Lyssa Greywood

“Starsand Island was made for cosy gamers who want something familiar but softer, more modern, and more romanticised. The characters lean into a gentle shoujo anime/manga style, while the world itself focuses on atmosphere. Starsand Island is escapism in the quietest sense, whispering as the tide rolls in and the sun sets overhead. If you’ve played everything from Sun Haven to Coral Island, Fields of Mistria, Dinkum, Animal Crossing, and Disney Dreamlight Valley, you probably know the feeling I had coming into yet another cosy life sim. I wanted something new, but I also wanted to feel welcomed home. Starsand Island understands that impulse, and most of the time, it delivers.”

“There’s a huge lack of customisation across the board. Character customisation is almost nonexistent. You get four characters. Three of them are men. That’s it. In an industry where one-dev cosy sims let you change hair and eye colour, this feels dated. World customisation is also missing entirely. You can’t tweak hunger, stamina drain, bug difficulty, loot drop, or day-night length. You can’t even increase enemy spawns if you want more challenge. Games like Enshrouded, Grounded, and Satisfactory set a standard here. StarRupture doesn’t meet it yet. The building and inventory systems are rough. Rails can vanish when connecting buildings. Buildings refuse to place due to “collision” when they clearly aren’t colliding. Crafting doesn’t pull from storage, which means wasting hours shuffling items. You can’t shift-click. You can’t store similar items quickly. Carrying 24 single items fills your inventory completely, which forces constant backtracking. It’s exhausting. ...the rupture feature saves this game. Before I experienced my first one, I was pretty much ready to write the game off, but they are chilling. After running to your habitat, you can watch the blaze occur, and then witness “night” fall upon the planet, everything going from golden to fiery red to charcoal in mere moments. Walking outside once the temperature drops feels… Sad. It feels sad. There isn’t much life on this planet, but the ruptures reduce it to rubble.”

“Death Howl is a bold combination of grief-driven storytelling, deckbuilding strategy, and soulslike challenge. It’s not an easy game to settle into, and the lack of a tutorial makes the first hour harder than it needs to be. But if you can push through the rough start, there’s a deep, soulful experience waiting for you. The atmosphere alone might keep players going even when the difficulty bites back.”

“The decorations and keepsakes inject personality into the space, with many items appearing so tactile that you can almost feel them (and some even invite interaction for a short animation). Chairs look hand-painted, lamps cast soft halos… Even the suitcases have a slightly worn look that suggests they’ve travelled with you. When everything comes together — your cabin, your cat, the drifting weather — it creates something that feels like home. It’s like Cozy Grove during its quietest moments.”

“The hand-drawn visuals are the heart of the game. The environments shift between fiery forests, cool moonlit woods, and floating cliffs, each with its own mood. Nothing is overcrowded or noisy. Shapes and colours guide you through the world. The style reminded me of Ori’s gentle glow and Hollow Knight’s calm moments, mixed with the nostalgic charm of early Studio Ghibli films. The magical collar/purr effects are lovely too — plants blooming, fish deflating, dandelions lifting you into the air… Every change feels part of a natural, enchanted world.”

“A Pizza Delivery is about memory — not the kind we want to escape from, but the kind that won’t let us go. You play as B, a pizza delivery rider whose only goal is to deliver her final order. It sounds simple, but the further you travel, the stranger things become. You soon realise you’ve entered a world that’s not quite real, where areas loop endlessly and people linger between remembering and forgetting. ...It might sound harsh to call A Pizza Delivery half finished, but that’s the truth. The game’s structure, pacing, and puzzle design all feel like they needed more testing. It’s also riddled with smaller bugs: shifting tree textures, visible seams in walls, and the red pizza box sometimes disappearing if you talk to the final character before completing her puzzle.”

“There’s something comforting about sitting in front of a blank canvas… and something daunting, too. But that’s how Dream Garden begins: with an open space and somewhat endless possibilities. At first, it feels a little intimidating, like staring at the first page of a new notebook and not knowing where to start. But that’s also where the magic is. The game doesn’t just let you build a garden; it lets you create art without needing to know how to draw.”

“...one of the most emotionally charged games I’ve played in a while. It isn’t fun in the traditional sense—it’s meaningful. It asks you to sit with discomfort, to make impossible decisions, and to confront what survival looks like when the world falls apart. Dewi’s story isn’t just about her; it’s about anyone who’s ever had to make hard choices in a system stacked against them.”

“...if you push through that rocky opening, The Lonesome Guild becomes a heartfelt story about connection and healing. Each of the six characters you recruit brings something different to the game; not just in battle, but emotionally. Mr. Fox, for instance, became my favorite because of his grounded personality. He’s sarcastic and honest in a way that feels human, and his response to events (when compared with Davinci’s constant need to keep things light and happy) is refreshing. The story shifts focus from the red mist and Ghost’s identity to what it means to find belonging in a world that’s forgotten how to connect.”

“Beyond sandbox mode, there isn’t much here that feels new. Unbox the Room follows a familiar formula that’s been used by many isometric organising games over the past year. It’s a genre that could use a break, and while this game adds its own touch of charm, it doesn’t stray far from what’s been done before.”

“Kokoro Kitchen is a visual and auditory treat. Everything from the colour palette to the background music feels designed to relax you. The developers have created an atmosphere that’s gentle and familiar, like the warm glow of a favourite café on a rainy day.”

“Spindle surprised me. Beneath its gloomy opening and talk of lost souls lies a story about connection, empathy, and the strange comfort of knowing your place in the world. It’s a little clunky in places—the controls are weird, and the combat could use a touch more energy, but none of that overshadows what it gets right.”

“The gameplay is a series of logic puzzles. Each level drops you into a new setting—cinemas, buses, boats, train cars—and challenges you to arrange characters according to their preferences. It starts out easy: someone wants a window seat, or a music-lover shouldn’t sit next to someone trying to nap. Over time, the combinations get trickier, forcing you to juggle multiple constraints. The best levels, in my opinion, were the diner and the train. These included little extras like moving food around or sorting luggage, which made the experience feel fresher.”

“Out and About is a warm, carefully researched foraging game that respects both its subject and its players. It’s not just about collecting plants; it’s about learning, connecting, and becoming part of a community. The developers have built a space where small acts matter. There are still things to polish, from plant clarity to clothing variety, but the heart of the game is already in the right place. Even with its rough edges, it delivers something thoughtful and soothing, and it’s easy to imagine it becoming even better with time.”

“The game’s information suggests a grand narrative about humanity’s survival and AI integration. But that sense of scale quickly collapses as you start playing. There’s no payoff for the foreshadowing, and Akane’s personal stakes never feel urgent. Conversations also tend to rely on awkward tropes—especially when it comes to how female characters are written. Akane is strong, sarcastic, and clever… but even she isn’t spared from the occasional objectifying dialogue choice. Other women suffer the same fate, too often reduced to outdated archetypes that feel out of place in a world otherwise trying to present serious themes... The world has a lot of personality, and I wanted to get swept up in it. But I couldn’t ignore how often the game forced me to endure lines that felt uncomfortable at best and sexist at worst. That dissonance pulls the story apart.”

“Crafting is unintuitive; you can’t build while serving guests, and the costs to buy recipes and materials are steep and long-winded. Even basic tasks like cleaning tables break under bugs. Objects float and then suddenly move towards where they should be, guests sit down with their body caught in the back of a chair, and your character can walk through multiple objects like Vanellope von Schweetz in glitch mode. It’s hard to keep pacing when mechanics fail you repeatedly.”

“As much as I wanted to love this game, there’s no denying it could have done more with its charming setup. For starters, the game only gives you a few small side missions tied to the parcels. What if every delivery came with a task, like helping the florist arrange a bouquet or prepping a treat for yourself at the café? That could’ve turned this from a 40-minute filler to a cosy two- or three-hour delight.”

“There’s no traditional storyline in Another Farm Roguelike: Rebirth, and that’s by design. You don’t have neighbours to chat with, and you’re not building a life, just a farm. The premise is simple: build, harvest, and expand to meet rent. And while there’s no story in the traditional sense, there’s a rhythm to it that ends up telling its own kind of tale. Each playthrough creates a miniature arc. You begin with almost nothing, struggle to find a foothold, and either succeed gloriously or flame out trying. Your farm evolves rapidly, and the joy comes from seeing what you can make of your short time, especially once you start understanding how everything fits together. It’s survival through soil.”

“Hotel Galactic is a game with heaps of heart and a few kinks still to smooth out. Its gorgeous storybook visuals and lovingly hand-crafted animations give it an appeal that’s hard to ignore. The concept is clever, and when it clicks, it really clicks—you’ll find yourself juggling guest requests, expanding your hotel, and tinkering with tiny contraptions in a kind of joyful flow. But it’s not without its frustrations. The bugs, having to reload, and some muddiness in the tutorial can throw you off your groove, especially in the early hours. It’s a game that needs a bit of patience and willingness to poke around until things make sense.”

“Animal Shelter 2 doesn’t try to give you a complex story arc. Instead, it gently builds a narrative around your choices, and the animals you rescue. The more time you spend in your shelter, the more you feel the weight of what you’re doing—not just juggling food bowls and litter trays, but connecting the right animal with the right human. I appreciated that the adoption system included personality matching; it mirrored real-world challenges... Be aware that there are lots of visual bugs right now. While the environments (especially your shelter nestled in a peaceful town) carry a lot of charm, the animations leave something to be desired. Leashes cut through the animal models, balls float in the air, and pretty much every object (animals included) clips through certain walls/surfaces if you're not careful.”