Thoughts and Reviews
Faefarm
Platform: Switch
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A magical farming life sim with really cute graphics where you can farm, fish, catch critters, mine, take care of creatures, craft, collect items, explore different worlds, and so much more. The main story quest is divided into chapters, along with other NPC job and relationship quests.
I won't lie, I wasn't the most excited going into this game but it was gifted to me so I decided to give it a try. My expectations were very low as I remember the commotion when it was a released. To my surprise I actually enjoy this game a lot. Most farming games that I wanted to get into just feels so tedious, but this game implemented a lot of quality of life improvements which makes everything more smooth. Some of my favorites being: automatic tool switching, INFINITE storage space in your barn, lots of inventory space, fast travels, etc. There's so much to explore and collect and almost everything has a purpose. I also don't care much about relationships and storyline in game, so it works out for me (That was the biggest complaint from players). Easily a 9/10!
Moonstone Island
Platform: PC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
A cute pixel monster-collecting, deck-building game inspired by Pokemon and Stardew Valley where you get to explore new islands, catch monsters and battle through deck building, craft various furniture to decorate your house with, farm for food upgrades for your monsters, do dungeons, and more.
We got this when it released the first day in Early Access. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and its mechanics, the art is cute and colorful, and the card game battles were fun. I don't play a lot of card games so it's one of my first introductions (Littlewood being the very first). I'm personally waiting for more updates to come back to it in the near future.
Cuisineer
Platform: PC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
A combination of roguelike dungeon crawler and restaurant management sim. You collect ingredients and resources fighting mobs and monsters and go home to craft furniture and open the restaurant. The restaurant mechanic is a simple quick time management mini game much like Diner Dash where you need to simply click on the proper equipment for orders and occasionally bring it to the (noble) customers.
We played this game during the first day release on Early Access. They have some really weird UX/UI issues and questionable game mechanics. I remember camping the Steam discussions page for questions, answers, and discussions about everything. It was interesting. I'm not too big on the dungeon crawling, but I really loved the Restaurant aspect. Overall it was a nice experience. I'm planning to revisit occasionally in the future, I believe they are still actively fixing bugs and releasing small updates.
Egglia Rebirth
Platform: Switch
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A combination of turn-based dice dungeon combat and town building where you meet new characters that you can recruit to your town. You can gather materials and resources during the dungeon expeditions and use it to craft various things such as home decorations and furniture, recipes for spirits, and gifts. You can upgrade and design your and your residents' houses, collect spirits to give you special abilities during dungeon battles, farm your own seeds and bulbs to level them up, and lots more.
One of the first games I bought personally on the Switch. I really like the cozy, cottage-core art style and vibes. I've never played anything like it before. I'm not a big fan of story-based and turn-based games but this was the very first exception. The dialogues are actually really funny sometimes that I eventually grew to like them. I also started to enjoy how simple the battle mechanics is. It makes for the perfect comfort game before you sleep.
Littlewood
Platform: PC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Littlewood is a cozy town building game where you get to landscape the whole area, meet the residents and build relationships with them, gather resources, farm fruits, craft recipes, sell in the market, explore other mysterious places, and more.
I remember playing this game quite awhile ago and reaching end game. It was my first introduction to a card game (albeit it being just a small mini game). I thoroughly enjoyed it and remember it dearly. The art style is simple and cute and easy on the eyes. I like the fact that you can decorate their houses (albeit them having certain preferences so not completely up to you) and landscape the whole town.
Cozy Grove
Platform: PC
Rating: ⭐⭐
A cozy game with a charming art style where you're stranded in an island and meet the cute ghostly residents, help them through fetch quests, bring back color into the world, and unlock more areas and new bears as you progress through the story. You can upgrade your tent, design and decorate your base.
I remember being so excited for this game and bought it as soon as it was released in Early Access. The thing that really turned me off about this game aside from the limiting time system (much like Animal Crossing, they based it off of real time so sometimes you're locked on what else you can do during the day) and the repetitive fetch quests (most of the time you have to look for a certain number of the same items around the bleak, colorless island so it was hard to see) was the fact that animals and plants that you buy have requirements. They have their own likes and dislikes, so if you don't put them where they want to be (usually close to other kinds and certain attributes), they will not bear resources. I'm not sure if it's still like that, but I found it very limiting to the decoration aspect. For example, a particular flower could hate the same animal because one of the traits it doesn't like, so I technically can't put it there otherwise it's useless. It was really annoying and ultimately led me to stop playing the game completely. I really loved the art style so much, one of my most favorite out of all the cozy games I have, but the mechanics are just not it for me.
Other games
- Oxygen Not Included - Really enjoyed, but I kept restarting bc I want it perfect lol.
- Overcooked 2 - I only really played once with friends and it was chaotic fun.
- Kingdoms Reborn - I loved this city builder. It's simple + it has coop.
- Apico - Simple and straight forward but enjoyable. Art is cute.
- State of Decay 2 - It was fun gathering loot and shooting zombies with a bow.
- Escape Simulator - Fun but it gave me headaches lol.
- Don't Starve Together - it was fun, but it was kinda hard lol. Couldn't finish.
- Age of Empires II - It was interesting, but couldn't get into it. Might pick up again in the future.
- Subnautica - It was sooo beautiful, but I had no idea what I was doing so I stopped.
- Smalland - Cheesed our first playthrough using friendly until attacked so it wasn't that exciting.
- Stardew Valley - I tried so many times but I can't get into it I'm sorry.
- Sun Haven - The art is so beautiful but I'm not a big fan of the story-based fetch quests.
- GTA V - Just not my type of game. I like the idea, not the actual quests. But I loved driving by the law.
- Northgard - Tried a few times but couldn't get into it. It was pretty meh.
- Valheim - It was alright, but we couldn't get into it. A little hard and sometimes boring.
- Raft - Tried so many times but we kept dying even on easy mode lmao. It was hard.
- Tribes of Midgard - Bright and colorful but it was a very weird game.. memories blurred.