Cloud Gardens
When I first went to play Cloud Gardens, I didn’t know what to expect. Come to find out, that’s exactly how you should approach this game.
Cloud Gardens is a unique experience that’s hard to describe or compare. It’s partly a gardening simulator, partly a Dystopian landscape builder, and partly a puzzle game that is both satisfying and without frustration. Any and all preconceptions I had about the game were dashed as soon as I started playing it.
Not only is the game beautiful and unique, but it also hits all the right marks: The controls and level design are absolutely on point. It’s so much effortless fun working your way through level after level, and when you fail a level it’s no big deal to go back and try it again. As a matter of fact, you’ll look forward to it.
– Real player with 35.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Atmospheric Games.
This game is so satisfying! At first it’s so simple you might think you’re playing a repetitive and boring experience, but it quickly gets more and more creative and captivating. Some levels are shorter and offer less room for wild creativity, which creates a good pacing considering the large amount of levels in the game (I’m not even halfway through apparently).
I almost never write a review before completing a game, but this is something else. Good vibe with simple and solid mechanics, charming pixel art, and a surprising amount of player agency: you’re growing plants, sure, but also placing (or dropping) all kinds of objects near your plants to make them grow. Those objects let you create storytelling in every scene, then make great foundations for more procedurally-creative plant growth. This is also why the initial simplicity might be misleading: at first, there’s not much room to expand, but wait until you add vehicles and buildings on larger levels to see the true potential of the game. There’s a puzzle element to it, too, for reaching 100% and completing each level.
– Real player with 19.2 hrs in game
Quiet as a Stone
The game is well done and though super simple and even limited in the actual gameplay (can’t save maps you’ve developed, no!real goal other than just clearing the landscape searching for magical stones). But despite the games limitations, it’s easy gameplay and simplicity are actually addicting. Tried it for the first time today and when I’d stopped it was 3 hours later! LOL Only three downfalls I see are that you can’t save maps, can’t create a map from scratch, and there needs to be a gamma control as the game is predominently dark and its difficult to see the landscape clearly. Hopefully the developer will add some updates. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a relaxing experience that only costs pennies.
– Real player with 43.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Atmospheric Games.
Love the concept and the calm vibes, its very beautiful and relaxing! I do wish there were more variation in landscapes though, I imagine it gets same’y quite fast. Different climates and plants would have been fun! It is also much too dark, with no way to adjust the lighting up (as far as I can tell). Sometimes I cant see whats going on at all, its literally just pitch black, lol.
There are also some minor issues, like street lamps cant be picked up again once you place them.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Vilmonic
Vilmonic is a sandbox game which focuses on the evolution of alien species called anims; they adapt to environments, go extinct, go through periods of population peaks… Anims change shape as they try to find a way to fulfil their role in a niche, when faced with competition from other anims. I have high hopes for this game, and I believe the developer will continue to grow it.
Vilmonic for me is a concept game, it is still in beta as I write this, the game has potential to inspire many into pursuing perhaps even careers in genetics, or simply educating people in times where evolution has been considered controversial. It has a friendly aesthetic for new users, the control schemes can be somewhat clunky.
– Real player with 151.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Sandbox Crafting Games.
The ONLY modern A-Life game you can do a successful Wolfing Run.
For the young ones, that is a term coined by the Creatures series community, which has been on the net since 1999.
Wolfing is leaving your artificial lifeforms to their own devices for several hours, maybe while at work or sleeping, and coming back to a population that has changed, persisted, and survived natural selection factors. Mods are needed for Creatures 2’s bugs but the three games can theoretically support a “wild” population of creatures without player input for extended periods.
– Real player with 30.8 hrs in game
Hexagon World
No. Just no. Do NOT pull the trigger on Hexagon World.
It’s pretty feature-free. The only controls are to 1) add land; 2) add water; 3) make a set of hexes desert; 4) make a set of hexes snow. That’s it. Nothing else. If you play this for 5 minutes, you’ve done everything you’re ever going to do with it.
Two menus (house and bomb) aren’t even implemented. No way to change the speed. No way to change the sound volume. No way to scroll the map – you can only zoom in and out on the center point. The cool airplanes? Just dots on the screen; you can’t even see what they’re doing unless it’s happening near the screen center. Switching from flat earth to globe view often results in just a black screen.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Entirely feature free “god game”
Actual trash, do not buy
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Feather
As Robin Sharma said - ‘The very nature of being a human is we are built to progress, we are built to want. Our brain craves novelty and we are most alive when we are progressing towards our mighty mission.’ The modern society embraces this same idea and it applies to every known medium, including video games. You all are familiar with this - achievements, quests, invisible pointers, to, well, point us to do something to keep occupied. Q is, how the one can play & enjoy the game with ‘no enemies, no combat, no threats’ and basically, without any goal? The answer is - you get away from the familiar.
– Real player with 423.7 hrs in game
Feather is not particularly entertaining. It’s not traditionally fun, or thought-provoking, or complex. You’ve seen most of it within an hour. There’s not much to do and you don’t walk away thinking about it, or eagerly awaiting the next time you can play it.
And it’s worth every cent.
Feather may not be my favourite game in my library, but it is undoubtedly one of the most important. I have plenty of games that are relaxing, and yet, whenever I’m feeling sad, or stressed, or anxious, or whenever I’m so bored that absolutely nothing seems appealing, or so deep in depression I don’t feel much, or even just when I want a break- I always turn to Feather.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
Oh Crab!
You can’t move and it bugs with my PC
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Maybe don’t sell the game that always freezes eventually.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Paper Beast
[initial review after 1.5 hours, 2nd review after completion follows, scroll down for it…]
Paper Beast is not quite like anything else, which I guess is why I’m enjoying it so much.
The world is somewhat open (though the player is herded into a fairly narrow pathway through it) and feels spacious. The low-poly graphics are almost abstract, yet well-lit enough and with good enough ambient sound support to feel convincing and provide immersion. Lighting and sky effects are remarkably good, with dawn/sunset fx and thunderstorms over a vast desert landscape. Water doesn’t really try to be realistic, yet is remarkably wet and believable. Occasional “special” items in the landscape cause instant teleportation to nearby spots. It’s a world of constant discoveries. My initial experience was a delightful sense of disorientation and wonder, like walking into a strange but enjoyable dream.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
I firmly believe this is the game to change the future of VR.
Yes, HL: Alyx was the most well-recognised recent step into AAA VR titles, but this game shows that effort and heart can be poured into such a game without the weight of an already established intellectual property behind it. Paper Beast stands on its own and succeeds in everything it tries to achieve.
There is a moment early in the story, standing in a blackened cave, hearing the wind whistle from a gap to the crisply thunderous and opaque outside world. Just the notion that you’re led to this location because you can hear the DIRECTION the wind is coming from shows that this game could never have been any form of success outside of VR. It uses every aspect of the ‘present’ experience of VR to its advantage. And so this game curates an experience of unique curiosity; of turning your head and stepping towards a dark and windy crack in the cave wall to be met with a vast, oily, pitch-dark ocean swelling and crashing below you, lightning illuminating the twists of video-tape seaweed just below the surface through the peaks of the waves. And what can you do with it? Nothing. It’s untouchable.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
Woodland Empire
Woodland Empire is a An ANTI-citybuilder; a natural take on the typical city building game
Instead of building roads and power lines, you control the wind, rain and sunlight to help your forest grow.
Manage, upgrade and grow your empire with the help of woodland creatures, including foxes, wolves, squirrels and birds
Harness the natural instincts of predators and prey to spread and fertilize your forest.
Tired of the hustle-bustle of the typical city builder? Retire to the wilderness and live in harmony with Nature
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Control the forces of wind, sun, rain and time
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Grow and upgrade trees and plants
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Encourage wildlife to thrive and prosper
FlowScape
My favorite purchase all year.
If you’re wondering what I’ve been able to do with FlowScape that led to my review, you can take a look at all of my projects here .
I knew the moment I laid eyes on this, I would most likely love it. It exceeded my expectations as a casual design & illustration tool that just about anyone can use. I have spent many hours putting together village & macro background scenes. The Sculpting tool allow you to create mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, as I see fit. The Painting tool allows you to create walkways. I can construct anything from realistic waterfalls to lost ruins with the Transformation tool to manipulate just about any object.
– Real player with 2803.3 hrs in game
Wow, it’s difficult to say in words how impressive and relatively deep this instant gratification “game” is! Marketed as a game, but used by many as a 3D design tool. Oh, it’s not Maya, or Lightwave, or even Bryce or Blender, which is cool because we already have those. This is something different, and special, and FAST, and easy! And for all its limitations, what IS here is a lot deeper and impressive than you might imagine!
I’ve made a nice living from building scenes in 3D software for many decades, and I’ve spent countless hours working with wire-frames and pallets of textures and bump maps and lighting devices, and scratching my head over each new entries' exploration into the 3D modeling' procedures. It doesn’t replace those high-end spreads for many projects, but this WILL be replacing the high-rollers on a few projects and making my life so much easier!
– Real player with 2204.8 hrs in game
Nature And Life - Drunk On Nectar
First time ever making a review and it’s for an unassuming, obscure little Early-Access game called Drunk on Nectar. I feel it’s fitting; I love insects and arachnids ever since I was a kid and I’ve always wanted a game like this to come into fruition. Now that it’s finally here….
I LOVE it. A lot.
At this current point in time, the game has three modes to choose from.
Creature Quest issues challenges for the player to complete in as quick a time as possible for a spot on the leaderboard.
– Real player with 43.4 hrs in game
This game is a pretty accurate simulation of the life of an insect. Of course, the game isn’t perfect. It doesn’t have a huge team developing it, but it is still one of the most accurate insect simulators you can find. Heck, even the flora have a crude lifecycle! There are educational elements to the game as well, though nothing like extra homework or anything, just explanations of what is going on with the insect at the time, or what the game mechanics represent. This game is very smooth for its version, and definitely has re-playability.
– Real player with 29.6 hrs in game