odyssey, truly hooked me in. However, it occasionally grew repetitive. The dungeons lacked proper detail, filled with similar-looking enemies and consistent, rather bland textures and graphics everywhere, which was a slight disappointment.

Despite this, I really admired the approach to art style and characters. They’re essentially hand-drawn images integrated into a cartoonish environment, and while that might sound odd, it actually complements the surroundings perfectly. From goblins to mice, every character fits seamlessly into the world. Beyond that, the dungeons feature interconnected layouts, demanding you solve environmental puzzles like finding switches or even drop down through holes and be in the water.

The auto-mapping feature helps you stay oriented, but I wish it had clearer markers for walls and edges, as it can leave you confused about where to go next. The map’s multiple floors and layers often felt unclear too – it was just rather confusing to get around, although going face first into danger was fun. Luckily, the game’s small size makes finding the right path quicker than expected.

“I really admired the approach to art style and characters.”

The turn-based combat is solid but comes with some flaws

The combat system is arguably the game’s most enjoyable and straightforward feature. You equip items like daggers or shields, each providing specific dice, for example, a dagger gives a four-sided damage die or a shield a defense die. These dice are rolled every turn and categorized into damage, defense, and healing. Success depends on strategically selecting dice to chain combos and using unique skills to alter dice effects for maximum impact. Enemies also use dice and combos, which sometimes forces you to adapt to their patterns.

However, the system’s reliance on RNG can make fights feel too fast at times, or drag on, especially in later dungeons. But, since you get a permanent healing dice early on, it makes it too easy to just take hits, which makes the combat a bit boring. The game is even more forgiving because you have stars to change your dice numbers, making it easy to “cheat” the system. While I understand the goal of a cozy game, the balance between early and late game is visible.

As you travel and explore, you’ll find loot in chests, including new dice, equipment, and items to trade with a dungeon merchant. This lets you customize Gobby’s dice pool and skills. What I do miss is a clear visual difference between bosses and regular enemies. Bosses hit hard, but since you can rest at campfires to reset enemies, you can essentially farm levels for free. This can also make enemies too weak over time, though the game tries to balance this by forcing you to explore for new loot, as sticking with the same weapons isn’t a good idea.

“Combat relies too much on RNG and forgiving mechanics.”

The story has its own memorable moments

Dice ‘n Goblins also features a gentle learning curve, gradually introducing mechanics like piercing or poison effects, so you’re not stuck with the same items. With three different skill trees, there’s plenty of room for experimentation. My biggest issue is the inconsistent XP and gold drops from enemies. Some grant a lot, others very little, with no clear explanation for these varied amounts.

Another really good aspect is the story, which is delvered through silly dilagoue and cutscene that hint at a larger world. Interactions with NPCs, including potential allies, add charm and context, though the story is more a backdrop than a driving force here. The focus remains on gameplay, with the narrative serving as a light, engaging motivator. Sadly, most NPCs feel a bit useless, which is a definite letdown. There’s also backtracking, but only in situations where you suspect you’ve missed a room and hope to find a new chest.

On a positive note, I didn’t encounter any major bugs. The only real annoyance is accidentally clicking forward during combat, which can trap you, preventing you from re-selecting dice and forcing you to commit. Missions were also often unclear, with odd progression paths, and dialogue sometimes fails to provide proper direction. But even if you do get lost, somehow you would always find a way out.

“The story unfolds through amusing, silly dialogue and cutscenes.”

Solid pick if you’re into cozy RPGs

In the end, Dice ‘n Goblins proved to be a surprisingly solid RPG. I appreciate games that experiment and offer something new, and this is definitely one of them. The first-person view was so well-executed that I didn’t even miss a third-person option, though it would have been a cool addition. Nevertheless, this is a very charming game, perfect if you’re a fan of the genre.

I often found myself listening to podcasts while playing this one, it’s genuinely that chill and enjoyable. While it’s still a bit rough around the edges, I can’t fault the developers; it’s an indie game that’s functional and absolutely worth a try. For those who love cozy RPGs with a tabletop feel, Dice ‘n Goblins is worth exploring, especially if you can overlook some minor imperfections.

Review copy provided by the publisher

3.8

The post Dice ‘n Goblins – Cozy RPG with unique approach first appeared on IndieGames.

Hanako’s Flower Shop is a cozy visual novel with resource management elements, centered on Hanako, a young woman taking over her grandfather’s beloved flower shop. Set in a cute, anime-inspired village, the game blends heartfelt storytelling, bouquet-crafting puzzles, and light farming mechanics, focusing on themes of growth, grief, and connection through the language of flowers.

The main feature of the game is its bouquet-building system, a puzzle-like task where you create arrangements based on the symbolic meanings of flowers, like red roses for love, white lilies for modesty, or amaryllis for regret. Customers share their personal stories, and key phrases in their dialogue, which are highlighted via a transcript system reveal emotions like joy, grief, or kinship, guiding your flower choices.

Blending multiple genres while staying cozy and forgiving

There are no strict timers or penalties for wrong bouquets; instead, customers gently suggest alternatives if your arrangement misses the mark, keeping the game cozy. The June 2025 update introduced a “Flower Codex”, a journal tracking flower meanings and customer preferences, which helps new players by cutting down on guesswork.

On the other side, resource management in the game involves gathering flowers in three ways: planting them in your garden, foraging in the forest (limited to seven flowers per trip), or buying seeds and flowers for next-day delivery. Gardening is straightforward, you plant seeds, water them, and harvest once they grow, though some flowers take longer to grow than others.

Hanako’s Flower Shop also features a “Neighbor Assistance” option, where characters like the twins Aya and Sayuri can collect flowers for a small fee, meaning this feature really is simplifying resource gathering in a good way. Not everything here is about gameplay though, you can take breaks to listen to the radio or enjoy snacks, which boosts Hanako’s happiness, a small stat that influences your dialogue choices and improves your shop’s performance.

“Resource management in the game involves gathering flowers in three ways.”

Your choices slightly shape the story outcome

The story isn’t truly linear; your choices shape Hanako’s journey and the outcomes for customers. What you say during customer conversations or nightly chats with Grandpa (through flashbacks) impacts relationships and story paths, although major plot points remain consistent. For example, giving a “good” bouquet that matches a customer’s feelings can lead to positive follow-up letters or happy endings, while “non-fitting” bouquets might result in neutral or bittersweet outcomes. The launch version featured multiple endings based on Hanako’s growth and relationships, and the June 2025 update added two new endings.

Cute animations, like sheep jumping over Hanako’s bed at night, add a charming touch while community festivals, such as the Flower Festival, let you sell bouquets, play mini-games like flower-matching puzzles, and unlock unique decor items. The bouquet-building puzzles are forgiving, letting you retry without penalty as long as you listen carefully to customer stories. Also, the resource system is well-balanced, offering plenty of flowers.

A Hint System for these puzzles provides subtle clues if you struggle with flower meanings, while the game’s emotional depth explores themes of grief and self-discovery. For example, helping a customer process loss with a thoughtful bouquet feels truly meaningful. The absence of “wrong” choices reinforces the game’s message that growth comes from good intentions, not perfection.

“Your choices shape Hanako’s journey and the outcomes for customers.”

Best enjoyed in several sessions

Hanako’s Flower Shop features lush, hand-drawn 2D anime-style art, showcasing flower designs and cozy environments like the shop, forest, and village. Characters have distinct designs, and charming animations, though they lack variety. While the art shines, the UI’s text-heavy design feels dated compared to modern visual novels, and some animations, like customer movements, can seem stiff. Still, performance remains solid with no major graphical glitches.

In the end, Hanako’s Flower Shop is a heartwarming visual novel with no major issues, though it’s not for everyone. I believe visual novels need something truly special to draw you in and keep you playing, and while this game suits fans of Coffee Talk or Strange Horticulture, its overly forgiving gameplay might feel too easy. It’s best enjoyed in several sessions rather than one long sitting and perfect for fans of Visual Novels.

Review copy provided by the publisher

4

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Developed in Unreal Engine 5, Fractured Blooms features stunning visuals crafted by artist Satchel, known for Doki Doki Literature Club. The voice acting cast is led by Nichole Goodnight, recognized from Slay the Princess. Set in an seemingly cozy rural home, the game follows Angie, a young girl trapped in a time loop of gardening, cooking, and cleaning. Beneath this calm surface lies a dark tale of trauma and abuse.

The gameplay blends a “cozy” farming simulation with psychological tension, where you manage stamina to care for crops used to cook meals. These meals unlock new recipes and boost energy for nighttime tasks, while the loop deepens, the atmosphere grows increasingly oppressive, memories resurface, and the house becomes more terrifying. Managing resources and careful planning are key to uncovering the truth behind Angie’s plight.

Fractured Blooms will be available for PC via Steam and Xbox Series X/S.

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